Beckles' Chevron Money is Shockingly Irrelevant

Way at the bottom of my elections predictions post, I revealed that I was supporting Buffy Wicks for my local Assembly race. It was a contest I was undecided on even three weeks ago, but then I found out that Wicks' opponent, Jovanka Beckles, had voted for Jill Stein in 2016 and ... well, that "decided" things real quick for me. It was more than just a "protest vote" (though that'd be bad enough), she was actually pushing the "DemExit" line and urging African-American voters to rethink their "loyalty" to the Democratic Party (which, I can't count the ughs).

That said, despite endorsing Wicks in that post I also predicted a Beckles victory. It seemed like her campaign was showing more energy and hustle than Wicks, and while Berkeley's reputation for wild-eyed radicalism is in this day and age significantly overstated, it's still the case that a Berkeley- and Richmond-centered district is one in which a candidate with Beckles' profile could do well.

Now, Berkeleyside reports that we finally have a poll in the district, and it indeed shows Beckles narrowly ahead. There are reasons to take a grain of salt with it: it's a Beckles internal, it's within the margin of error, and it actually shows Wicks with better favorability ratings. That said, Wicks hasn't released her own numbers, and while Assembly races are rarely polled, it's hard for me to imagine that given Wicks' massive resource edge over Beckles that she hasn't done some internal polling of her own. If she had better numbers, I think we'd see them.

But that's not what this post is about either. The most interesting thing about that Berkeleyside article comes in the middle, when it reveals who funded the poll for Beckles: a group called California African American PAC whose backers include Chevron (as well as many other corporations and like groups). This is a bit embarrassing for Beckles, as much of her line of attack on Wicks has been of the "funded by X which includes Y who supported Z" variety, and so Wicks is unsurprisingly making hay. Beckles has since disavowed the funding (it's an independent expenditure, so she can't actually do anything about it); though Wicks pointed out that this was a convenient position for Beckles to take after they've already dumped a bunch of money into doing polling work for the campaign.

All of this, I have to say, is pretty standard-issue political sniping, and normally I'd tune it out. Indeed, for me, this demonstrates just how stupid this whole "funded by" line of attack is. I get why Beckles had to disavow the cash (and I get why Wicks is nonetheless making hay over it), but it also feels profoundly stupid.

Simply put, Jovanka Beckles has made her career on fighting Chevron. Say what you will about her, but I have zero concern that if and when she gets to Sacramento she'll suddenly be in Chevron's pocket because of this expenditure, and it frankly strikes me as flat-bonkers to believe otherwise. Beckles can't control who spends money on her behalf, and neither she nor any other politician is an automaton obligated to dispense favors in exchange for campaign cash (I've often joked that if I were running for office -- which I never want to do -- I'd happily take coal money: it'd be a redistribution of wealth away from destroying the planet and towards things like reproductive justice).

So I'm sure Wicks appreciates the hypocrisy, and I'm sure Beckles is a tinge embarrassed. But really, this happenstance does more than anything to convince me that the "who's funding who" line just isn't germane in a race like this. I have a very particular reason for backing Wicks over Beckles, one that relates to Beckles' own judgment. I don't need to make an off-the-wall inference regarding the agenda of a funder-of-a-funder to get there, and I think that's a frankly silly reason to make a decision in a race like this.

Enough Denial About Right-Wing Antisemitism (a Response to Bernstein)

The Squirrel Hill massacre was the deadliest terrorist attack targeting Jews in American history. The shooter, Robert Bowers, clearly and explicitly emerged out of a far-right cesspool where antisemitism, xenophobia, and paranoia meet, and so has engendered renewed attention to the toxic interplay between the illiberal brand of reactionary bigotry taking over the American right and ever-increasing levels of hate, harassment, and violence afflicting Jews and so many other minority groups.

It is true, if banal, to say that antisemitism in America predates Trump and will outlast his departure. But this is a strawman; nobody is suggesting that American antisemitism didn’t exist before Donald Trump willed it into existence. The argument is instead that Donald Trump is a key part of a political movement which facilitates, nurtures, promotes, and accelerates the presence of antisemitism (and many other hatreds besides) in American politics and society. Trump didn’t create antisemitism, but there should be no doubt he’s helping it along.

Yet as the poisonous effects of Trumpism make their ever-clearer marks on Jewish bodies, the Jewish right continues to labor in denial. They deny that antisemitism in America is growing, they deny that if it is growing, it is growing on the right, and they deny if it is growing on the right, that it can in any way be attributed to President Trump and his backers. For them, the very most important lesson we can draw from a man who attacked a synagogue because he thought Jews were behind the effort to bring immigrants to America is to be crystal clear that Donald Trump had nothing to do with it.

On this score, one might think that the data doesn’t lie, and the ADL found that antisemitic incidents in America increased by nearly 60% from 2016 to 2017—the largest year-over-year increase since the venerable antisemitism watchdog began compiling data in 1979. But have no fear: today David Bernstein gamely rose to the occasion and sought to argue that the ADL’s data isn’t what it appears. The ADL’s “actual findings,” in Bernstein’s assessment, “don’t even purport to show any such [increase].”

This is nothing new for Bernstein. A year and a half ago, he was chiding the American Jewish community for falling prey to the “great anti-Semitism panic of 2017”. Now that data has emerged suggesting that the “panic” was in fact perfectly well-founded, Bernstein falls back to the position that the data is unreliable. Yet a careful examination of his objections show that they in fact do little to undermine confidence in the ADL’s core conclusion. At best, they represent the sort of methodological sniping that can be directed at virtually any attempt at empirical social science measurement. While Bernstein’s pot-shots may provide some helpful directions for further research to confirm and cross-check the robustness of the ADL’s analysis, they are nowhere close to sufficient to undermine the prima facie validity of the ADL’s asserted conclusions.

To begin, the ADL’s incident audit is by no means the only bit of evidence pointing to a surge in right-wing antisemitic activity. My Berkeley colleague Avani Mehta Sood has written on the utility of “empirical triangulation” as a means of accounting for the inevitable methodological limitations of any one exploration of proposed social phenomenon: if a series of different experiments or methods, each of which may have shortcomings in their own way, all converge on the same basic conclusion, then we can have considerably more confidence in that conclusion than might be warranted from any one investigation on its own. 

And as it happens, the findings of increased right-wing antisemitism suggested by the ADL’s audit are buttressed by other data: including a 22% increase in the number of established neo-Nazi groups from 2016 to 2017, a doubling in the number of White supremacist murders, and a 258% increase in White Supremacist propaganda incidents on American college campuses, as well as massive growth in the incidents of online antisemitic incidents—an increase which the ADL found was overwhelmingly attributable to right-wing sources and which saw localized spikes during events like Trump’s inauguration. They’ve even showcased a series of cases where Donald Trump has been the vector through which the deepest recesses of the antisemitic internet are amplified and promoted to the American masses.

On their own, any of these datapoints could be picked apart to undermine the conclusion that there has been a material increase in antisemitic sentiment in America. But taken together, it is difficult to deny the overwhelming weight of the evidence without falling into a very deep rabbit hole of conspiracy-mongering and cries of “fake news.”

Yet even restricted to just the ADL’s audit, the skeptical case is not compelling. Bernstein offers three main objections to relying on the ADL’s study to warrant the claim that there has been a rise in right-wing antisemitism in America. First, he suggests that many of the antisemitic incidents on college campuses in particular (which almost doubled from 108 to 204) may emanate from the anti-Israel left rather than the White Supremacist right. Second, he argues that some unspecified portion of the growth in reported antisemitic incidents might stem from increased propensity of victims to report, rather than increases in the base rate of incidents. Finally, he objects to the criteria the ADL uses for assessing antisemitic incidents—those where “Jews perceiv[e] themselves as being victimized due to their Jewish identity”—as being too broad and encompassing events which Bernstein believes do not qualify as antisemitic.

(Bernstein also makes a fourth observation: that the ADL found a decrease in antisemitic assaults from 2016 to 2017, from 36 to 19. There are all manner of ways I could try to explain that fact away—starting with the relatively small raw numbers being vulnerable to greater year-over-year volatility—but the more plausible conclusion is that the data says what it says, and that antisemitic assaults did indeed decline from 2016 to 2017. One shouldn’t cherry-pick, after all.).

None of these objections is particularly persuasive. Start with the college case. Yes, it is certainly true that some number of antisemitic incidents on campuses come from left-wing sources. But that’s irrelevant in explaining the overall year-over-year increase from 2016 to 2017 unless there was some evidence that the proportion of left-wing incidents grew over that time. But Bernstein provides no evidence suggesting this is the case. And while an explicit breakout in terms of ideological origin of collegiate antisemitism could be useful in an ideal world (at least where it is feasible to draw such inferences), what evidence we do have is consistent with the ADL’s claims about right-wing antisemitism: The giant, 258% increase in White Supremacist incidents on campuses noted above indicates that if anything the growth on campus is occurring on the right side of the spectrum, and the ADL’s own sampling of collegiate incidents likewise suggests that most (though by no means all) of the cases in its audits are uncontroversial examples of far-right hatred.

Next, Bernstein argues that the environment of heightened sensitivity to antisemitism in the wake of the Trump campaign means that more antisemitic incidents are being reported (even though there might not be any growth in their underlying frequency). Again, this is possible—but it’s also speculative, particularly as against the more straight-forward inference that more antisemitism is being reported because more antisemitism is occurring. And since Bernstein has no hard evidence regarding the prevalence of this phenomenon other than some intuition that it’s occurring, he can offer no indication regarding how much of the measured increase in antisemitism it supposedly explains. Is it all of it? Half? A few percentage points? If there was hard data telling us what, if any proportion, of the measured increase in antisemitism is attributable to increased reporting rates, that would make for a very valuable control. But it puts a rather giant thumb on the scale to assume that, in absence of that data, we can just decide by fiat that a significant proportion of the increase in antisemitic incidents is actually an artifact of increased willingness to talk to the ADL.

Again, this argument is little more than a cheap methodological pot-shot. Yet on this issue there’s a normative problem as well. Bernstein’s argument is that we’re seeing higher levels of antisemitic incidents because Jews are more frequently reporting antisemitism. But the most straight-forward explanation for why Jews are more frequently reporting antisemitism is that there actually is more antisemitism—Jews are responding to actual, real changes in the social milieu. Bernstein, wedded to the narrative that this whole antisemitism story is a “panic”, needs another story—one where antisemitism isn’t actually increasing but Jews have nonetheless become more attuned to it. And the story he tells, consequently, is essentially one of mass communal hysteria: the Jewish community’s assessment of antisemitism is being driven not by facts but by “ideology, emotion, partisanship, or panic.”

It should not be hard to see just how irresponsible this line of argument is. Around the world, the primary rationale for dismissing Jewish claims of antisemitism is precisely to deny the epistemic reliability of Jews. From our unease about the BDS movement to our concerns about the UN’s Israel obsession, from fretting about endemic antisemitism in UK Labour to worries about Soros-conspiracy mongering in Hungary (and America), the response is always of a kind: we’re making it up, we’re paranoid, we’re ideological, we’re playing a game, we’re seeing things that are not there. Each of these responses seek to avoid the more obvious truth: that Jews see antisemitism when there is antisemitism, and so if Jews are reporting antisemitism we should take that testimony seriously. So too in America. If it is true—and it does seem true—that Jews have become dramatically more attuned to antisemitism in their lives over the past few years than we have in the past, the best explanation for why that is so is because there has been a serious, material change in the antisemitism of our environment. There is something deeply alarming about the propensity to resist that conclusion—a resistance which cannot help but denigrate the testimonial reliability of Jews generally.

Bernstein’s third argument against the ADL’s conclusion is by some measure his most substantive. He disagrees with the ADL’s criteria for an antisemitic incident as one where “Jews perceiv[e] themselves as being victimized due to their Jewish identity.” This definition, Bernstein contends, incorporates cases where that perception is mistaken—contrary to the victim’s perception, the act was not motivated by antisemitic intent.

Like with the college case, the first problem with this objection is that so long as the ADL was consistent in its metrics the use of this definition shouldn’t have an impact on the year-over-year increase from 2016 to 2017. The same types of incidents which Bernstein thinks should not have been included in 2017 will also have been included in 2016. So again, unless one has evidence that the ratio of perceived-but-not-actual antisemitic incidents changed from 2017 to 2016 (and here presumably Bernstein would return to his “antisemitism panic” hypothesis), this objection tells us nothing.

But the bigger issue is that this criteria for measuring antisemitism—which Bernstein refers to as a “methodological tic”—is actually quite standard in the field, at least since the famous MacPherson Report assessing racism in British policing practices in 1999. And that’s a good thing: incidents of antisemitism should not be restricted to cases where the perpetrator is motivated by nothing more than raw Jew-hatred. Indeed, the examples Bernstein relies upon—the JCC bomb threats that ripped through the Jewish community in early 2017—provide a sterling example of why any picture of antisemitism in America the ADL tried to draw would be distorted by a rigid focus on antisemitic “intent”.

Bernstein contends that the bomb threats should not have been included in the ADL’s tally because the two perpetrators—an African-American man in Missouri and an Israeli teenager—“were not motivated by anti-Semitism”. The Missourian reportedly was looking to frame his ex-girlfriend in an elaborate revenge scheme (contrary to Bernstein’s assertion, there has been to my knowledge no reporting one way or the other regarding the Israeli’s motivations). Bernstein presumably believes that unless the reason for sending bomb threats to JCC was to elicit terror or fear in Jews, then these acts were not antisemitic.

I, of course, have argued passionately the opposite: that both actors were indeed antisemitic even absent that motivating reason. My logic was, I thought, straightforward: if you care more about exacting revenge on a former lover than you do about terrorizing innocent Jews nationwide, you’re being antisemitic (it clearly wasn’t quite as straightforward as I thought: nothing I’ve ever written has elicited more antisemitic harassment than that column). It is entirely beside the point if one wasn’t “motivated” by Jew-hatred. Someone with proper moral attitudes towards Jews would have behaved differently; the utter failure to properly weigh Jewish safety as against misogynist vengeance plots represents a complete neglect of one’s moral obligations towards Jews.

Indeed, it is worth stressing how little of what we commonly think of as antisemitism would qualify if the term only encompassed those whose explicit motive was literally nothing more than “antisemitism”, simpliciter. Adolf Eichmann, for example, fervently denied to the very end that he ever harbored any sort of malice towards Jews. He did what he did, he said, because he wanted to advance his career in the Nazi German government. To most of us, that is woeful, bordering on bizarre, as an attempt to deny the antisemitic character of his actions. Participating in the mass extermination of Jews is antisemitic regardless of you’re doing it out of hatred or careerism. So too with sending bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers only because you loathe your ex-girlfriend. And with vandalizing a Hillel because you really want to “Free Palestine.” And with running advertisements accusing the rich globalist Jew of “owning” your opponent simply because you want to win an election. It is absolutely appropriate, and absolutely correct, to dub all of these antisemitic, because careerism, romantic jealousy, pro-Palestinian politics, and electoral triumphs are not good enough reasons to kill, threaten, vandalize, or degrade the Jewish community.

For his part, Bernstein is quite well aware of this. In other writings, he is careful to not assert who is and isn’t “antisemitic” in circumstances where we cannot access what is in another’s mind (but then, when can we?). This is what he says about Mondoweiss proprietor Philip Weiss, for instance, after noting the many, many ways that Weiss and his website indulge in obvious antisemitic themes. But he is also quite clear that, ultimately, the psychological assessment is not the point. “Most people of goodwill”, he writes in the context of journalists referring to American Jewish writers and politicians as “Israel-firsters”, “will try to avoid using phrases” (or, I assume, taking actions) “related to Jews once they recognize that they have the odor of neo-Nazism about them.” What then, should we say about people who refuse to make such efforts? I’d say they’re engaging in antisemitism of a negligent or reckless form. Bernstein might use another term to describe some sort of inchoately defined failure to discharge one’s proper obligations towards Jews. But ultimately, he understands that the difference is purely terminological. Hence, his final word on Weiss: “who cares” whether Weiss is “anti-Semitic” versus having “some other motivation”; either way, Bernstein concludes, “when you’re reading Mondoweiss, you’re reading a hate site.”

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that, in trying to paint a picture about the prevalence of antisemitism in the American environment, the ADL is absolutely correct to include cases of these sorts—to echo Bernstein and reply “who cares” to the motivational question. If Jews live in an America where people devalue Jewish lives so much that “other” political or social projects take precedence over not sending bomb threats to our community centers, not defacing our synagogues with graffiti, not excluding our coreligionists from marches and organizations, not using neo-Nazi terminology to refer to our politicians, or not blasting out antisemitic tropes in political advertising—that’s a really scary America for Jews to live in! Jews are absolutely justified in viewing those trends with concern, and the ADL would be absolutely warranted in characterizing them all as incidents of antisemitism.

In sum, none of Bernstein’s objections to the ADL’s antisemitism statistics do much to undermine the core conclusion: that antisemitism has been rising in America over Trump’s tenure, and that much (though not all) of that rise is attributable to the sort of far-right currents which both sustain and are sustained by Donald Trump and his Republican Party. But while Bernstein’s response to the ADL’s antisemitism statistics may be shallow, it is part of a much broader phenomenon.

The ADL, in particular, has over the past few years faced a concerted right-wing endeavor of discrediting—a naked attempt to “work the refs” and undermine the most prestigious antisemitism watchdog in the world as an indelibly leftist organization (ironically, if anything the ADL has been far too gunshy at forthrightly tackling the mainstreaming of right-wing hate: its recent essay on George Soros conspiracy theories, for example, somehow managed to omit mention of any of the very prominent elected Republicans—from Chuck Grassley to Trump himself—who were spreading it. Elected Republicans regularly receive this tactful silence from the ADL; needless to say, for some reason someone like Keith Ellison does not share in this kid-glove treatment). In this world, the spotlight the ADL has shone on the prevalence and growth of vicious, virulent, and violent right-wing hatred does not reflect a dangerous problem needing confrontation, but yet another “fake news” plot. Rather than face up to the obvious need to clean house, the right prefers to deny, deny, deny.

This is nothing new of course. There is a deep, almost intractable denialism about the seriousness of antisemitism as an going and materially dangerous phenomenon in this country (and clearly, this denial is by no means restricted to the right). But there’s something extra-infuriating at how rapidly this was the response that characterized the Jewish right after Pittsburgh. As we mourned our loss, buried our dead, and tried to imagine what needs to change in our society so that horrors like this (and like Louisville, and like Charlottesville, and … so on and so on and so terribly on) their response to that atrocity seemed coordinated around the need to make absolutely, positively sure that Donald Trump and his supporters are okay.

We saw this from Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, who sought to deflect from the unambiguously right-wing character of the Pittsburgh atrocity by emphasizing how “both sides” were responsible for renewed antisemitism in America and then went out of his way to praise President Trump’s response to the attack. We saw it from Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett, who bemoaned how “unfair” it was that “people are using this horrific antisemitic act to Donald Trump” (this tweet is, as of this writing, currently pinned to the top of his page). We saw it from the Republican Jewish Coalition, whose letter to the President lavishing him with praise for how he handled the massacre was almost four times longer than its statement about the atrocity itself.

So forgive me if I’ve lost my tolerance for penny-ante games of methodological gotcha that seek to discredit Jewish voices and deny what the evidence makes clear. Antisemitism is real. It is growing. It is growing on the far-left, but it is surging into the conventional right, which (as Republican Representative Steve King just inadvertently admitted) is in any event increasingly indistinguishable from its ethnosupremacist (former-)fringe. Jews are not delusional when we report it, and the ADL is not fabricating when it compiles it.

Right-wing antisemitism is real, it is growing, it is growing mainstream, and it needs to be confronted. The time for rear-guard denialism is over.

David's 2018 Election Predictions

Yes, we're still a week out. But I'm traveling to Chicago for a conference tomorrow, then going from there to a very quick vacation in Las Vegas Saturday through Monday (Shin Lim!), so I probably won't be able to write much over that time.

Obviously, predictions void if major events happen in the interim. But fortunately, we have a very stable political environment right now and ... oy.

* * *

Senate -- overall GOP hold

There are a lot of races I'm uncertain about, but given the brutality of the map for Democrats this year I think it's more likely that we actually lose seats even with a pretty significant tailwind.

In terms of seriously contested races, I feel relatively confident about the following:

• West Virginia: Manchin (D hold)
• North Dakota: Cramer (R flip)

Beyond that, things get ... murky. I think Nelson will hold off Scott in Florida, but I think Hawley will beat McCaskill in Missouri. Donnelly in Indiana is an almost complete toss-up for me. Nevada's giving me a heart attack, but it's trending blue and I think Rosen will ultimately win it. Between Arizona and Tennessee, I'm just splitting the baby and predicting Democrats will win one of two, but don't ask me which. Basically, I'm seeing anything from a one-seat Republican gain to a one-seat Democratic gain, and within that range I think Team Red has the advantage over Team Blue.

House -- overall Dem flip (over/under on Democratic seats: 220)

Too many races to count, and I've actually been moving towards a more cynical posture here as well. But FiveThirtyEight has Democratic chances at over 80%, which is reassuring (though less reassuring than it would have been before 2016).

Selected House predictions:

• CA-39: Cisneros (D flip)
• CA-48: Rohrabacher (R hold)
• FL-27: Shalala (D flip)
• IA-04: King (R hold), though this would be the sweetest of all victories
• MN-01: Hagedorn (R flip)
• MN-02: Craig (D flip)
• MN-03: Phillips (D flip)
• UT-04: McAdams (D flip)
• VA-02: Taylor (R hold)
• VA-10: Wexton (D flip)

I also expect both indicted Republicans (Collins, NY-27 & Hunter, CA-50) to hold their seats. Drain the swamp!

Governor's Races

This is where I feel best about Democratic chances. Yet even here we're underperforming what we should be getting (Maryland? Maryland!).

• Alaska: Dunleavy (R sorta-flip). The incumbent is an Independent, who dropped out of his race to endorse the Democrat. Still probably won't be enough.
• Florida: Gillum (D flip). Possibly my favorite Democrat right now is Andrew Gillum. It helps that DeSantis is a sociopath.
• Georgia: Kemp (R hold). I think this goes to a run-off, and then Kemp wins the run-off.
• Illinois: Pritzker (D flip).
• Iowa: Hubbell (D flip). This one feels a little under the radar given how well Hubbell is doing against an incumbent.
• Kansas: Kobach (R hold). Thank goodness we have another vanity independent in this race, otherwise Kansas might not experience the horror of not electing an extremist nutjob for once.
• Maryland: Hogan (R hold). This is just embarrassing. Hogan isn't the worst Republican, but these days that just means he's generically bad instead of an outright fascist. That shouldn't be enough to get him elected in a state like Maryland.
• Minnesota: Walz (D hold).
• Nevada: Sisolak (D flip). Probably the single gubernatorial race I'm most unsure about.
• Ohio: Cordray (D flip). No wait. This is probably the single gubernatorial race I'm most unsure about.
• South Dakota: Noem (R hold). Would love to call the upset here. If you're looking for your 13 over 4 seed pick, this is it.
• Wisconsin: Evers (D flip). This one will feel really good.

Miscellaneous

I was facing an agonizing decision in my California Assembly race (15th district) between Buffy Wicks and Jovanka Beckles, right up until I discovered that Beckles was a Jill Stein supporter. That made my decision really, really easy.

Nonetheless, it seems like Beckles has a lot more energy behind her right now. And while Wicks took first place in the fractured-field open primary a few months ago, that may not be enough. The last time this seat was open, Tony Thurmond places second in the open-primary but rallied to beat Elizabeth Echols in the general. I'm feeling like Beckles is going to take it.

Who's Afraid of Fighting Antisemitism?

I started writing this post yesterday, before the Squirrel Hill massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue. I got distracted, and it feels somehow limp to post it today in the face of such an obvious, brutal reminder of the persistence of violent antisemitism in our society (not the least because the Pittsburgh shooting emphasizes what has always been obvious to anyone who cared to look -- that in America, right-wing antisemitism is far, far more dangerous than its left-wing counterpart).

Nonetheless, the points I wanted to make here still have importance, even if comparatively overshadowed -- certainly, insofar as Jews look to see what sort of systemic allyship we can expect from the left not just in this hour but in the days and weeks and months going forward.

There was some controversy over the past few days about the role of Jewdas -- a left-wing non-Zionist British Jewish collective -- taking on a role in doing antisemitism training for Labour. For many years Jewdas as positioned itself as the irreverent, rebellious youth of the Jewish community -- gleefully pricking sensitive areas and popping communal orthodoxies -- a stance which perhaps has some value but whose virtues are maybe exhausted in the current moment.

I don't really want to talk about that specific controversy (coverage here, the activist's response here, if you're interested). But I do think it's worth exploring the standpoint Jewdas is articulating right now on antisemitism, because they are reflective of the current moment on the Jewish left. It is moment that Raphael Magarik captured well in a recent Forward article: a mixture of renewed interest in and deep ambivalence towards actually fighting antisemitism in a robust and systemic way. That's a step forward from even a few years ago, where antisemitism was almost exclusively viewed as a ginned-up distraction by the right to silence the left. But it's still a difference of degree, not kind: the Jewish left's interest in the fight against antisemitism, it seems, is fundamentally managerial in nature -- they want to make sure we don't fight too hard, or too aggressively, lest we "center" ourselves or sap energy from other more important struggles, or (God forbid) actually demand tangible alterations in how Israel and Palestine are talked about in left communities.

A few weeks ago, for example, Jewdas posted an unsigned statement on antisemitism that really demonstrated why it shouldn't be within 40 miles of antisemitism training. I have several problems with it, starting with the way it articulates the "buffer theory" of antisemitism (ask me about how I view Aurora Levin Morales' "antisemitism is what happens when Jews sell out oppressed people to save their own skin and get their comeuppance for it" conception some time).

But what I want to focus on is how Jewdas, even in the course of nominally tackling antisemitism, is at least as (if not more) worried about the possibility that ... people will tackle antisemitism. The vast majority of the essay is spent speaking of all the higher priorities the left should privilege about antisemitism and which antisemitism -- or more aptly, fighting antisemitism -- is distracting energy from. This culminates in the vomit-inducing passage "whereas before antisemitism was encouraged in order to direct the public’s attention away from its exploitation, today antisemitism is vilified in order to divert public support away from the best chance for better living than we’ve had in decades." It's hard to know which aspect of this is more appalling: the blithe acceptance that antisemitism has been successfully "vilified", or the explicit declaration that this is a bad thing.

Indeed, the author doubles down on this point: going on to say that Britain's "moral victory in WW2 is part of what defines us as a nation. Whereas before, antisemitism was part of a nationalist ideology and identity, today it is philosemitism." This is flatly bonkers as an articulation of the national identity of Britain or anywhere else, and is the sort of self-congratulatory vindicatory claptrap that any half-way decent leftist shouldn't be able to write without retching. It should go without saying that neither the UK, nor the US, nor anywhere else in the Gentile world constructs its national identity around its great love for the Jews (or any of its other minority groups); the only people who claim otherwise are those seeking to put down the Jews for being too uppity and demanding (we haven't massacred you lately and yet still it's demand demand demand!).

In other words, Jewdas' program on antisemitism centers around the claim that the danger of antisemitism pales in comparison to the danger of opposing it. To the extent the left should fight antisemitism, it's really to pump the brakes, because when Jews (or at least other Jews, Jews-not-them) fight antisemitism, it's a dangerous and scary thing. If we've progressed beyond Bruce Robbins' "The real issue here is anti-Semitism; that is, accusing people of it" (this came in the defense of a Christian clergyman who was outrageously accused of antisemitism for nothing more than his suggestion that if Jews didn't want to beaten up in the streets of Europe, they should try being more vocally anti-Israel), it's not by a lot. Antisemitism may be bad, but people actively contesting antisemitism is a lot worse.

And this isn't just about Jewdas. Magarik, for example, expresses his worry that it is "too convenient" for Jews "to rediscover our own oppression" when we should be reckoning with our own power and privilege. The obsession on the Jewish left with Jewish "centering" -- making it all about us, hoarding resources and energy to ourselves that are more urgently needed elsewhere -- should be read in this register as well (particularly given just how little it takes before the "centering" charge starts to manifest).

Contra Magarik, not all of us have been in the process of "rediscovering our own oppression" because not all of us had the luxury of forgetting about it to begin with. But there's something extra-grating about a cadre of Jews who -- almost (if not quite) by admission -- have been historically terrible at addressing antisemitism, who had been slumbering through its dangers, who have even now great ambivalence about robustly fighting antisemitism, and who are openly distrustful of pretty much all other Jews-not-them, emerging from dormancy and immediately assuming that it should be the acknowledged leaders of the fight against antisemitism as against those of us who hadn't been napping on the subject. That'd be terrible even if half their motivation didn't seem to be to make sure that we didn't fight against antisemitism too hard.

I continue to think that the most important overlooked attribute of antisemitism on the left (though not just there) is its epistemic dimension -- the persistent mistrust, suspicion, skepticism, discrediting, and gaslighting directed at Jews, particularly when Jews talk about our own lives and vulnerabilities. The Jewish left has been deeply implicated in this wrong, and has not come close to extricating itself from its grip -- which accounts for its ambivalence towards any actual fight against antisemitism because such a fight almost by definition requires crediting and empowering Jewish voices writ large.

There has been a genuine shift in the Jewish left over the past few years from almost total dismissal of antisemitism as a extant social phenomenon towards a willingness to kinda-sorta tackle it. But they're not all (or most, or half) of the way there and, more importantly, they haven't done sufficient work to unlearn the practices that made them so unreliable on the subject in the first place. Most notably, they still associate fighting antisemitism with reactionary elements -- with racism rather than anti-racism, with breaking coalitions rather than forging them, with restraining people rather than emancipating them, with the ruination of a chance at a better world rather than a prerequisite for it.

So I welcome the shift. But antisemitism cannot be effectively fought by people who are terrified of antisemitism actually being fought -- who think that vilifying antisemitism is more dangerous than practicing antisemitism. On that basis alone (though there are others), the Jewish left is not, have not been, and is not prepared to be leaders on the subject of antisemitism right now. The best move for them for the time being is to step back and learn from those of us for whom antisemitism hasn't necessitated any "rediscovery" at all.

Jews Are Just Like Everyone Else, Only More So

Recent trends in Jewish communal life are a lot easier to grasp once you realize that they're basically  the exact thing going on across America, only Jewish (and so therefore distorted by our rather asymmetrical political distribution).

On the right, we're seeing a near-complete collapse of support for basic liberal and democratic principles coupled alongside increasingly bold flirtations with outright fascism. ZOA is the representative group here. A (very small) rump remainder of moderate conservatives is trying to resist this, to little success and functional irrelevance.

On the left, there's growing suspicion -- often spilling into outright antagonism -- towards "establishment" representatives who themselves identify as left-of-center but are thought to be hopelessly compromised. This, of course, is combined with more predictable loathing of the Jewish right -- because, again, the whole fascist-curious thing. The worry is that between the hatred of the right and the disgust towards the not-them parts of the left, the resulting politics ends up being reduced to inchoate, uncontrollable "burn it all down"  rage. I'd say IfNotNow embodies this sect.

And then we get the Jewish establishment, which is more-or-less the center-left. Fortunately for it, the Jewish left-of-center establishment is considerably more dug-in than counterparts on the center-right, and so its ship does continue to sail -- albeit not without effort. On its best days, its representatives are trying to chart a course that both vigorously opposes the dangers of the right while not acceding to what sometimes seems to be essentially nihilist fury emanating from the further-left. On its worst, it engages in bland "both sides"-ism while practicing its best "Rome burning" fiddle routine. Does this describe, say, the ADL or the JFNA? I'd say so.

It's all obviously familiar, and yet standing in the middle, I somehow didn't really perceive the parallels. The major difference in the Jewish case is that there are proportionally a lot more left-of-center representatives, which alters how that branch of the conflict shakes out a little bit. But that has more impact on who is democratically legitimated to win the fight than it does on the fundamental battle-lines of it.

In short: What the Jewish community is going through right now is pretty much what America is going through, if America had backed Hillary Clinton by nearly 50 points.

Tuesday Quick Reviews

It hasn't just been Assassin's Creed: Odyssey for me these past few days (though there certainly has been a lot -- a lot -- of Assassin's Creed). Jill and I have also picked up a bunch of new (or "new", for us) television. So you get ... quick reviews! (Potential mild spoilers below).

Mozart in the Jungle

It's weird to describe a show with four seasons that won a Golden Globe as "flying under the radar", but I never heard of it until a friend recommended it a few weeks ago. It's a very entertaining, very self-assured show, whose biggest strength is in its embrace of the weird, insular, sort-of-elite but sort-of-working-class New York Symphony Orchestra. We accidentally watched the first episode of season four before anything else, and it worked so well as a pilot we didn't even realize we were on the wrong episode until we went to the main menu.

The characters include the world's first (as best I can tell) depiction of a Manic Pixie Dream Boy in conductor Rodrigo de Souza (Gael Garcia Bernal). Other standouts include Bernadette Peters (looking amazing as she rounds 70) as the chairman of the orchestra's board, and Saffron Burrows as a lead cellist and semi-mentor figure for the female lead, an aspiring oboist played by Lola Kirke (who's fine, if not quite on the level of some of her peers). Burrows in particular deserved far more screen-time -- she shone in every scene and plot she was in. The male characters -- de Souza included, but especially emeritus conductor Malcolm McDowell -- do seem to suffer from a lack of any meaningful character growth (or in McDowell's case, jack-knifing wildly between complete pompous ass and comradely mentor figure).

One thing the show does very well with Kirke is depict the sheer amount of work that goes into, not being the best in the world, and not even being the second best in the world, but being someone who can barely scrape their way onto the very edge of an orchestra that is consistently (if mostly passingly) described as decidedly middle-tier. This isn't the story about talented wunderkinds floating through the rarefied world of the musical elite (well, except for Rodrigo). It's a story about how if you're incredibly talented, work exceptionally hard and do everything right -- well, congratulations, it's possible you'll succeed. Or you possibly won't. It's a toss-up.

Jack Ryan

It's been awhile since I've immersed myself in the world of Tom Clancy. I've read a good chunk of the books, and played Rainbow Six -- but only the original (which came out in 1998). Anyway, this show is really scratching those Homeland itches, but without any characters as annoying as either Carrie or Brodie, which is an immediate mark in the plus column. It also did one of the best -- and most bracing -- depictions of how terrifying a terrorist attack is (probably not the best call to watch it before bedtime).

I never watched The Office, so beefy John Krasinski isn't strange to me, and I find he makes a competent if not outstanding Jack Ryan. Indeed, I don't think any of the characters really standout in either good or bad ways: Wendell Pierce as Ryan's boss James Greer and Dina Shihabi as the terrorist's runaway wife are probably the best of the bunch.

The show does I think lean a little too hard into its action set pieces -- I think it might do well to slow itself down and spend time focusing on the "boring" work of spycraft rather than having every episode culminate in a series of explosions or gunfights. This also could help develop the characters more -- several critics have praised Jack Ryan for its nuanced portrayal of the terrorists' motivations, but I don't really see it. Yes, they're more complex than "I hate the West because it's the West." But there's very little moral complexity or wrestling that occurs as adults -- outside of flashbacks, they're little more than blind fanatics.

I Feel Bad

Sadly underwhelming. I had high hopes for this show, if for no other reason than the Amy Poehler stamp of approval, but it's less than the sum of its parts. Nobody on the show is particularly bad, and Brian George in particular is a treasure, but as a series it is deeply, blandly generic. There's no story here that hasn't really been told before, and what variations there are here aren't presented in an interesting way.

You know what I really want? I want the family to be Jewish. Not just because Brian George really is a Jew of Indian descent, and I doubt he's ever really gotten to play a prominent Jewish role. But because there actually are some genuinely new stories to be told about non-White Jewish families in America. Why does Sarayu Blue feel bad? Because every time she goes to synagogue, she's asked if she's the custodian. Or because everyone assumes she was the one who converted rather than her White husband, even though her family's Jewish lineage stretches back generations. Or because her righteous indignation about all of that is tempered a bit by the fact that she's far more secular than her parents and really doesn't want to go synagogue more than a few times a year.

That would be an interesting, genuinely new story that would fit well inside the show's central conceit. I'd totally watch that show.

American Ninja Warrior Junior

No surprise that this is amazing. Obviously, the kids are incredible (and I like that the producers didn't really "baby" the course for them -- it's scaled down for their size, and there are a few areas where they made it easier, but by and large these are recognizable ninja obstacles). Akbar and Matt look like they're having a blast. Laurie "The Human Emoji" Hernandez is perhaps an acquired taste as a sideline reporter, but she's definitely better than Kristine Leahy.

My main question is why this show is exiled to "Universal Kids", a network I didn't even know existed until I started seeing ads for this show. If Masterchef Junior taught us anything, it's that shows like this can be screaming smash hits on the big boy network. American Ninja Warrior itself started off out on one of NBC's minor league networks before getting promoted to the majors, and I expect ANW Jr. to follow suit shortly.

Mandatory Swastika Recommendations, Part 2

Last year, I wrote about a case in Massachusetts where a teacher was punished for withdrawing a letter of recommendation for a student who constructed a swastika in the school hallway. The school suspended the teacher, accusing her of "bullying"(!) the student. Fortunately, the teacher was unionized, and her union contested the sanction.

Today, I saw that an arbiter reversed the suspension and found almost all of the teacher's actions to be permissible. The one bit of bad news, though, is that the arbiter did find that the school could punish the teacher for following up with the colleges she had sent a letter of recommendation to, informing them of her reason for withdrawing the letter (that is, telling them of the swastika incident). Since the incident was the subject of disciplinary action by the school administration, the arbiter found that the school could legitimately require the teacher to not provide any details herself or, at most, refer those who ask to the administrators. However, the arbitrator nonetheless concluded that this relatively narrow breach did not warrant a suspension but, at most, a letter of reprimand.

I not wild about even that much of the disciplinary decision being upheld, though this is certainly a net-win. But this case had inspired me to add a proviso I make all students requesting a letter from me agree to, that they license me "to write a letter of recommendation ... (including any follow-up messages or other communications [I] deem[] necessary), using any information [I have] that [I] deem[] relevant."

Put another way, if I credibly hear that one of my students is putting up swastikas, I absolutely will rescind the letter and I absolutely will tell the recipient why I'm doing it.

Pain in the Roundup

I have recurrent knee pain, that flares up apparently randomly and can be so debilitating that at its crest I can't even walk. It usually comes and goes over the course of a day or two (the "unable to walk" part might last a few hours, though less if I take some painkillers and/or wear my knee brace).

I also was recently diagnosed as borderline asthmatic. I actually have an inhaler, though I've used it probably less than a half dozen times in my life.

Anyway, last night, at around 3 in the morning, both the asthma and the excruciating knee pain hit at the exact same time: I couldn't breathe, and I could barely hobble my way into the bathroom to get some Aleve.

Long story short, I slept three hours last night and am a bit cranky. So you get a roundup.

* * *

The women's wave isn't just an American thing: The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on Arab women running for office in Israel.

Antisemitism and the birth of Jewish Studies.

The RNCC has cut an ad for Jim Hagedorn (running for Congress in southern Minnesota -- the district my in-laws live in, as it happens) claiming his opponent is "owned" by George Soros. Subtle. Meanwhile, Rep. Matt Gaetz also posted a wild conspiracy theory (later boosted by the President) accusing Soros of giving money to members of a migrant "caravan" so they would "storm the border [at] election time."

Also on Soros, Spencer Ackerman provides a good history about how a Soros-like figure has virtually always played a central role in antisemitic social movements.

This was published prior to the Israeli Supreme Court ruling allowing Lara Alqasem into Israel to study, but it overlays with the point I made in my column: Israeli academics have (correctly) interpreted the government's attempt to keep Alqasem out as a "declaration of war" against them.

Newt Gingrich calls for the expulsion of all Muslims who "believe in Sharia" from America. But, if I can channel Trump v. Hawaii, we can hardly call this sort of thing "rank religious bigotry" based on nothing more than the fact that it obviously is.

Nylah Burton has a good column up on the weaponization of Louis Farrakhan against Blacks (and particularly Black Jews). I might have more to say on this, but I think the core points -- which in no way are apologias for Farrakhan's despicable bigotry -- are good.

Israeli Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Lara Alqasem

Very good news. And, at least in terms of how the opinions were excerpted in Haaretz, they didn't pull punches either.

"Since the appellant's actions do not raise satisfactory cause to bar her to entry to Israel, the inevitable impression is that invalidating the visa given to her was due to the political opinions she holds," read the verdict. "If this is truly the case, then we are talking about an extreme and dangerous step, which could lead to the crumbling of the pillars upon which democracy in Israel stands," the verdict continued.

"The Law of Entry to Israel is intended to protect the state's sovereignty, and the public's safety and security. It does not have a component of penalty, or revenge for previous bad behavior," Justice Neal Hendel said.

"Despite the obstacles in her way the appellant insists on her right to study at the Hebrew University. This conduct is not in keeping, in an understatement, with the thesis that the she's an undercover boycott activist," he continued. 

"The Interior Ministry has openly admitted that it does not have any evidence of the appellant's engaging in boycott activity since April 2017, except for mysterious 'indications' whose essence hasn't been clarified and regarding which no evidence has been submitted," Neal noted. 

"The material submitted regarding the appellant's activity in the SJP organization shows that even at that stage the boycott activity was minor and limited in character," Neal added. "There's no doubt the SJP cell indeed supported boycotting Israel – and this position must be roundly condemned. It is also presumable that the appellant, who played a role in the cell and for three years was one of its few members, was partner to this unworthy activity. However, it is impossible to ignore the cell's sporadic and relatively minor character. In itself, it certainly was not one of the prominent boycott organizations and it is doubtful whether the appellant could be seen as filling the criteria [required in the law?] even when she had a position in it." 

Neal continued, saying that "alongside the random indications of the appellant's involvement in BDS activity during her studies, it is impossible to ignore the testimonies of her lecturers about her complex approach, the curiosity she displayed toward Israel and Judaism and her readiness to conduct an open, respectful dialogue – which is in stark contrast to the boycott idea." 

"The struggle against the BDS movement and others like it is a worthy cause. The state is permitted, not to say obliged, to protect itself from discrimination and the violent silencing of the political discourse. It may take steps against the boycott organizations and their activists. In this case, preventing the appellant's entry does not advance the law's purpose and clearly deviates from the bounds of reasonability," Neal concluded.
Justice Anat Baron said that "there was no place to deny the appellant the entry visa she had been granted, because clearly she doesn't now and hasn't for a long time engaged in boycotting Israel, not to mention engaging in 'active, continuing and substantial' work in this matter. The decision to deny the appellant's entry visa is unreasonable to the extent that it requires intervention." 

"Since the appellant's deeds do not constitute sufficient cause to ban her entry to Israel, the inevitable impression is that her visa was denied due to her political views. If this is indeed the case, then this is an extreme, dangerous step, which could lead to the crumbling of the supporting pillars on which Israeli democracy is built," Baron said.
"The appellant's very desire to be part of the academic studies in Israel is contrary to the idea of imposing a boycott on Israel, not to mention an academic boycott. This decision itself could even cause damage to Israel's image, thus attaining the opposite goal of the one intended by the legislator," Baron continued. 

"We don't know what's in anyone's heart in general and what's in the appellant's heart in particular and how she'd act in the future, and after she returns to her country. But these considerations are irrelevant to our case, because according to the law we must focus on the appellant's acts in the present – and not on her opinions, thoughts or speculations about her future," Baron concluded. 

Justice Uzi Vogelman said that "a call to boycott Israel was published by the SJP organization, of which the appellant was a member, and not by the appellant herself."
"The law was intended to ban the entry of people expected to spread the boycott doctrine during their stay in Israel…the appellant's case does not qualify for this clause, since there's no argument that she has ceased her activity in the SJP," he continued. 

"It appears that in the concrete circumstances of this case the appellant's studies in the Hebrew University will help to bolster Israeli academia's struggle against the boycott," Vogelman concluded.

Can't ask for much more than that. Threat to academic freedom? Check. Utter lack of compelling evidence against Alqasem? Check. Counterproductive against the boycott? Check. Massively disproportionate response to someone like Alqasem? Check.

Honestly, I needed some good news this week. So this was a relief.

I don't know enough about the Israeli judiciary to give any reads on the political leanings of the three judges who heard Alqasem's case. For what it's worth, Justice Hendel was born in the US, while Justices Vogelman and Baron are both sabras. Moreover, Justice Baron lost a son to a suicide bombing attack in 2003 -- she certainly needs no persuasion regarding Israel's actual security needs.

Issues? This is an Election!

I got a phone call today from a canvasser regarding the California Assembly race in my district between Buffy Wicks and Jovanka Beckles (I'm not going to say which side they were calling on behalf of, as that would distract from the point of the post).

I was actually kind of glad to get the call, since I'm undecided in the race (both are Democrats, the candidate I voted for in the primary didn't advance). Moreover, while each candidate has a pretty clear tribal identity, so to speak (Wicks is the Clinton-Obama candidate, Beckles is the Sanders-DSA candidate), it had seemed to me that on the vast majority of issues that were pretty much identical -- or, at the very least, I hadn't heard a lot that differentiated them on an issue basis.

So I asked the canvasser: I said that it seemed like both candidates were quite similar, and I was curious what were some issues where they were differentiated from one another.

And boy, did that question seem to throw him for a loop.

Now, that's mildly unfair of me, since again it seems that on the majority of major issues they're very close together (after the call, I did some more research and this Berkeleyside article gives some key points of differentiation).

But still, "how the two would vote differently in Sacramento" was clearly not on this guy's list of prepared talking points. He kept on trying to go to resume, or fundraising, or "tribe", or personal dislike (e.g., calling the other candidate "slick" -- that affirmatively turned me off, since I'm sick of Dem-on-Dem violence in cases where it is obvious that both candidates are fine).

Each time, I had to repeat that what prior jobs the candidates had held, or who endorsed them, or who was a "fighter", were not "issues"; how were they different on the issues?

The one he was able to give me was their divergent stances on Proposition 10 (concerning local authority to enact rent control ordinances): Beckles supports it (giving greater authority to local government), Wicks opposes it. And I thanked him for that, and said I would look into that issue -- since again, it reflects an actual issue-based difference between the candidates.

But yeah, it was for me at least a little bit of a depressing experience. One might hope that "how the candidates differ on the issues they'll face once in office" would be a sizable factor in backing one candidate over another (and, to be fair, maybe in a race where there were more sizable differences between the candidates, it would take on greater salience). Alas, apparently not.

Tab Reduction is Stress Reduction Roundup

I've been very stressed these past few days. It's the usual mix of personal issues combined with the persistent fact of the world teetering on the brink of collapse. My appetite has gone, I haven't been sleeping well -- if it wasn't for the escape of Historical Murder Simulator: Greece, I don't know where I'd be.

Of course, none of this has stopped me from reading the internet. And here's a taste of what's been on the browser:

* * *

Shais Rishon (aka MaNishtana) has a new book out -- a semiautobiographical text about a Black Jewish American Rabbi.

Jon Chait on why the rise of non-liberal socialism might be good for liberalism. Not sure I'm convinced, but it was an interesting read.

The Cleveland Indians are retiring the "Chief Wahoo" mascot. Good riddance. Now, the Washington Redskins stand alone and unchallenged for the title of "most obviously racist representation in professional sports". (The article did tell me a bit of trivia I hadn't been aware of: Apparently, the Cleveland Indians were named in honor of Louis Sockalexis, the first American Indian professional ballplayer who played three seasons for the then-Cleveland Spiders from 1897-99).

Top Corbyn ally tries to push head of Jewish Voice for Labour -- a fringe-left Jewish group formed to provide Jewish cover against broad-based Jewish outrage over Corbynista antisemitism -- to run for parliament in one of the most heavily Jewish seats in the country. At a candidate event, prominent Jewish community members (including journalists) banned from attending because they "misrepresent people, events, or facts". Protest outside the event includes someone trying to burn an Israeli flag ... that was being worn around someone's shoulders. Just another day.

Good article, bad title: In the Forward, Moshe Krakowski explores the nuanced and complicated posture Orthodox Jews take towards Israel and Zionism.

ADL explains how Soros-talk can be antisemitic talk. It's good, but certain examples of "left politics are a Soros backed conspiracy" were oddly omitted....

Israeli appellate court upholds ban on entry for Lara Alqasem. Guess my column didn't persuade. She may appeal to to the Supreme Court. Also worth noting: a good piece on the Academe Blog regarding Israeli academia rallying behind Alqasem, and a statement from the Alliance for Academic Freedom (which I signed) urging Israel to reverse this ill-advised and illiberal decision.

In happier news, Congress just passed a bill which would rename the federal courthouse building in Minneapolis after my late judge, Diana Murphy. Judge Murphy was the first women to serve on the Eighth Circuit when she was appointed in 1994 (as of 2018, that number has risen to ... two), and served nearly 40 years on the federal bench.

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey Initial(?) Thoughts

I've been playing AC: Odyssey over the past few days (I am a big fan of the series). And what a time it has been! I actually don't know if these are my "initial" thoughts, because I have only a very weak sense of how far I've actually gotten into what appears to be a gigantic game (for orientation, I've just finished Perikles' initial set of requests in Athens).

But anyway, here are my scattered comments (some very mild spoilers might appear):

* It's been said before, but this game owes a huge debt to Witcher III. That's a compliment -- Witcher III is one of my favorite games of all time, and I've often gone into game stores and asked "what's a game that's kind of like Witcher III"? Odyssey is more than "kind of like Witcher III"; it is precariously close to a reskin (right down to the musical cues).

Again, that's a good thing.

* I'm playing as Kassandra, and I find her to be super-likable. I think they really did a great job with her. Word is that she's the better voice-acted of the two protagonist choices, and from clips I've seen of Alexios, I'd agree. That said, when you encounter Alexios as Kassandra, he basically sounds like a half-literate cave-person (that's due to specific elements of his background, not bad acting); and I'd be genuinely curious to hear half-literate cave-Kassandra as well.

* I'm enjoying the entire storyline, but the Cult of Kosmos questline in particular is so far a blast. It's also fun to be playing this while enrolled in a political theory program -- while AC games are always basically "murder your way through history", there's something especially tickling to have a buddy who's studying Kleon and be able to be like "oh, you work on Kleon? I just slaughtered somebody for him in my game!"

* Is the map (I can't believe I'm saying this) too big? I don't know, but we might be getting close. One major problem is that there aren't quite enough fast travel points for my taste. The easiest fix would be to make towns and cities fast travel locations (in addition to the usual synchronization points). As it is, it can take a long time to get places.

* I'm not wild about timed quests (they stress me out), and in particular too many of them force you to return to quest-giver when you're done -- which is a problem when you've strayed halfway across the world. I get it from an immersion perspective -- what, a reward magically appears in your pocket? -- but (particularly given the aforementioned issue of a giant map coupled with sparse fast travel points) it's often just not worth it to slog back out to some middle of nowhere cabin in the woods just to report you've killed five sharks somewhere. Suggestion: Quests received at message boards should also be redeemable at any message board around the world.

* While I've been harping on the map, I do want to say that the "exploration mode" works, and works surprisingly well. Just a touch of extra work without ever feeling overwhelmed. Definitely a good call.

* Some gameplay mechanics feel a bit under-explained. Even now, I'm not entirely sure what attacks I should dodge (and how) versus which I should parry. The result is that combat is pretty button-mashy.

* There's something a bit weird and sad about having a million different types of gear built into the game, of which 99.9% will never be used because why would you replace your legendary outfit? Even rare equipment is pretty much pointless as a category, and what is the purpose of a Level 20 common sword?

* Sadly, the naval experience -- which had been a strength of the series since its introduction in AC3 -- is probably the weakest aspect of the game here. Naval combat isn't particularly interesting, and serves mostly as a hassle that interrupts the even greater hassle of having to sail halfway across the planet to get to your next objective.

* Overall, though, this is a very strong entry into the series -- right up there with some of the all-time best. Great job from Ubisoft -- keep it up!

Big Media David: Lara Alqasem Edition

I was planning on writing a blog post about the Canary Mission file on Lara Alqasem -- the American student currently being refused admission to Israel on grounds of past BDS activity. That activity is supposedly documented in her Canary file, and it is a marvel to behold: a 1,500 word dossier, of which all but 70 words are on actions or statements or conduct by people other than Lara Alqasem. All they have on her is that she was (a) a member, then President of her school's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, and (b) once was "involved in an event" advocating the boycott of Sabra Hummus.

The remainder of the file, the other 1,430 words of it, is a smorgasbord of sprawling guilt-by-association. University of Florida SJP posted a video which featured a speaker who said a thing which bit the cat that ate the goat…it’s chad gadya, but for Palestinian advocacy.

Anyway, I was going to write that post, but then Haaretz asked me to do a column on the Alqasem case more generally -- so I folded it into that. You can read the finished product here: basically, my big point is that BDS and the right-wing Israeli government are in a tacit alliance with one another against liberal Israeli institutions (like academia) -- so it's no surprise that they've united around the position "Lara Alqasem should not be studying at an Israeli university."

Nor is it, contrary to popular belief, "counterproductive" -- at least, not if you understand which each side is trying to produce. If you think the goal of the Israeli government is to change the minds of its critics and undermine BDS, or if you think the goal of the BDS movement is to try to effectuate progressive change in Israel to the betterment of the Palestinian cause, then yes, targeting Israeli universities for isolation is counterproductive. But if the goal is to squeeze the life of these institutions and their liberal peers, and make it so the only choice is between opposing "River to the Sea" ideologies, then everyone is behaving quite productively.

The sad thing is though that I think the column has been scooped -- the bigger story than anything I might say is that Bari Weiss and Bret Stephens co-wrote a column in the New York Times condemning Israel's decision to exclude Alqasem. That's more interesting and revealing than my quite predictable jeremiads.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume XLIX: Taylor Swift Endorsing Phil Bredesen

There's this weird element of contemporary pop culture where, at any given moment, there's a celebrity that seems inexplicably hated (it's almost always a woman, and that part sadly is quite explicable).

Anne Hathaway was it for awhile, and I could never figure out why. What's wrong with Anne Hathaway? She seems lovely! Lena Dunham certainly fit the bill for a bit. And then there was Taylor Swift -- who had the extra misfortune of not just being hated seemingly randomly by the masses but also being involuntarily made into a White Supremacist mascot. Ouch.

But now Tay Tay has made a very prominent endorsement in the 2018 midterms -- Phil Bredesen, Tennessee's former Democratic governor, who has very quietly pulled into the lead in his bid to flip the open seat from red to blue.

You can imagine the Nazis are pissed. You can also imagine who they blame.

I can't get the screenshots here (follow the link), but here are two excerpts of comments floating around far-right message boards:

“This looks so ghost written. Ever notice how every celebrity seems to be reciting the same exact script and even use the same exact wording. Not that I’m excusing Taytay, fuck her. I just noticed how she sounds exactly like Chris Evans and all those other faggots who suddenly try to get political. Their tweets always read as if some faggy Jew wrote it for them.”

[...]

“This is Soros trying to bluepill [sic] us by kidnapping /our princess/ they must have blackmailed her or something. We need to save her.”

On that second one, I feel compelled to point out that under Brit Hume rules there's nothing antisemitic there since the poster only said "Soros" and not "Jews". Good thing, too, because if we actually were willing to recognize Soros for the obvious dog-whistle that it is, who knows how many mainstream Republicans would get caught up!

Anyway, fist-bump for team Jew for successfully "bluepilling" Swift (whatever that means) and to Taylor, hey, "shake it off" (whatever that means).

The Impossibility of Speech Disruption

Last week, I went to a talk at UC-Berkeley by James Loeffler on the Zionist history of the architects of post-WWII human rights law.

In the middle of the talk, there was a disruption.

Now you might think that "disruption at Berkeley of a talk on Zionism" would be from some sort of pro-Palestinian or anti-occupation activist -- but in this case, you'd be wrong. The disrupter instead was a disheveled old White man who stood up in the middle of the talk and started rambling incomprehensibly about Mammon and Christ and the coming day of judgment and some 500 year old campaign of resistance which either Jews were a part of or Jews were the adversary of (it really was hard to follow).

In a sense, this was the "ideal" disruption because it is entirely unsympathetic. There's no political controversy that skews our prejudices, there's no uncomfortable dissenting view that may need space for airing. On the ledger of "ensuring the speaker can speak" and "ensuring the audience can participate", every entry fell in favor of silencing the protester as quickly and decisively as possible.

Which is why I found it interesting that, even in this case, there really wasn't anything the event organizers could reasonably do to end the disruption in a timely fashion. We were pretty much at his mercy for as long as he wanted to talk. The organizers walked up towards him and sort of vaguely gestured at the exits, which he ignored; eventually a different organizer got a microphone and asked him to leave and let people listen to the talk, which he also mostly ignored. Eventually, he made his way down to the front and out the door (never not talking), started to walk out (to cheers), briefly walked back in (to boos), and then finally exited once again. But there was no real doubt that he could have kept going indefinitely, at least until some form of security arrived to forcibly remove him.

And that's the interesting thing about such disruptions: even in a case like this, where one is wholly unsympathetic to a protester who is adding no intellectual or social content to the event whatsoever, if he withdraws social cooperation and just refuses to leave when asked, there's really nothing anyone can do short of the physical. And that, in turn, will no doubt feel like an escalation and an overreaction -- the protester literally dragged out of the room -- even in a case like this, much less in one where some people might have sympathy for the protester.

And in a way, that dynamic is what is being relied upon in these sorts of protesters. Our society relies on certain implicit norms of social cooperation (such as, if you're asked to leave an event you're disrupting, you walk out under your own power). Where that cooperation is withdrawn, society isn't powerless, but it becomes a lot cruder a lot more quickly -- and the revelation of the crudeness is often the point of the protest. But the point of using the above example is to stress that this is the reality in any social case -- it isn't something unique to a particular political or social worldview. Any social institution relies on implicit cooperation as a substitute for physical power as against any sort of challenge -- it's not something unique to the good guys or the bad guys.

Why I Feel Bad Roundup

Are you watching "I Feel Bad"? I'm excited for it -- not the least because it features British-Indian-Israeli-Jewish actor Brian George. The conceit of the show is Sarayu Blue's character going through all the things in her daily life that make her feel bad (like "I'm turning into my mother"). So in honor of that, here are some of things in my life making me feel bad!

* * *

If the Ben Wittes who wrote that bracing Atlantic article explaining why, even though he knows and respects Brett Kavanaugh, he couldn't vote to confirm him was possessed by a demon, he'd have written this Eli Steinberg article on why, despite (in the very barest possible sense) "believing" Ford he still thinks the only way to "return to normal" and "get[] politics out of the pursuit of justice" is to vote to confirm.

Iran's Supreme Leader uses clips of Aly Raisman, among others, to argue that if women dressed more modestly (namely, wore a hijab) they wouldn't be sexually assaulted. That sound you hear is Raisman preparing to break another world record, this time for longest and loudest continuous cussing out of a single human being.

The Canary Mission -- the "pro-Israel" blacklisting site of (mostly young) people who are too-associated with BDS or Palestinian solidarity politics (read my extended thoughts on them here) has very closely guarded its funding sources. But the Forward found one of the donors -- and it's the San Francisco Jewish Federation. (Why I feel slightly better: the Federation concluded that it's funding guidelines were violated and promised not to allow such donations in the future)

More Canary! Here's a Zionist professor noting that he appears on the Canary blacklist despite opposing BDS, simply because he's also opposed certain proposed legal anti-BDS countermeasures (I wonder if I'm on there too?).

An American student of Palestinian ancestry was blocked from entering Israel to study at Hebrew University. Shades of the Michigan letter of recommendation case, except obviously 98% of people are scrambling to invert their position 180 degrees. Oh, and the Israeli ministry that excluded the student (who obtained a visa from the American Israeli consulate in Miami)? It apparently relied on reporting from ... you guessed it: Canary!

Jonathan Cohn reports on one of those annoying political realities that makes academics' and wonks' heads hurt: Bernie Sanders' "Stop BEZOS" bill was both utterly idiotic as policy, and yet likely responsible (in substantial part, at least) for Amazon's announced $15 minimum wage. It's not just "bad policy = good politics". It's that "promoting bad policies is good politics that sometimes can grease the path to good policies"! For anyone who cares both about good political and policy outcomes and really doesn't want to be a hack, that's a recipe for a big ol' frown-y face.

On the Latest Academic Hoax

A new academic hoax story has broken, and it's bigger than ever before.

Three scholars wrote twenty papers, none of which contained the arguments the authors believed (and all of which contained arguments the authors considered to be ridiculous) and sent them off to journals in the "grievance studies" set. By the time they had to pull the plug on the hoax, seven had been accepted, six were either still under review or under some form of "revise and resubmit", and six were rejected outright.

This project was an expansion on an earlier hoax where a gibberish paper called "The Conceptual Penis" was published in a pay-to-publish journal. The present effort distinguished itself both in the number of papers written and in the decision to submit to what the authors called highly-ranked journals in their disciplines. On that latter note, it's hard to assess -- once you start getting into the sub(-sub-sub)field weeds, what really counts as "highly-ranked"? -- but at least a couple of the journals they scored with are recognizable names (Hypatia, in particular, was a good get).

It's also true, as any observer of peer-reviewed scholarly literature can tell you, that a lot of peer-reviewed scholarly literature even in top journals is dreck. So the fact that the authors were able to get arguments that are (or they viewed as, anyway) dreck published is not itself surprising; though perhaps it gives insight into exactly what and how dreck gets through the process.

Nonetheless, I think there are some important limitations on what one can draw from this "study", including significant ethical ramifications in how the "data" was presented. One might say I'm being overly credulous in even treating this project as one that seeks to earnestly improve the quality of academic publishing standards (hint: if that's your goal, sneeringly referring to your targeted disciplines as "grievance studies" is a bad way to start). But, since we should be self-reflective about the quality of writing and reasoning in academia, I'll take it on its terms.

First, the limits on the conclusion. The authors' methodology was to take arguments that they figured would be appealing to the editorial staff of a given journal but which they, personally, found to be outlandish, and see if they could get them published.

They say that proves a serious malfunction in the peer-review process. I say "haven't they just passed an ideological Turing test?"

An ideological Turing test measures one's ability to mimic the beliefs of the "other side". You "pass" if you successfully convince members of that side that you really are one of them. So let's say I, a liberal, adopt a pseudonym and submit an article to Breitbart. I do my best to make it look, feel, and sound like a Breitbart-style conservative article. Now clearly, I wouldn't believe what I was writing about. The key question is whether they'd recognize the sham: would they say "this sounds like what a liberal thinks a conservative sounds like" (which is, indeed, what it actually is) or would they believe that this is an actual conservative writing? If the latter, then I've passed the test.

The thing is, nothing about passing the Turing test, on its own, demonstrates the falsity of the beliefs or arguments successfully mimicked. Someone on Twitter (I can't remember who) suggested the case of a young-Earth Creationist who submits an article to a biology journal that "mimics" tenets and presumptions of mainstream biological science. If his "hoax" succeeds, would we say "aha! The biological sciences are hopelessly corrupted, to be taken in by this prankster!" No -- we'd say that the author has, albeit disingenuously, written an actual good argument (that he happens not to believe). Likewise, if I successfully spoof Breitbart, I doubt they'd take that as decisive evidence that they've gone off the rails.

The case for why these papers are different, then, can't simply turn on the fact that (a) the authors don't believe the arguments they made and (b) they were nonetheless accepted. There has to be something else in the argument that makes them objectively bad, such that it represents a failure (beyond the fact of the disingenuous motives of the author) for the journal to have accepted it. So what might these be?

This is hard to assess, because the authors don't link to the full papers (the accepted versions have, unsurprisingly, now all been retracted) and because their summaries are by design written to make their claims sound as outlandish as possible. But at least in some cases this isn't facially self-evident.

Take the paper they got into Hypatia. Its thesis is "That academic hoaxes or other forms of satirical or ironic critique of social justice scholarship are unethical, characterized by ignorance and rooted in a desire to preserve privilege." One certainly understands the extra-dose of gleeful "gotcha-ness" the hoaxers enjoyed in getting this paper into Hypatia. But it's hardly the sort of article whose "wrongness" transparently stands out such that reviewers should have obviously known, on face, that it was ridiculous. After all, one could absolutely believe that satirical critiques of this sort of scholarship are unethical and rooted in a desire to preserve privilege (the "characterized by ignorance" is, I concede, at least arguably performatively contradicted by the ability of the authors to sufficiently effectively mimic these arguments such that they got their papers published. But even then, that would just show that one prong of the element was, after the fact, demonstrated to be falsified).

Ditto their Fat Studies paper on fat bodybuilding. Again, the article isn't accessible anymore, but if the basic thesis is that there could be various ways to present "fat" bodies as (in the authors' words) "legitimately-built bodies" worthy of attention and praise, even now I won't say that is a transparently ridiculous assertion. Think of what the ESPN Body Issue has done on this score, for example -- quite a few of its models, at the very least, undermine the notion that "fat" and "athletic" (or even "muscular") are mutually exclusively categories (quoth one of the athletes, a Major League pitcher: "As a baseball player, if I'm pitching 35 times a season, seven innings a pop, 100 pitches a game, I need some fat. I need some extra meat on my body."). And to the extent the "obvious wrongness" is based on the thesis being "positively dangerous to health", I call foul both because it oversimplifies what the research actually shows regarding the linkage between health and what is deemed "fat" in contemporary American society, and because "mainstream" bodybuilding very obviously also doesn't represent the apogee of healthy living either.

Again, I'm not saying that either of these claims are clearly right. But they're not, at least as presented, transparently wrong such that nobody (not just not-the-authors) could find them believable or worth engaging with.

Another potential reason why we could say that reviewers "failed" in not recognizing the wrongness of the article is where there is outright falsification of data. This is something they (apparently) did in the "Portland dog park" paper (they claim to have "tactfully inspected the genitals of slightly fewer than 10,000 dogs whilst interrogating owners as to their sexuality"). Maybe a good reviewer should have recognized that this seemed suspicious. But here I'd say that peer review is actually quite bad at catching this sort of outright fabrication (political science had its own scandal on this score not too long ago). Perhaps unsurprisingly, peer review works best on the presumption that the author is earnestly presenting genuine arguments obtained by honest means. Our peer-review system would be even more dysfunctional than it already is if the first question reviewers asked is "is this paper lying to me?"

And that moves me to the ethical qualms I have in how the hoax authors have presented their findings -- most notably, in how they treat the peer reviewer comments. Each of the papers they submitted -- including those which were rejected -- comes with a selection of peer review comments, all of which are positive. The idea, presumably, is to demonstrate that even their worst papers that didn't get accepted nonetheless were not treated with the sneering dismissal they deserved.

There are two problems with this presentation. First, I think it is actually capturing trends in peer-review to be more constructive, charitable, and supportive towards the papers under consideration -- all good things. One of the reviewers quoted (who had recommended rejecting the article) explained his more positive feedback as an attempt to "buy in" to the paper and provide constructive comments explaining why the article itself didn't work without discouraging the author from the field entirely. It is, I think, a good thing to read articles in their strongest possible light -- to try to think of the best interpretation of the claims the authors are trying to make rather than the most nefarious. This is a practice that hoaxes, in particular, exploit -- they gain their force precisely in the knowledge that their readers will commit the terrible sin of trying to take them seriously.

The second problem with the way the reviewer comments were presented is simultaneously more and less serious. Simply put: if the hoaxer's goal really was to provide a pathway for identifying what is and isn't "working" in these academic disciplines (and I concede that may be far too optimistic), then there is no justification for not including the negative or critical reviewer comments that (presumably) explained why papers were not accepted. Partially, this is simply a matter of misrepresentation -- only giving the positive comments but not the negative ones oversells how receptive readers were to these pieces.

But more importantly, the part of me that wanted to earnestly take this hoax seriously as a genuine effort to constructively critique certain academic disciplines was the most thirsty for learning the content of the negative reviews. What is it that gets a paper rejected in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (or what have you)? Clearly, it isn't a wild west where anything goes so long as you mimic the right politics (the authors -- somewhat begrudgingly -- admit that their project conclusively falsified that hypothesis). Consequently, figuring out where the borders are, what raises flags and what doesn't, is actually incredibly important to the extent the project is actually meant to have any sort of constructive edge. That these weren't included is powerful evidence about what the ambitions of the hoaxers really were. So it's a more serious critique to the extent I take the hoaxers seriously as trying to have a constructive impact on academic publishing; and a less serious critique to the extent that ascribing such seriousness of purpose is absurd.

In any event. I don't need persuading that academic publishing includes a lot of terrible work, and I don't need persuading that there are certain common markers as to what gets terrible work published. But this hoax overshoots the mark -- mostly because its goal isn't really to build a better scholarly mousetrap but rather to grind certain ideological axes.

My recommendation, therefore, is revise and resubmit.