Gen Z and the Z word
with Blake Flayton
Hello whoever is still left on the side of sanity. This week, we welcome young journalist and activist Blake Flayton, fresh off a ground invasion into academia. He tries to explain to us what is wrong with the kids today, what TikTok and peer pressure has to do with it, and why we need different kinds of Jews on campus.
Blake’s NY Times piece about antisemitism on campus
ICYMI, this week was the March for Israel in DC, and apparently 290,000 were in attendance (or 3, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health).
Our girl CL was the grand marshall of the parade (at least that’s what she told me) and even met some of our lovely listeners on the way. Here are some of our best photos - and one we stole from Tablet.
A very interesting conversation, thank you. If you want to be pro-Palestinian, that's your prerogative, so long as you direct that energy in productive ways. But when you start weaponizing your Jewish identity against your fellow Jews, you deserve to be considered a traitor and pariah within your community.
I enjoyed this interview. Just a couple of thoughts:
Regarding the "A-Y Strategy", my experience is that it begins as an "A-M" strategy where the first half of the causes are relatively anodyne things, and then N-Y are increasingly extreme, fringe things. For example, "it's bad for police to kill unarmed black people" becomes "defund the police and release everyone from prison".
Regarding maliciousness in "Jewish Voices for Peace". I have little-no familiarity with that organization in particular. Speaking generally about similarly progressive organizations though, I think it's entirely possible there are no actually malicious people. Decent people with decent objectives and values can accept some horrific beliefs if they construct an epistemic fortress that enforces ignorance. This was touched on a bit: "Palestinians did something bad, thus they must have had a reason". Relatedly: conflicting evidence, can be dismissed as bigoted propaganda. "The misinformation that Hamas butchered babies is racist and designed to make war crimes against Palestinian people permissible."