Shownotes
A relevant discussion about the current state of antisemitism in the United States with Dr. Benjamin Ginsberg, a renowned political scientist and author. We explore the rise of antisemitism on the political left and the changing dynamics of Jewish support in America. Dr. Ginsberg shares his perspectives on contemporary anti-Israel sentiment, the historical context of antisemitism, and the challenges Jewish students face on college campuses. The conversation touches upon the importance of understanding Jewish history and rethinking political alliances. This discussion provides fresh insights into the complexities of antisemitism today and highlights the need for informed dialogue and education.
[00:00] Introduction and Today's Hot Topic
[02:05] Welcoming Dr. Benjamin Ginsberg
[03:52] The New American Antisemitism
[06:42] Historical Context and Shifts
[10:29] Intersectionality and Campus Politics
[25:07] Evangelical Christians and Jewish Alliances
[32:41] Advice for Jewish Students
[33:13] Book Overview: Anti-Semitism Today
[34:55] Encouraging Open-Mindedness
[40:25] The Complexity of Middle Eastern Conflicts
[44:44] National Days and Fun Facts
[49:50] Closing Remarks and Credits
- United Nations-Call for elimination of Israel – HRC 16th session – NGO statement (WUPJ)
- Showpass-tickets to Benjamin Ginsberg
- St. Louis Jewish Book Festival - St. Louis JCC
This is Season 7! For more episodes, go to stlintune.com
#antisemitism #Zionists #ChristianZionists #Jewishhistory #jccstl #middleeasternconflicts #adviceforJewishstudents
Transcripts
There is a toxic politics going on today, anti Israeli sentiment coming from today's political left, the political left. Do you believe that we're going to find out about that. More on St. Louis in Tune. Welcome to St.
Louis in Tune and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts, community leaders and everyday people who make a difference in shaping our society and world. I'm Arnold Stricker along with co host Mark Langston. Mark, how are you today?
Mark Langston:I am fine. Actually, we should have I don't when we recorded this, we're in October. It should be what, in the 40s, I think they said. Yes.
Arnold Stricker:And it's now 71 degrees on its way to 82.
Mark Langston:Oh gosh. There's no global warming, though. Just to say that. Okay.
Arnold Stricker:It's a hot topic today that we're going to talk about.
Mark Langston:Yeah, it is. It's something we need to talk about.
Arnold Stricker:And our guest is going to get into some fascinating perspectives of that that maybe some people have not thought about. First of all, our return to civility. Tell older relatives that you're just like them and proud of it.
Think about the positive characteristics and traits that you've inherited from your parents and grandparents and then thank them for the gifts that they've handed down to you. Now, we're not talking about monetary kinds of gifts. We're talking about some excellent traits and characteristics of living and how to behave.
Mark Langston:Amen, brother.
There are cultures I know that bring in, they like to have different generations in their homes and they'll build like a house in the back for the grandparents or what have you so they can look after them.
But also that influence that the older folks, I don't want to say that, but the older adults, the wiser ones among us, can bring to the younger generation. I think that helps.
Arnold Stricker:It does help, and especially in our conversation today. Our guest is Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg.
He is the David Bernstein professor of Political Science and the chair of the Hopkins center for Advanced Government studies in Washington, D.C. his research interests include American politics, Jewish history, higher education policy and the societal impact of war and violence.
He's the author and co author or editor of 30 books.
And his college text, we the People now in its 14th edition, has been the nation's most frequently used American government text for the past three decades. And he's going to be talking Thursday, November 7th at 1pm at the St.
Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum as part of the Arthur Gale Series, talking about his book the New American Antisemitism, the Left, the Right and the Jews. Dr. Ginsburg, welcome to St. Louis in Tune.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:I'm delighted to be on. How are you this morning?
Arnold Stricker:Good, thank you.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:I'm glad to hear it's warm air. Not that warm here.
Arnold Stricker:And where is it not so warm?
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:I'm in the suburbs of Washington D.C. i'm in Potomac, Maryland.
Arnold Stricker:Oh, okay.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:I think when I walked the dog this morning it was 30 degrees.
Arnold Stricker:Oh my gosh.
Mark Langston:Wow. Wow.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:Warming up a little now. But I've always been a big fan of global warming. I want to be warmer.
Arnold Stricker:The new Florida and the new Arizona.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:I was a professor at Cornell for many years in Ithaca, New York. And people in Ithaca we had air conditioning but we had never in 20 years did we turn it on. It never got warm enough.
Mark Langston:I'll be darn. Wow.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:There was no need to ask global warming. What is this?
Mark Langston:Yeah, I'm kind of with you too. I like the warmer weather, but I don't, I don't know if it's having a good effect on us, but I do like it.
Arnold Stricker:The book is the New American Antisemitism. The Left, the Right and the Jews. And you were very prophetic, which is unfortunate.
I love prophets that can predict things that are in a positive manner for our society and culture. But your prediction was one that it was almost like self fulfilling. And I want to get into that and explain that a little bit. Explain the title.
What is the new American Antisemitism as opposed to the old. I saw an interview where somebody asked you that question, was there an old anti American Semitism? And you go into this.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:Oh yeah, there was.
There was an anti Semitism on and off in the United States for quite some time in the, at the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, there was very, very severe antisemitism in the United States. The intervention of Jewish quotas, colleges and universities, truth were excluded from some of the perceptions from medical school.
But that all ended during the time of the New Deal. And a lot of younger Jewish people were shocked to discover that some folks out there didn't like them.
But what's new about antisemitism today is that traditionally we associate antisemitism with a political right. Obviously the Nazis. And for the most part antisemitism in the United States has been associated with the workforces on the political right.
So what's new is that the groups running around college campuses claiming to be anti Zionist are on the political left.
It's not only Middle Eastern students, but it's students from a variety of left Liberal groups who have joined together to demand an end to the Gaza war, to demand an end to Israel. And when they claim to be anti Zionist, that's silly, they're anti Semite. There's no difference between anti Zionism and anti Semitism.
Maybe philosophically there's a difference, but in the real political world there's no difference whatsoever. So we've seen a tremendous upsurge of antisemitism in the United States. It's come from the political left and that's what's new about it.
And American Jews in particular find this hard to wrap their heads around.
They equate antisemitism with Nazis and it's hard for them to believe that their former friends and among democratic progressives are the ones who are at the base of anti Semitism today.
Mark Langston:I find it really disturbing that anyone is asking or calling for the end of Israel. That to me is just, I can't even wrap my head around that.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg: srael was founded in the late:It was armed by among others. The Soviet Union had left wing politicians in America and Europe used Israel for photo ops.
They liked to be sewn sitting on a tractor at a kibbutz that showed they were in tune with the people. I think somewhere in the archives there's a picture of Bernie Sanders sitting on a tractor at a kibbutz, pretending to be driving the tractor.
or two reasons. First was the:Israel emerged victorious and the little tiny weak social estate turned out to be a regional power. A lot of people took notice.
The evangelical Protestants thought this is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, the return of the Jews to the holy places. They thought predicted the second coming. So today you have a so called Christian Zionist. Evangelicals are among Israel's strongest supporters.
But also the American national security establishment took note to the United States the major goal of policy in the Middle east has been privileged access to the Saudi and Gulf state oil field. That's what we have been worried about.
And the United States has opposed everybody who has tried to undermine our effect to Middle Eastern oil going all the way back to Gamal Abdel, Nazis, Egypt and more recently the Iranian course.
So to American policymakers Israel looked like a very, potentially a very useful ally, a very useful proxy because they Turned out the Israelis turned out to be very adept in war making. So the United States began to arm Israel instead of Soviet bloc and become French armed.
Israel began to field first rank American weapons, which is the case today. This had the effect of souring left wing politicians on Israel.
Instead of being a nice place where you could ride the tractor at the kibbutz, Israel turned out to be an ally of what they saw as American imperialism. That was one factor. The second was migration.
Millions of Muslims from Middle Eastern countries began immigrating first to Europe and then subsequently smaller numbers to the United States. When these Muslims arrived in Europe, socialist parties of the left saw possible new socialist voters. They were poor, downtrodden, what have you.
So they tried to recruit them. But turned out that Muslim Negro immigrants didn't have much in common with European socialists.
The Muslim immigrants had never heard of Karl Marx, weren't interested in many of the views espoused by the European left. However, it turned out there was one thing that they could agree on. The Muslims hated Israel.
European socialists didn't like Israel, that became the unifying factor. And European socialists began to ally with Muslims in opposition to Israel. So that's the origin of European antisemitism.
A similar process began in the United States with one added factor. And notice that Muslim student groups became active on American college campuses. For example, Students for Justice in Palestine.
We saw the news just today that JEE was banned at Brown University for antisemitic activities. Muslim student groups integrated themselves into the progressive ecosystem of a number of American college campuses.
On most American campuses there are a live group of various left liberal groups, some espousing grade vocals, some dealing with gender issues, some offended by climate change, you name it. And they all band together under a logic that is called intersectionality.
Now listeners who are not familiar with the idea of intersectionality, listen up, because this is politically a very important concept. It's the idea that all oppressed groups, whatever their particular goals might be, need to band together, fight oppression.
So even if I don't really like your goal that much, it doesn't matter. I need to support you.
Muslim student group, Students for Justice in Palestine in particular became part of the progressive ecosystem on American college and university campuses. And this is what turned left wing campus politics against Israel. And not too much, not too much after that against DUV More generally.
Intersectionality is why you get these peculiar alliances. My favorite was Queers for Palestine. Now that's ridiculous. In most of the Muslim Middle east, gay people are more likely than not to be murdered.
Queers for Palestine might seem to be advocating for their own destruction, but they don't quite get it. They just advocate for their friends on the left. This is campus politics today.
And this is where the epicenter of antisemitic activity is in the United States today.
Progressive groups associated with college campuses and college campuses in many parts of the country have become very uncomfortable for Jewish students, for Jewish faculty who are not willing to, like in the old and Mao's China, you have to confess your sins. Those who aren't willing to wear a gun cap and say, I am not a Zionist, and even some of those are subjected to censure.
So this is how what once was a right wing ideology has now become a left wing ideology. It has affected the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and unfortunately is growing in importance in the United States today.
Arnold Stricker:We are talking to Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg. He's the David Bernstein professor of Political Science.
He's chair of the Hopkins center for Advanced Government at Johns Hopkins University. Dr.
Ginsburg, as you were talking about that, it seemed to me that individuals are either deliberately indifferent and maybe deliberately naive, or they just haven't read their history or haven't done their research and haven't been informed.
Because generally when I hear things like you've just said where the queers for Palestine is saying that they support that, but they really don't understand that they'd be dead if they were in Palestine. So is this a deliberate thing or is this something that they're totally ignorant about? What's going on with the other side?
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:Yeah, that's a very good question. And let me give you two answers. One is that people tend to filter information through their preconceptions, right?
So if you're, if you're a Democrat, you tend to filter out anything negative about the Democrats. If you're a MAGA Republican, you tend to turn off your brain. If anyone says anything negative about Trump.
I have a friend who's professor at Hopkins Persian and said he was walking past at George Washington University in the spring and he saw queer Palestine. And he said, he stopped and he said, I'm from that part of the world and I can tell you that you would not be welcome in Palestine.
They would probably kill you. The person to whom he was speaking said, oh no, that can't be true.
That the person whom he was seeking didn't want to hear anything that was inconsistent with what he believed. The second part of the answer is that American students aren't really taught any history. Our secondary school system hardly teaches any history.
I would joke with my college students that the only reason, the only difference they know between World War I and World War II, because they know what came first, because they're numbered. Otherwise they wouldn't know anything about them.
Mark Langston:Oh, no.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:We could number all the wars and they're smart kids. They're smart kids, but no one has ever taught them anything. If you read a high school history text, you'd come away very confused by it.
So when you put these two things together. Oh, and here's the thing. Here's the third thing to think about.
When years ago, when I was in school, the pedagogical model they used was something called Bloom's Pyramid, where you started with basic facts and then you worked your way up the steps of the pyramid to critical thinking. Now they've inverted it. They start with critical thinking. I guess it's easier to think critically if you don't know anything.
There's nothing to interfere with your critical thinking. But I found that a lot of people, they think what they're feeling. I see this in class. A kid will raise his hand and say, I feel that.
And I always say, no, I don't care what you feel. Do you know anything? But kids are taught to that your feelings need to be validated and truth emerges from feeling.
Remember when we saw on tv, I called them the Three Stooges.
The president, the former president of Harvard, the former president of Penn, and the president of MIT were trying to explain whether it was okay to run around their campuses calling for the murder of the Jews, whether that's conflicted with the speech code. So one of these Three Stooges, the former president of Harvard, kept on referring to her truth. She said, it's not my truth.
And so she had a truth that was different from other truths. There was be with someone who was leading with her feelings. If she felt it, truth followed from it. So we have a lot of confused kids out there.
They don't know much. They're taught that their feelings need to be validated, and then they view everything through the lens of their preconceptions.
It's hard to argue them out of it. And that's why you get these oddities. I also want to say a little bit about the student intent of last spring. All these kids out there stepping out.
What was I know was that all about? I was on the phone one time with a reporter from Austria, and she said to me, she said, you Americans are so naive.
You don't understand what's going on there. She said, we understand what Is this Hitler Youth Camp?
You put these naive kids into these encampments where they probably romantic a little bit of revolution in the air and in the tent with them there's a more seasoned activist who teaches them they knowing nothing, being totally naive and they come out having learned from these enacted of the work that they're doing. That's what Hitler Youth Camp was all about and that's what was going on in those encampments.
We all thought they were silly and funny, but they weren't. That was a very serious business. And university administrators who didn't move against them were making a big mistake.
Arnold Stricker:I agree with that analysis of that. It's just like an open mind when you've inverted Bloom's taxonomy and you're beginning with critical thinking.
When I don't have anything to think about anyway. I can just take whatever is dished my way and run with that. And that's right.
The answer that you mentioned about one of the the Harvard president about this is my truth or that's not my truth is that there are some absolutes in the world and it's unfortunate that we've gotten to the point in some cultural and what I should say societal kinds of the disagreements that we totally ignore facts and things going on. And the reason I say that is because your first chapter is three questions to ask antisemites.
And I thought that was a great way to start the book because you were like, okay, you confronted with someone like this, here are some questions to ask them. And what would those questions be again?
Mark Langston:Right.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:I don't have it in front of me and I often don't remember exactly what I wrote. But I know one of the questions had to do with trying to explain why Israel, why particularly vilify Israel.
Mark Langston:Great question. That's a great question. Yeah, been swirling.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:Israel is hardly perfect. No state is perfect. Governments all do, all do bad things.
But if you compare Israel to the other states of the Middle East, Israel comes out looking pretty good. People say Israel is an ethno state, but most of the states in the world are ethnostates.
Certainly all of the states of the Middle east are Afghan states. If you are in a Middle Eastern state and you're a non Muslim, if you're even allowed to be there, you're a second class citizen.
Israel is accused of the crime of settler colonialism. These Jewish settlers came in and stole the land of the Arab people. But you know what? Every place in the world is guilty of settler colonialism.
Now certainly the United States, but the Europeans who like to accuse the United States of being settler colonists. They're settler colonists too, right? The French, the Germans, they stole the land from the Romans.
And the Romans had stolen the land from previous groups. That's the way of the world. It's unfortunate that every square inch of territory on the face of the earth used to belong to somebody else.
And the Israelis aren't especially guilty of this. And as to the use of brutality, come on.
In the world that contains Iran, North Korea, if your goal is to mitigate governmental brutality, start an anti North Korean movement.
Arnold Stricker:There you are.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:Why pick on Israel in particular? And to me, it has something to do with hatred of dunes. It also has to do with anti Americanism.
Label Israel is the little Satan and America as the great Satan. A lot of anti Israel agitation is also anti American. When they talk about settler colonialism, they mean America as much as they do Israel.
When they talk about imperialism, they mean America.
Americans need to understand that the groups running around panting about Israel without missing a beat will chant about America and burn an American flag, too.
Arnold Stricker:We're going to take a quick break and we're going to come right back. We're talking to Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg about his book the New American Antisemitism. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St. Louis in Tune.
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-:This is Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in tune on behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation.
In:The 14th Amendment, also called the Dred Scott Amendment, granted citizenship to all born or naturalized here in our country and was intended to overturn the US Supreme Court decision.
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On behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage foundation, this has been Arnold Stricker of St. Louis Intuitive welcome back to St. Louis in Tune. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston. We are talking to Dr.
Benjamin Ginsburg from Johns Hopkins University. He's going to participate in the Arthur Gale series the New American Anti Semitism, the Left, the Right and the Jews.
And that's Thursday, November 7th at 1pm at the Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum. You can go to showpass.com or go to jccstl.com we'll post that in the podcast show notes Dr.
Ginsburg it's almost a little dreary where we left things, but there is something that you do offer that many Jews would find this new alliance very alarming and shocking. And that new alliance is with Evangelical Christians. Would you elaborate on that a little bit please?
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:Yeah, many Jews are so tied to the Democratic Party and to progressive political movements that they were consider doing anything else but end of the results are too quick to refuse to form alliances on the political right. But one conservative group that is very friendly to Jews lists of the Evangelical Christian Zionists. They are staunchly pro Israel.
They're not especially interested in converting Jews. They think when the Messiah comes back the Jews will all convert anyway. So they don't work very hard on that.
I went convinced some friends of ours to attend a conference of Jews and Christian Zionists and they came back surprised by what a friendly environment it was. And they repeated to us a joke that was told, which is one that's been common at conferences.
The Jewish speaker will say we choose and you question we agree on everything, on absolutely everything except maybe one little thing, and that is that we both agree the Messiah is coming. The thing is, you say he's been here before, so it would be his second visit. We say he's never been here before, so it'd be his first visit.
But we don't need to argue about that. We agree the Messiah is coming, so when he comes we'll ask him have you been here before or not? And that'll settle the matter.
We don't have to fight about it.
Mark Langston:I love it. Good point.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:That's a good point, right?
Mark Langston:Yeah, it really is.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:You know, Jews need to think carefully about who their friends are, who their enemies are.
The great German Buick philosopher Hannah Arendt said that the Jews are pretty smart, but they're not very good at politics and they tend to cling to political alliances long after they've lost their value.
And for Neil, and they've been Democrats and Franklin Roosevelt brought them over from the Republican Party, they had been Republicans before that and they've remained Democrats. They need to rethink that.
They need to think who their friends are, who their enemies are and in my view find more enemies on the left and more friends on the right at this moment in time. That's not to say there are no right wing anti Semites. Of course there are.
But the folks running around screaming death to Israel, death to America for that matter, those aren't right wingers. This is a left winger. It's the Unite the Right rally. The first year of the Trump administration. They united a couple of hundred people.
Whereas the anti Zionist, anti Israel rallies, anti Semitic rallies in New York City and other cities in the United States, those have involved thousands of people. And Jews need to be very much aware of where their enemies are right now.
Jews also need to be aware of the fact that their kids don't know much about do it history. I've had kids in my classes who went to Jewish day school and they knew Jewish ritual, but they didn't know anything about Jewish history.
They were what I would call Sabbath Jews. Sabbath Jews, they do ritual over national identification.
And I think Jewish parents need to be very careful to make sure that their kids know something about Jewish history and especially modern zestray, which not true. That the Jews have no right to the land of Israel. And it's ridiculous. All of the antiquities there are Jewish.
The Jews were there long before other claimants. Today Jews have more rights to Israel than anyone else.
And yet even Jewish hard talk they think some European Jews came after came over after World War II and threw out the legitimate owners of the land. Not true. Historically inaccurate. And that contributes to what I consider another form of craziness.
I think queers for Palestine is one form of craziness. It's the anti Zionist booth. Those are folks who have no idea of what where their interests are, where their loyalties could be.
And if their friends were successful, things wouldn't go well for them either. There's an Omni gang and yet at that point it wouldn't help them if their friends won, their friends don't like them.
I remember one time after class when they were having a discussion about Israel and the Arab world and whatnot. And the liberal Jewish students, some of them turned out to be quite anti Israel.
And as I was walking across the quad, a Muslim student came over to me and he said this is an embarrassing question. I hope you don't take it the wrong way. But I couldn't understand what those liberal students were talking about.
He said, don't they know we want to kill them all? And I said no, they don't see the world that way. They don't understand. They don't know the history. And he just shook his head and walked away.
So that's something that Jewish various Jewish anti Zionist group members of that group should think about.
Arnold Stricker:That is an excellent point which really reveals the title the New American Antisemitism the Left, the and the Jews. Dr. Benjamin Ginsberg is the author.
He's been our guest and he's going to be speaking at the Arthur Gale series the New American Antisemitism the Left, the Right and the Jews Thursday, November 7th at 1:00pm at the Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum. JCCSTL.com to get more information JCCSTL.com Dr. Ginsburg, you have 30 seconds to talk to someone.
Or let me give you more time, let me give you 60 seconds where somebody brings up they're just not knowledgeable and maybe they're Jewish and everything that you've just said makes sense to Mark and me. I've read the book. It's very enlightening and I really encourage everybody to get a copy of the book and read it.
But you have someone just like that Arab student that you were talking to who just shook his head and can't believe but you're going to talk to that Jewish student. Now what do you tell them?
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:I tell them there's a phrase in Russian politics, you know what that have you ever heard that? I have not, no. But it's what the Soviets used to call the their sympathizers in the wack it means youthful idiot.
Arnold Stricker:Wow.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:So they recorded their sympathizers that their comrades in the United States and in Europe as insidious they were you because they were advocating that would their own destruction. So that's what I tell Jewish students to be aware of. Don't be useful idiots for the Iranians, for the Palestinians and for other antisemitic groups.
Remember who you are.
Arnold Stricker:Great advice. Thank you, sir. I greatly appreciate your time today.
We look forward to you Being at the series on November 7th at 1:00pm thank you again for your time, Dr. Ginsburg.
Dr. Benjamin Ginsburg:Thank you, Thomas.
Mark Langston:Thank you, Doctor. Bye bye bye. Wow, Mark.
Arnold Stricker:It's really an important thought process that he goes into in the book and I want to read the chapter titles because it's very important. First before I read that. The last part of his preface says this. As an author, I'm usually pleased when events prove my points.
th of last year,:He pulled, told the publisher, wait, I need to write something related to that. He goes into a really good history. The chapter titles are this Antisemitism Today.
Three Questions to Ask Antisemites How Antisemitism Became a Progressive Ideology, why the Jews Persist, the Benefits of Philosemitism and Cost of antisemitism. Genesis 12:3 the myth of American Exceptionalism why Are the Jews Still Democrats and New Alliances Jews and the Christian Zionists?
And then he gives some final thoughts on Anti Semitism today. What's Good for the Jews. It's a great book. A lot of references in the back. He has done his research. He's written 30 books.
He's a noted professor and speaker on a variety of things.
If you're interested in why antisemitism is becoming what I would say a little bit more prolific in our country, especially on college campuses, campuses. A great book to get if you're just curious about the whole concept of what's going on.
It's a really essential kind of reading to watch how these cycles occur over the course of history. And he traces some of those things throughout history and throughout different countries. And it's very fascinating and I wish.
Mark Langston:People would pick it up and look at it and read it. I think he said it, maybe you said it earlier in the interview that MAGA folks, they just think maga. They shut out any other conversations.
The same with the left, the liberals. They cut out any other discussion that might enlighten them and make them smarter to these issues.
So I would suggest that people try to open up a little bit and listen to the other side. Take a moment. Because people do get. They go, I'm a staunch Democrat and I don't want to hear anything that the Republicans have to say.
And vice versa for the Republicans, they do the same thing. And I don't understand how anyone can be sympathetic towards a state that is terroristic like Iran is and the Palestinians can be.
Yes, there are kind people. And even Israel, they take things a little too far, I think too. But I don't know how you can be sympathetic to those kind of things.
Arnold Stricker:His point about there's no anti North Korea group or right. Things like that. Other countries that are just totalitarian and totally destroying their people.
And if you look through the course of history, he tracks the Soviet, the old Soviet Union. He talks about Germany and all these influences that. Let's just accept this in to your point, you're exactly right.
We tend to listen in and think in silos. As you drive through the countryside, folks, and you look at especially Illinois or Iowa and there are silos where grain is loaded in.
Sometimes you'll see a track from one silo to another in education and in higher ed and things like that. Even in business, they're still silos. They don't connect to each other.
They might be doing the same kind of research, but they're not talking to each other. So my point is this. Don't be in a silo where that if you're a MAGA person, all you listen to is Fox News. Pull up msnbc, pull up cnn, right?
If you're somebody who's a progressive who just. I'm strictly an MSNBC person, a cnn, pull up Fox News.
As much as these things might grate on you, you may learn and see, get a perspective of what that side is actually thinking. And honestly, the, the people who do those broadcasts, there are very few, what I would call journalists anymore who are doing the news.
And most of those people are independent. They're doing their own stuff now. But it's getting the information and balancing it out.
And I think we've become so hyper emotional in our political culture that we don't have the opportunity to engage the thing that's inside our skull.
Mark Langston:Bravo, Arnold. I should. We should get the applause going here because you're right.
I think there's a lot to be said about if you're a Fox News person, listen to MSNBC and vice versa. I do that. I go and I go, oh my gosh, I'm going to listen to this channel. And I know it's going to be there. But you know what? It is enlightening.
It's good to see how they're looking at things, how they're seeing things through the prism or whatever. But it's a fascinating learning experience to go to the other side, whatever that other side is, and take a look and see what they're doing.
Arnold Stricker:The other thing, I think with individuals who proclaim to be. How do I say this in a nice polite way?
Mark Langston:It's not going to work.
Arnold Stricker:Who proclaim to be journalists is that a real journalist will ask probing questions. A real journalist will pin somebody down and say, you really didn't answer the question. And they'll ask it again because they want an answer.
And many politicians and people who are running for office, and I'm not thinking any of anyone in particular now, they will give a what I would call a gray answer, or it's a fluid answer. In other words, it could be this or it could be this, or could be this, could be this. Whatever.
The way the wind's blowing that day, that's what that answer could be. And one of the reasons is to get elected. But people don't elect people who are blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.
No, the answer is answer the question. So I know where you stand on something, because if you don't stand for something, you fall for anything. How about that one, Mark?
Mark Langston:I like that.
Arnold Stricker:That's not Arnold. I'm just repeating that.
Mark Langston:Yeah, that's good. Now, Dr. Ginsburg also said that a lot of the students now deal with things based on their feelings.
So I wanted to investigate that a little bit with him because there's an old saying too that says your head doesn't hear it until your heart listens to it or something like that. And I'm not sure, maybe we need a little more head thinking than feeling thinking. And don't forget the heart, though. But. So I think there's three.
To me, there's three. There's feelings, there's the heart, and then there's the head. And I think all of them, they need to all work together.
But he says a lot of folks are feeling. Doing the feeling thing.
Arnold Stricker:They do.
Mark Langston:And I don't think they're thinking that through. And maybe they're not feeling it in their heart before they feel it in their head. I don't know.
Arnold Stricker:And these two things 18 inches apart.
Mark Langston:Right.
Arnold Stricker:Really work together. They work extremely well together if you allow it to. Yes, yes. But you have to have the information and you have to want to find.
I'm wondering whether some people just don't want to find out the information because then they would have to make a decision, and then they may lose a group of friends or whatever going on. But it's interesting that after 9 11, there was a lot of what he has referred to in the book and what others refer to as Islamophobia.
And we're Going to get those Arabs, we're going to get those folks that are believing in that. And that kind of has died down. And now it's, let's go after the Jews. Oh, look what Israel's doing. And I'm not saying that bombarding Gaza.
And here's the other things. Are you going to believe Hamas, Right. As it relates to the number of people killed, or are you going to believe Israel?
Mark Langston:Right.
Arnold Stricker:Because those numbers are completely different. Okay, so who do you believe, folks? Who do you believe? Read and do your history again. Back to.
I'm going on my feelings and gee, if I'm watching on Twitter, usually last called Twitter, now called X. If I'm. My feed is giving me stuff coming from Gaza done by some Hamas folks and I'm not listening to the other side. What am I going to believe?
Mark Langston:Right.
Arnold Stricker:Where are we there?
Mark Langston:I know it's. It's a tough, complicated issue.
Arnold Stricker:And when does, when does a country stop attacking another group that's been attacked for over X period of time?
Mark Langston:And I advocate many times, like they should just stop. I think Israel's done enough. I think they've pretty much pushed him away. And then I hear from Hamas, oh, we're not stopping.
We're going to come back and kill you. And we don't care. It's like, how do you rationalize we're not going to stop until it's over?
Arnold Stricker:How do you rationalize in their charter, the destruction of Israel?
Mark Langston:I don't see. That's where it all goes sideways with me.
Arnold Stricker:And it's not a charter of a country. It's a charter of a group who are ruling over people.
Mark Langston:Correct.
Arnold Stricker:Who really don't care for that group ruling over them.
Mark Langston:And. Yeah. And how. And they all go. They can get rid of them. No, it's not that easy.
Arnold Stricker:Same thing with Hezbollah.
Mark Langston:Oh, yeah, not that easy.
Arnold Stricker:It reminded me of the.
Mark Langston:I wish it were that easy.
Arnold Stricker:Yes. It reminds me of the recess playground bully who will push people around on the playground and finally somebody has had enough and kaboom.
And don't do that. Don't do that. Knock it off. Take a little bit. You take a little bit. You get told by the teacher, don't do that. You know, we don't do.
And finally the bully pushes the kid the wrong direction. The kid finally retaliates back and hauls off and belts the kid.
Mark Langston:Wow.
Arnold Stricker:And it's. You could see that one coming, you know, because the kid didn't know when to stop.
Mark Langston:Right.
Arnold Stricker:I don't know.
Mark Langston:There's many examples, I'm afraid of that, where people finally stand up to the bully and then you're not so popular because you're standing up to the bully. What are you doing? I'm standing up to the bully.
Arnold Stricker:Oh, you hurt him.
Mark Langston:I know. He said, yeah, I know. What about the 10 things he did? I did one, they did 20.
Arnold Stricker:I guess the whole conversation we're having today, Mark, is really encouraging people. And this is what the show's about. And you may disagree, folks, with what we're saying, what has been said, who we have on the show.
And I would say this, it's to help you think and if it spurred you to do some extra thinking or disagree, tell me why you disagree with points, not I disagree with you or not that's wrong or you haven't done your homework or whatever. I'm not the end all on this stuff. We're just presenting the information and it's important. The St.
Louis Jewish book Festival has some folks coming in that are really good. He's one of them. And that's one reason wanted to have him on. We had somebody on last week just like that who was talking about some similar topics.
Check things out. I want to encourage you to check out the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival. Jccstl.com look for that.
Mark Langston:Okay. That's good stuff. It's all good stuff.
Arnold Stricker:It is.
Mark Langston:I know it's heavy, but needed. Yes.
Arnold Stricker:A lot of people don't like to have heavy conversations.
Mark Langston:Yeah, but you got to talk about this stuff, folks. Once in a while. You got to bring it out.
Arnold Stricker:You really do.
Mark Langston:Into the daylight. Nothing wrong with bringing things to the daylight.
Arnold Stricker:No, because they're eventually going to come out.
Mark Langston:I know they are. You've been warned.
Arnold Stricker:Yeah, exactly.
Mark Langston:You have been warned.
Arnold Stricker:So do you have some days of the day, Mark?
Mark Langston:Oh, you know what? I didn't even think about that, but I bet I could find some.
Arnold Stricker:You do that. I'm going to read our word for the day, which we haven't done for a long time.
Mark Langston:Wait, what? Okay, go ahead.
Arnold Stricker:I do have a good word. I need to get to my page about that.
Mark Langston:It is National Cat Day, by the way.
Arnold Stricker:National Cat Day.
Mark Langston:Cat Day.
Arnold Stricker:Oh, wow.
Mark Langston:Yeah.
Arnold Stricker:Okay.
Mark Langston:And National Internet Day. National Hermit Day. Ooh, I know.
Arnold Stricker:My cat's a hermit on the Internet.
Mark Langston:Yep. Yep. Huh. National Oatmeal Day. Do you like oatmeal?
Arnold Stricker:I do.
Mark Langston:National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. Oh, it's that you're not supposed to, like, flush that stuff down the toilet. No.
Arnold Stricker:It goes into the water system. Everybody gets high.
Mark Langston:Oh, golly. I know. Holy smokes. Oh, Bob Ross's birthday is today. Oh, do you like Bob Ross?
Arnold Stricker:It's.
Mark Langston:You know, I'm a big fan of Bob Ross now, I guess. To each his own.
Arnold Stricker:I saw something that. I don't know if it's true or not.
It's one of those ex, formerly Twitter things where they take his first picture and they take all his pictures and go all the way through to the end and he's just showing some big scene.
Mark Langston:Oh, nah, I don't believe that either. National Checklist Day. Do you have a checklist? Do you ever go by a checklist?
Arnold Stricker:I do sometimes.
Mark Langston:I should all the time. Let me see. Just a couple more. Let's see. Mischief Night is coming up tomorrow night. National Candy Corn Day will be tomorrow.
Arnold Stricker:Oh, candy corn.
Mark Langston:And let's see. National Speak up for Service Day and National. This goes along with the Cat Day. This will be my last national treat. Your pet Day.
Give your pet a treat.
Arnold Stricker:Do that very often each day.
Mark Langston:Do you get them to shut up?
Arnold Stricker:Yeah, exactly.
Mark Langston:Isn't it?
Arnold Stricker:Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Intransigent. A refusal to compromise or to abandon an often extreme position or attitude.
In other words, you've got this extreme position and you refuse to compromise.
Mark Langston:So I could say you're being very intransigent today to somebody that just doesn't want to compromise.
Arnold Stricker:Right? Like, quick.
Mark Langston:That stop them in their tracks. You intransigent.
Arnold Stricker:You intransigent.
Mark Langston:Intransigent. That's a tough word to say, transcendent.
Arnold Stricker:It is a tough one. All right, all right. I do have some happiness here for our folks. No.
Matter of fact, today I told my boss I was going to the bathroom, but I didn't say which one. Now I'm at home. Then there's a sign outside of a gym. It says, tired of being fat and ugly? Just be ugly. 24 Fitness.
We squint at the sun because it is bright. We squint at people because they are not.
Mark Langston:Oh, I saw a couple of those on the way to work. Okay.
Arnold Stricker:Did you know New York City has enough restaurants for one person to eat at a new spot every night for 22.7 years without repeating a visit.
Mark Langston:Wow. Thank you, New York.
Arnold Stricker:Then there's the dad and the teen daughter. They were sitting down to watch the baseball game. And the dad says, you want to watch the baseball game with me?
And she says, no, I don't like baseball. He said, I didn't like the little Mermaid, but I watched it 1,387 times. Now. Go get your hat and Jersey on.
Mark Langston:Boy, have I been there.
Arnold Stricker:And here's some marriage advice. Your husband is the best person to tell your secrets to. He won't tell anyone because he isn't even listening.
Mark Langston:What'd you say?
Arnold Stricker:And Alaska is so vast and sparsely populated that its population density is roughly equivalent to having 29 people living in Manhattan.
Mark Langston:Wow.
Arnold Stricker:Yeah.
Mark Langston:Wow.
Arnold Stricker:That's crazy.
Mark Langston:That is totally crazy.
Arnold Stricker:That's crazy.
Mark Langston:There's a lot of crazy going on here in this show.
Arnold Stricker:Let's see here. An apple a day keeps anyone away if you throw it hard enough.
Mark Langston:Thank you very much. Wow.
Arnold Stricker:I think my dog always follows me to the bathroom because I always follow him outside, and he thinks that's the way it works.
Mark Langston:That's scary. Just saying.
Arnold Stricker:Just today, my son asked me for whiteout to put over the test questions that he didn't know the answers to. I said, yeah, the teacher won't notice that at all, son.
Mark Langston:Oh, my gosh.
Arnold Stricker:Okay, that's not right. To avoid conversations at work, always walk with a purpose and a toilet plunger.
Mark Langston:That's. Yeah. All right is right.
Arnold Stricker:And folks will leave you with this, that once you understand why the pizza is made round, packed in a square box, and eaten as a triangle, then you will understand women.
Mark Langston:Wow. I love that one. Okay, that works out pretty good.
Arnold Stricker:That's all for this show. We thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can listen to additional shows@stl and tune.com.
consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast, Podchaser, or your preferred podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to grow. I want to thank Bob Berthesell for our theme music, our guest, Dr.
Benjamin Ginsberg, and co host, Mark Langston. We thank you folks, for being a part of our community of curious minds. St. Louis in tune is a production of Motif Media Group and the US Rate Network.
Remember to keep seeking, keep learning, walk worthy, and let your light shine. For St. Louis in tune, I'm Arnold Stricker.
