The Daily Signal - Surge in Antisemitism Linked to Spread of Critical Race Theory

Episode Date: September 3, 2021

There's a strong connection between critical social justice ideology, including critical race theory, and a rising tide of antisemitism around the globe, according to a new report from the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values. As more businesses and governments adopt initiatives based on critical social justice ideology, antisemitic and other forms of bigotry are flourishing. "When you hold an ideology that there are really only two kinds of people in the world, those that are oppressed and those that are oppressors, you're going to end up empowering ideas of antisemitism," says David Bernstein, a longtime Jewish advocate as well as the founder and CEO of the Gaithersburg, Maryland-based Jewish Institute for Liberal Values. He joins "The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss his organization's new report, as well as the implications for continued global acceptance of critical social justice ideologies. We also cover these stories: President Joe Biden and House Democrats vow responses to counteract Texas' new pro-life law. After the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision not to enjoin the Texas pro-life law, some liberals are calling again for court-packing. A group of 26 Republican senators, led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, demand that Biden provide information regarding the precise number of Americans, green-card holders, and special immigrant visa applicants stranded in Afghanistan, in addition to the vetting protocols used on Afghan evacuees entering the U.S. Biden will visit Louisiana to talk with officials and see firsthand the damage caused by Hurricane Ida. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, September 3rd. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Doug Blair. A new report from the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values highlights a connection between critical social justice theory and rising anti-Semitism. David Bernstein, founder and CEO of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, joins today's show to explain the implications of the organization's report. And don't forget, if you enjoy this podcast, please be sure to leave a review

or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. encourage others to subscribe. Now on to today's top news. In the aftermath of a new Texas bill that bans abortion after an unborn child has a detectable heartbeat, President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he would be launching a whole of government response to counteract the law. The president will direct the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to investigate legal avenues to challenge the Texas bill after a Wednesday night 5-4 Supreme Court ruling blocked an emergency request from abortion providers to block the Texas law. In his official statement, Biden said the Texas bill unleashes unconstitutional chaos and

empowers self-enointed enforcers to have devastating impacts. House Democrats also vowed to take action against the bill. On Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would vote on legislation that would protect abortion access. Per the Hill, Pelosi said, this ban necessitates codifying Roe v. Wade. Upon our return, the House will bring up Congresswoman Judy Chu's, Democrat from California, Women's Health Protection Act, to enshrine into law reproductive health care for all women across America. Any bill that makes it out of the House would need to contend with a filibuster in the Senate, making it unlikely it would become law.

After the Supreme Court's five-four decision to not halt the Texas abortion law, some liberals are calling again for court packing. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, tweeted, Republicans promised to overturn Roe v. Wade, and they have. Democrats can either abolish the filibuster and expand the court or do nothing as millions of people's bodies, rights, and lives are sacrificed for far-right minority rule. This shouldn't be a difficult decision. Representative Corey Bush, Democrat of Missouri, tweeted, In the span of one week, the Supreme Court forced 11 million households to face eviction and effectively overturned Roe v. Wade in the middle of the night.

This is what far-right extremism looks like. We need to expand the court. The Supreme Court justices did note that the decision to allow the Texas law to remain in place for now was not to be taken as a ruling on the merits of the law. itself, which will presumably end up before the Supreme Court eventually. On Thursday, a group of 26 Republican senators led by Senator Tom Cotton demanded that President Biden provide information regarding the exact number of Americans, green cardholders, and special immigrant visa applicants stranded in Afghanistan, in addition to the vetting

protocols used on Afghan evacuees entering the U.S. We write regarding the humanitarian crisis created by your withdrawal of the U.S. United States from Afghanistan, and the safety and well-being of our fellow countrymen and allies who you left behind begins the letter, whose signatories included Senators Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, and Lindsay Graham. The letter continues with a series of questions on logistical aspects of the Afghan pullout, as well as setting a deadline of next Tuesday for President Biden to provide the requested information. The letter comes amid concerns over the Americans and Afghan allies left behind, and that refugees entering the country have not been

adequately vetted. President Biden is visiting Louisiana today and will talk with officials and see the damage caused by Hurricane Ida. Yesterday, he made remarks about the hurricane. Via CBS News. My message to everyone affected is we're all in this together. The nation is here to help. That's the message I've been making clear to the mayor's, governors, energy and utility leaders in the region who my administration has been working close to. with over the past few days. Working with governors in the area, even before I had made landfall,

I issued emergency declarations for Louisiana and Mississippi to help us respond quickly. FEMA prepositioned more than 4.3 million meals and more than 3 million liters of water and other critical resources in the region before it hit. We deployed more than 250 generators

and we're working to get. getting more into the area, especially the hospitals in desperate need of them. The Department of Health and Human Services deployed a 250 bed, federal medical shelter in New Orleans, and five medical assistance teams available throughout the state. At least 30 people have been killed by Hurricane Ida, which affected Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. Stay tuned for my discussion with David Bernstein about the new report on anti-Semitism from the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values. Virginia Allen here, I want to tell you all about one of my favorite podcasts.

Heritage Explains is a weekly podcast that breaks down all the policy issues we hear about in the news at a 101 level. Host Michelle Cordero and Tim Desher mix in news clips and music to tell a story, but also bring in heritage experts to help break down complex issues. Heritage Explains offers quick 10 to 50 minute explainers that bring you up to speed in an entertaining way. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. We even put the full episode on YouTube. Our guest today is David Bernstein, a longtime Jewish advocate and founder and CEO of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values. David, thank you so much for joining us.

Great to be with you. Great. So your organization just released a white paper on how critical social justice ideology has led to an increase in anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment. Before we get into the white paper, would you be able to start by defining for our listeners what exactly critical social justice ideology is? Sure. Critical social justice ideology is an umbrella term for critical race theory and other quote unquote critical ideology. that we're seeing critical gender ideology, for example, it basically holds that bias and oppression are not just a matter of individual attitudes, as we've traditionally thought about them,

but are embedded in the systems and structures of society. And it also holds problematic, in my view, that only those who are adversely affected by those systems, only the system's victims have standing to define race, or prejudice or bigotry for the rest of society. So that's what we're talking about here, is that ideology, which has taken hold in so many institutions in American life in the past several years, and particularly in the past year, is producing anti-Semitism, among other problems, of course. And where is this located? Are we finding critical social justice ideology in schools and certain

political viewpoints? Where do we find this ideology present in our culture? Yeah, I mean, it's pretty much every. or almost everywhere. You're seeing it in newsrooms now, as you've seen in the New York Times recently. You're seeing it in healthcare institutions and medicine, in scientific institutions quite ominously. Can you imagine how that's going to corrupt scientific research over time? We're seeing it in K-12 schools, obviously in universities, in schools of education. We're seeing in the nonprofit world. It's pretty much everywhere. It's in major corporations that are doing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that are quite a liberal in nature. So we're seeing

it really take hold in vast array of institutions in American life. All right. So now we have a definition of what this ideology is, what critical social justice ideology is. We can dive into your report. So let's start with the top line. What relationship did your research find between critical social justice ideology and anti-Semitism. So when you hold an ideology that there are really only two kinds of people in the world, those that are oppressed and those that are oppressors, you're going to end up empowering ideas of anti-Semitism. So, for example, this idea of Jewish privilege, which is an offshoot of white privilege.

When you say that there's only oppressors and oppressed, then Jews who have succeeded largely in American society are going to be viewed as the oppressor class. And Israel, which is succeeded largely in the Middle East, is going to be viewed as the oppressor country. So that, you know, in the most simple form is the problem. But it gets more complicated and sometimes more ominous as you look into it more. I mean, the idea, for example, of intersectionality, which I'm sure your listeners are familiar with, this idea that all forms of repression are related, that's a multiplier of this idea

of Jewish privilege and makes it very hard for people to identify with Jews or anybody who's perceived to be part of the privileged classes. And we can go into some of the other findings as well, but let me just add one more before we do that, equity, this idea that Ibrahim X. Kendi, a professor at Boston University has popularized that all disparities are a function of racism and discrimination. So if there are certain groups that are being discriminated against, and that's what accounts for all their disparities, not just some of their disparities, but all the disparities, then there must be people who succeed who are complicit in the system that brought the others down. And that's Jews, that's Asians and other successful groups. So it can be weaponized and has been weaponized against Jews in a way that's increasing the level of anti-Semitism in the society. Right.

So you've mentioned intersectionality amongst other concepts that exist in critical social justice ideology. You define in your report intersectionality as the theory that various identities interact in ways that create compounded discrimination or disadvantage constituting an intersecting. system of oppression. In the sort of base level of this, where do Jews fit into this system to somebody who believes in this critical social justice ideology? What do Jews have to do in this system? It's very hard for people who buy into this ideology to look at American Jews, who have been largely successful, or their eyes white, and they've defined us as white, to say that that we're not part of the oppressor class. We must be because we're successful,

and you can only succeed in this worldview by holding other people down, by getting a bigger slice of the pie for yourself. So no matter how hard Jews tried, and we have tried, I tried, by the way, that's part of what I would try to do in engaging other communities, engaging progressive spaces in my previous work,

what's the position Jews as being, you know, a marginalized group? We're marginalized like your groups are marginalized, and we should have our voice in the intersectional club. But that doesn't work. It didn't work. They just do not see it that way. You also have sort of the intersection, if you will, with the Israeli-Palestinian cause,

and people insisting that Palestinians are the oppressed group and Israel is the oppressor. And then they look at the American Jewish community that is largely but not entirely supportive of Israel. And they say, okay, you must be part of the oppressor class. And that's how we've been Mark. So one of the things that I've kind of been considering as I was reading this paper is it feels like a lot of the time when incidents of anti-Semitism come up, we're reacting to a specific incident. So it's a reactionary politics as opposed to a sort of ongoing discussion about where this comes from.

So for example, when Black Lives Matter or an activist says something that's pretty blatantly anti-Semitic, it seems like we'll focus more on the specific thing that was said as opposed to. to the root ideology that leads activists to believe the anti-Semitic thing that they just said. Do you feel that this is sort of a true assessment of what's going on? Why or why not? Yeah. So if there's one finding in this paper that represents a wholesale departure from the traditional Jewish community approach to fighting anti-Semitism, it's that we believe that the current ideological environment is like fighting anti-Semitism in a game of whack-a-mole. The ideology is going to continue to produce incidents of anti-Semitism. And if we continue to go and condemn this person and condemn that person, which we can do and should do, I guess,

but without recognizing that the root cause ideology, the wellspring from which this comes, is critical social justice ideology, we're not really fighting the root problem. And there I would say that we've got to take a massive strategic shift. and how we think about fighting anti-Semitism. It doesn't work to just fight anti-Semitism. You have to fight the underlying ideology. You have to start challenging people who claim that they have a monopoly on the truth when it comes to racism and race.

You have to say, no, I'm sorry, we have the right to speak as well. You've got to stick up for liberalism. Because if liberalism starts to slip, and liberalism, by the way, I mean small L liberalism, that is the free expression of ideas in society, if that starts to slip and give way to wokeism, then we're not going to, we're not going to fare well. Jews are not going to fare well. Other minorities won't fare well either. So we've got to start fighting that fundamental underlying ideology that's giving rise to anti-Semitism

and not just the anti-Semitic expressions of it. So one of the things that I've also been considering a lot, as we were talking about concepts like intersectionality and this sort of focus on race, like in critical race theory, that both, in America and worldwide, Jews are ethnically a minority. So we've talked about the successes of the Jewish people, but how has it become so ingrained in both conspiracy theories and in critical social justice ideology that Jews are oppressors? Yeah, you know, Jews have always occupied a very strange space in societies where they lived. Jews have a very resilient culture and have been able to largely succeed in almost any society

that they've been. They're perceived as sort of being intermediaries. So they are in the eyes of, let's say, white supremacists in this country. They're viewed as the people that are bringing in other minorities to pollute like the white dominant culture, right? That's what, when you hear people with tiki tortures say that America will, that Jews will not replace us, that's what they mean, that Jews have been the intermediaries that have allowed more Mexicans and other people to come in and replace us white people. So that occupies a very special place in their imagination. I think in the intersectional worldview, also Jews are really confounding in a way. We claim to have been discriminated against. We had this thing called the Holocaust that happened to us. We've been

discriminated against. They see the hate crime statistics, and yet we're white and successful. So in a way, we're a standing contradiction to that worldview, and they have to shove a us into one of those two boxes, which leads to sort of the erratiature of our identity. I do think it's very interesting that Jews kind of occupy this space of simultaneously, you know, the oppressor, but like historically speaking, you can acknowledge that the Jews have been persecuted on a world scale. Speaking of a world scale, I would like to talk to you a little bit about the upcoming World Conference on Racism that is set to take place this month. So rather famously, the U.S. has previously boycotted these types of

UN-backed conferences because they have a very strong anti-Israel bias. These conferences will regularly refer to Israel as an apartheid state and discuss how evil the country is on a variety of levels. With that in mind, is there a difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment? And on that note, is it possible to be critical of the state of Israel without wading into anti-Semitism? I mean, absolutely. I mean, you know, there's nobody more critical of Israel than Israelis.

And you see that every day in any Israeli. newspaper you might look at in English or Hebrew. And many American Jews, myself included, we care about Israel, we love Israel, we might define ourselves as Zionist, people who believe in the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. And yet we are critical and specific Israeli acts, policies that we think might be counterproductive. And many of us will say so publicly. We'll say we think that's wrong and Israel should do X instead of Y. So that is entirely consistent with, you know, seeing Israel as a normal country or even caring about the Jewish state. What's not normal is when people start to deny the very right of the Jewish people to have a state,

which is what you see in places like the World Conference of Racism. Or you demonize Israelis as Nazis and judge it by a standard that you would judge no other nation. That's where you start to get suspicious and wonder, well, maybe there's something much more sinister behind this than just criticism of a contrary, its policies, and what you're really seeing are people who hate the Jewish people and are using that as a kind of cudgel against the state of the Jewish people, which is the state of Israel. So it sounds like what you're saying is that anti-Zionism and anti-Israel rhetoric doesn't necessarily is being used to disguise anti-Semitism in a way.

Yeah, and by anti-Israel rhetoric, I mean, I would mean not just criticism of Israel, but really vicious criticism of Israel that's completely out of proportion. and irrational. And I think it disguises it. I'm not going to say that there aren't people who are opposed to Zionism that aren't anti-Semitic. I think that there probably are. There are ultra-Orthodox Jews who, for a variety of reasons, theological reasons,

don't think there should be a state of Israel. I'm not going to call them anti-Semites. But I think what you can say is that the phenomena of anti-Zionism is a category of anti-Semitism, even if there are. exceptions to the rule. Okay. So other than this conference, and I'm sure there are other examples, would you be able to list some other things that are international manifestations of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism? Yeah, I mean, we've seen over the year, especially in the wake of like a war with Gaza, conflict of Gaza, these massive, very often violent protests. I remember in Malmo, Sweden,

I think it must have been in around 2006, there were these massive, protests against the Jewish community, major threats to synagogues and others, and you had the mayor of Malmo blame it on the Jews for their support for Israel. So you see that in some European countries. And you see, as we recently saw in the United States, by the way, in L.A. and New York, you know, during the last guys around in May, you saw people beaten on the streets. I mean, literally, like, stopped and beaten at restaurants. So these are manifestations. These are manifestations. of violent anti-Semitism that really comes from the left side of the political spectrum. You've spoken a little bit on the implications for the sort of other oppressed classes.

I think you've talked a little bit about, you know, Asians and other racial groups. Are there larger implications in our American society for the proliferation of critical social justice ideology beyond Judaism and anti-Semitism? I mean, absolutely. And I would even say my primary. critique of critical social justice or the imposition of critical social justice is the fact that it's fundamentally illiberal. It's meant to try to stifle conversation. It stifles science. It stifles the free exchange of ideas. It makes it harder to solve problems because how can you solve a problem

if you're not allowed to try to define it? In other words, if you're the only permissible explanation for disparity in the world is systemic racism. And if you offer any other possible explanation, for it, you'll be deemed a racist. How are you going to actually solve that problem? Because racism doesn't account for why there's disparity in many cases. So I think it is fundamentally illiberal and it will create bad social outcomes and it will prevent people from talking to each other. It will be bad for race relations. I think it has many, many bad outcomes besides just anti-Semitism and anti-Asian sentiment in the light. So given that we can acknowledge that, obviously, anti-Semitism is a problem. What advice do you have for our listeners who want to push back against

the rising tide of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism around the globe today? Yeah, I think it's time that they recognize that there is this ideology at its root cause and that we have to start supporting liberalism. And there I'm really advocating for a new coalition. I think the Jewish community has been very focused on sort of engaging the left in the far-left the American political system so that we can stop it from becoming too anti-Israel or too anti-Semitic. I don't think that's working well. I think the lion's share of our resources, our energies have to be to building a new

coalition, groups with Asian Americans and black heterodox thinkers and Latino business leaders and alike, a new centrist coalition that on both sides of the political aisle stands up for the liberal proposition of a society where people can express ideas and think out loud together. I think that's the kind of society we want to live in, and that's the coalition we ought to create. And that means that we have to create new institutions that fight for liberalism, and we have to create new institutions that aren't captured in some cases by woke ideology that are right now making it hard for these institutions to function effectively. Given that, do we have any examples of a positive success story that we can point to to say,

hey, this is working, this is helping out? You know, this is a very, new phenomena. I think obviously we've been watching critical social justice take over in certain institutions for quite a few years and certainly in the academy. But it was really after George Floyd's murder that we saw it really, this racial reckoning really start to take effect. A lot of institutions started implementing new racial justice ideas plans and committees and the like. And it's really been in the last year where you've seen this incursion at this level, which has provoked a backlash. So many of us are now, I mean, we founded our organizationally four months ago. There are very few existing institutions in American life, nonprofit advocacy organizations and the like that we're already

actively fighting against the incursion of critical social justice ideology. So we're learning as we go along. We're making some headway in certain places. There are examples of us being able to get more and more people out of the woodwork and fighting against it. And we've seen some institutions say back off from their previous woke pronouncements and alike, but we're just getting going and we're going to have to find what works over time. I'm glad to hear that things are going positively. David, we are running a little bit low on time, but I wanted to give the last word to you.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about your organization and the work you're doing to fight anti-Semitism? Sure. So we are J-I-L-V-R-Jewish Institute for Liberal Values.org. They can find us on Twitter at J-I-L-V-O-R-G. They can also look into a new organization called the Institute for Liberal Values, which is an umbrella of groups, not just Jewish groups, but education groups and the like. And that's I-LValues.org, and it's coming into existence as we speak.

So check us all out. Great. Well, thank you so much. That was David Bernstein, founder and CEO of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, as well as a longtime Jewish advocate. David, thanks again for joining us. Great to be with you. Thank you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating

on Apple Podcasts, and please encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend, and we'll see you all on Tuesday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinko, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, please visitdailysignal.com.