January 2, 2026 • 26 mins
In a 2020 interview, journalist Bari Weiss discusses the rise of antisemitism on the right and left and her book, “How to Fight Anti-Semitism.” Weiss details several factors driving antisemitism, including President Trump “dismantling the moral guardrails that keep bigotry down.”
Weiss, a proud Zionist, describes her views on Israel and its government and reflects on the historic claim that both Israelis and Palestinians have to their land.
Weiss–who went on to found the Free Press and take charge of CBS News–commented on her history of generating social media controversy and clashing with progressive critics of Israel like Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Support for Firing Line with Margaret Hoover is provided by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness, Katharine J. Rayner, Lindsay and George Billingsley, The Meadowlark Foundation, and Jared Stone.
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(00:01):
There's a few things that I see happening that create a sort of
Petri dish for anti-Semitism to thrive. 1A sort of post truth
culture aided and abetted by a president who talks about fake
news in which conspiracy theories in general are on the
rise. 2 We're living in an age in which the political center is
(00:22):
not holding. And the last thing I'll say is
technology is the fact that, youknow, a lie can spread around
the world in an instant on social media.
That's Barry Weiss in 2020 reflecting on forces fueling a
rise in anti-Semitism. I'm Margaret Hoover.
(00:42):
This is the FIRING Line podcast.When I spoke to Barry Weiss in
2020, she was an opinion editor and writer for the New York
Times. Months later, she resigned and
went on to found her own opinionwebsite, The Free Press.
Free pressers are people who want to face the truth because
we understand that knowing is the only way to improve lives,
(01:05):
our own and those of our fellow citizens.
That background made her a controversial choice to become
editor in chief of CBS News under Paramounts new owner,
billionaire David Ellison. I'm now editor in chief of CBS
News, working with new colleagues on the programs that
have impacted American culture for generations.
Here's what Barry Weiss had to say in 2020 about anti-Semitism
(01:28):
on the right and about Donald Trump.
He has made things that were rightly a few years ago,
unsayable and unacceptable, sayable and acceptable, and that
has LED, I believe, to a domino effect culturally.
And here's what she said then about the danger posed by
anti-Semitism on the left. When it comes to the left, it
comes cloaked in the language that, frankly, is a siren song
(01:52):
to American Jewish ears. And when we hear someone talking
about cloaking a political project in the language of
progress, of social justice, of anti racism, of civil rights,
well, those are the things we want to be a part of.
Very wise. Welcome to Firing Line.
Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.
(02:12):
You have recently published a book, How to Fight
anti-Semitism, and in Full disclosure, you and I have known
each other for a couple of yearsnow.
Yeah, you grew up in Pittsburgh.Yes, you.
I spent a year in Israel abroad before you attended Columbia
University, where you were a proIsrael activist on campus.
As someone who has made a careerout of writing opinions, I think
(02:34):
you've also elicited many strongopinions, and we'll get to that
later. Sure, but first I'd like to
start with October 27th, 2018. Yeah.
So that's a date that for anyonewho's from Pittsburgh and, of
course, the Pittsburgh Jewish community, it's a date that's
emblazoned on our brains like 911 is on the national
(02:55):
consciousness. That was the morning that a
white supremacist named Robert Bowers walked into Tree of Life,
which is the synagogue where in 1997 I became a bat mitzvah.
He said all these Jews need to die and then he tried to kill as
many Jews as he could. So you've written about the
massacre, particularly that before that you had felt that
(03:15):
the United States provided a safe haven for Jews.
Yeah, I mean, it's funny when I say that as someone who's now
studied pretty deeply the history of Jew hatred, because
it's not as if America was inoculated from Jew hatred.
You had Henry Ford, who used hisnewspaper, the Dearborn
Independent to promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theories
(03:36):
like the Jews were behind World War.
One, how your innocence was shattered that day, and yes, how
how safe you felt Jews could be and yes.
I mean, I was raised on the ideathat America was unique in
history, not just for Jews, but for all of history.
The fact that America's foundersdidn't see Jew for all of their
(03:56):
flaws, right? And we don't need to go into
them. But for all of their flaws, that
they didn't see Jews as second class citizens, George
Washington wrote in 1790 to the first Jewish community of the
country in Rhode Island that they would enjoy not just mere
tolerance but possess full citizenship in America.
You know, I was raised, my dad would always tell us on Passover
(04:17):
that Benjamin Franklin wanted the image on the great seal of
this country to be Moses crossing the Red Sea.
In other words, the founders sawthemselves as the new Israelites
enacting a new exodus, and they were in thrall to the very
stories that Judaism is based on.
But do you doubt that idea now? I don't doubt the history of
(04:39):
that and the history of that exceptionalism.
What I doubt is the idea that that means that Jew hatred
cannot take root here. I no longer am of the illusion
that we're somehow exceptional in history.
I'm no longer of the view that America is somehow protected not
just from the virus of anti-Semitism, but protected
(05:01):
from the virus, I would say, of anti liberalism that we see
taking root in so much of our. Politics.
So clearly this event was a watershed moment for you
personally and it directed you towards writing this book.
Yeah, looking back, there were things that happened to me that
are just very clearly symptoms of anti-Semitism, meaning I
(05:23):
remember waiting at the school bus with my second sister,
waiting to get on the school busand.
The. Catholic school bus would ride
by and they would scream kikes and dirty Jews.
And things certainly happened tome when I was a student at
Columbia University under the guise of anti Zionism.
But because I was so steeped in this, you know, myth that
(05:45):
America was unique in history and unique for the Jews and the
best I asked for experience we've ever had.
And by the way, that last part is still true, still true.
But all of those, the, the pointis that all of those things kind
of rolled off my back. I saw them as vestiges of an
uglier time. And that those people who were
expressing those views were somehow fundamentally out of
(06:08):
sync with America itself. I can no longer confidently say
that in the same way so. One of the things that struck me
about how you've characterized anti-Semitism is that you've
called it a global conspiracy theory.
Yes, that is different from xenophobia or racism and I'd
love for you to help me understand.
Sure, the racist sees themselvesas punching down.
(06:30):
There's not a racist around probably that you can find that
would suggest that black people are the secret hand that
controls the world. They would just say black
people, brown people, immigrants, as the xenophobe
would say that they're subhuman,right?
What the anti semite is saying, what the Jew hater is saying, is
that there is a secret hand controlling the world and that
(06:50):
secret hand is the Jew. And so the Jew becomes something
not just subhuman, but almost like anti human.
And that, I think, is a very important distinction.
They see themselves as punching up, yes.
But the irony, of course, is that by all accounts, you know,
we are an oppressed minority. And yet, because of the
(07:13):
incredible success we've been able to attain in this
exceptional country, anti Semites see themselves as
punching up. According to the Anti Defamation
League, anti-Semitic incidents have increased more than 150%
between 2013 and 2018. Two of the highest three years
on record were 2017 and 2018, two years in Donald Trump's
presidency. You've you've written that the
(07:36):
rule of thumb is that anti-Semitism rises at times of
great insecurity and upheaval. Yes, we have a we have a perfect
storm right now in this country.Tell me why.
Well, there's a. There's a few few things that I
see happening that create a a sort of Petri dish for
anti-Semitism to thrive. 1A sortof post truth culture aided and
(07:59):
abetted by a president who talksabout fake news in which
conspiracy theories in general are on the rise.
And of course, as we just discussed, you know the key
conspiracy theory is the conspiracy theory of the Jew
controlling the world anti-Semitism of over and above
anything else. If your viewers walk away with
one thing, it's the idea that it's an ever morphing conspiracy
(08:20):
theory that knows no political class, no color, no economic
class. It can take root and has in
every culture all over the world.
So that's 1-2. We're living in an age in which
the political centre is not holding.
Instead what we see is the rise of neo isolationism and populism
on the far right and in the far left.
(08:41):
Populism in general is somethingunderstandable in a time of
incredible economic inequality, which by the way, another reason
for the rise of anti-Semitism often happens in a time of
economic upheaval. But populism in general is not a
very good thing for the Jews. And the last thing I'll say is
technology is the fact that, youknow, a lie can spread around
(09:03):
the world in a second and conspiracy thinking and you
know, the all of the rest can can just spread around in an
instant on social media. You've taken some time to sort
of characterize anti-Semitism asit reveals itself on the right
and on the left and let's just start with the right.
Sure. The kind of anti-Semitism that
(09:26):
we saw during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville
in 2017 where neo Nazis and white supremacists gathered
around a rally. I want you to take a look at
something from that you've written about.
Sure. So you've written about the line
(09:47):
Jews will not replace and replacement theory on the.
Right. They're screaming Jews will not
replace us. Well, at first, I have to tell
you, when I heard that, this wastwo years ago now, I've been
disabused, I thought what they were saying was something very
straightforward. I thought what they were saying
was the Jew is not going to. I thought it was anti-Semitic,
but I thought it was straightforward in the sense of
the Jews not going to take my place in a university, in the
(10:11):
corner office at a law firm. Go down the line.
Really, what they're talking about is the conspiracy theory
that we were talking about before.
In this disgusting view of the world, the Jews are the greatest
trick the devil has ever, ever played.
We pass as white, we look as white, and therefore we trick
white people into thinking this is their view, not mine, that we
(10:33):
are of them and are making common cause with them.
Instead, what we really are is slavishly loyal to immigrant
groups, to Muslim groups, to black people, to brown people,
and all of the other minorities in this country that the racists
on that screen believe are sullying the true nature of
America. So, I mean, I know that you've
(10:54):
said that you don't think that President Trump is anti-Semitic,
but you've also said that anti Semites and frankly white
supremacists find safe harbor insome of his actions and his
rhetoric. Oh yeah.
When I've said Donald Trump isn't an anti semite or whatever
I've said in the past. And what I mean to say is only I
don't know what's in his heart anymore than I know what's in
(11:17):
yours, although I know you, so Ido.
But in what I what I mean to sayis it's sort of irrelevant.
What I know is that we have a president who, as my colleague
Brett Stevens has perfectly written, he is dismantling the
moral guardrails that keep bigotry down.
When he talks about the enemies of the people, when he talks
about globalists, there is a reason that anti Semites, like
(11:40):
the people in that clip are drawn to his banner.
He is playing all of the major chords that anti Semites are
drawn to. And so, you know, and I'll go
further than that when he says things about the members of the
squad, people like Rasheeda Talei and Ilhan Omar and AOC and
Ayanna Presley, people that I disagree with vehemently on any
(12:01):
number of policies, but people who are American either by birth
or by citizenship and have pledged an oath to uphold the
Constitution. When he says of those people
that they need to go back to thetotally broken and crime
infested places from which they came, he is playing on one of
the oldest anti Jewish tropes, which is this notion of dual
(12:25):
loyalty and a provisional belonging.
And so when I, as a Jew, hear him saying that, I hear one of
the oldest, most insidious tropes that has led to the mass
murder of my people. Do you think it's an accident or
a coincidence that incidents of violence against Jews have gone
(12:48):
up under his presidency? No, of course not.
He has made things that were rightly a few years ago,
unsayable and unacceptable, sayable and acceptable, and that
has LED, I believe, to a domino effect culturally.
So all right, I want to search to the left then, because it
might surprise people given whatyou've said about anti-Semitism
on the right, page for page in your book, you actually spend a
(13:10):
lot more time on the left and anti-Semitism as it's embedded
in the left. You write that anti-Semitism
that originates on the left is more insidious and perhaps more
existentially dangerous than right wing anti-Semitism.
So help me understand that. Look, first of all, I've written
a tremendous amount about anti-Semitism from the right.
(13:31):
I and I know without going into detail in my own life how much I
fear the violence of the anti-Semitism of the far right.
Those are the people that want to kill me and those are the
people that want to kill my family.
The difference, so to speak, is that they announce it.
They don't try and pretend to besomething that they aren't.
They go in to a synagogue and they say all Jews need to die.
(13:53):
When it comes to the left, and the reason I think it is more
difficult, becomes cloaked in the language that frankly is a
siren song to American Jewish ears and which are liberal ears.
75% of American Jews identify asliberal.
And when we hear someone talkingabout cloaking, cloaking a
political project in the language of progress, of social
(14:15):
justice, of anti racism, of civil rights, well, those are
the things we want to be a part of.
Let me give you an example. On the left we had Tamika
Mallory, one of the Co leaders of the Women's March, Co
founders of the Women March on this program and here's what she
had to say about Israel the. Palestinians are native to the
land. You know, they were there for a
very long time and so they're native to the land.
(14:36):
Do you feel that the Jewish people are native as well?
I mean, I know, I understand thehistory that, you know, that
there are people who have a number of sort of ideologies
around why the Jewish people feel this should be their land.
I'm not Jewish, so for me to speak to that is not.
(14:57):
Fair. If you're willing to say that
the Palestinians are native but not the Jews are native.
I mean, you're not Palestinian. Either because I'm Speaking of
the people who we know are beingbrutally oppressed in this
moment. That's just the reality.
The idea that it's simply ideology that connects Jews to
the land of Israel is belied by all of history, by archaeology,
(15:21):
by literal things that are stillbeing dug out of the ground, and
by what Jews frankly pray for three times a day, which is a
yearning to return to Jerusalem.Now, it's having said all of
that, I believe deeply in the Palestinian right to self
determination. I believe that the Jewish state
cannot maintain its Jewish and democratic character without
(15:44):
that. So I will echo Tamika Mallory in
the sense that I will never sit here and deny that the Arabs who
are living in that land, the Palestinians don't also have a
right to that land. But it's simply a lie of
history. It's revisionist to suggest that
the Jews don't have an indigenous claim to the land of
Israel. You identify as a Zionist, Yes.
Can you define Zionism for us? Sure, it's very straightforward.
(16:07):
To me, it is the belief in the Jewish right to self
determination somewhere in our historic homeland between the
Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Unfortunately, Zionism itself isa word that has sort of become a
dirty word. One example that will always
stick out to me given the fact that you showed the
Charlottesville clip. There was a in the wake of this
(16:27):
Unite the Right March, there wasa minority student coalition
that was formed at the University of Virginia and all
the groups were allowed except for the Jewish groups.
Why? Because they were Zionists?
Because they were on the side ofthe oppressors.
Because oppressors have no placein a coalition of the oppressed.
Now that is a very rich thing, given that the people who
(16:48):
marched in Charlottesville were anti Semites.
Shouting Jews will not replace us.
There's a canard that's often used on the left that any
criticism of Israel is accused of being anti-Semitism.
If that were true, I would be ananti Semite many times over,
including in the pages of the New York Times.
I am deeply critical of the policies of the Netanyahu
(17:10):
government and of lots of policies currently enforced in
the state of Israel, just as I am deeply critical of policies
of the Trump White House and of the American.
Government. So you can be a Zionist and
still be critical of the state of Israel.
I think it. Is in fact a Zionist position,
just as I think it is the position of an American patriot
(17:31):
to want America to live up to its ideals.
So I think it is an expression of my Zionism to criticize
Israel. Now the, the, the way that that
becomes complicated is the people that say because Israel
has all of these flaws, it doesn't have a right to exist
when you never hear them saying that about, I don't know, China,
(17:51):
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and even this country.
So that there's a very clear line to me of where it crosses
the line into anti-Semitism. Let's talk about where
anti-Semitism has appeared on the left in Congress.
There's been a long history of tweets and exchanges between you
and Representative Ilhan Omar. She tweeted years ago before she
(18:14):
ever ran for Congress. Israel has hypnotized the world
may allow awaken the people and help them see evil doings of
Israel and that too. It was then taken down but
reemerge in an interview she didon CNN.
Why is the word hypnotized so problematic?
Because the idea of the Jew as capable of hypnotizing the
world, as she put it, the idea that the Jew somehow has this
(18:39):
unbelievable superhuman power and ability not just to persuade
people, but to hypnotize them, that is sort of the template,
right? That is sort of the template for
the Jew as the duplicitous manipulator, the evil puppeteer.
Then you have the demonology right now on the far right of
people like George Soros, Lloyd Blankfein, all of the rest,
(19:01):
these evil Jewish bankers is pulling the levers of power for
their own benefit. And I would argue that what you
see in that Ilhan Omar tweet is that she is using Israel as a
stand in for that. That the sort of the in certain
ways the biggest Jew in the demonology of modern
anti-Semitism is the Jewish state.
And she's saying that Israel hashypnotized the world.
(19:22):
So when she came under fire for that 2012 tweet, here's what she
said on CNN. Nii don't know how my comments
would be offensive to to Jewish Americans.
My comments governments precisely are addressing what
was happening during the the Gaza war, and I am clearly
speaking about the way that the Israeli regime was conducting
(19:47):
itself in in that war. We don't usually talk about
democratically elected governments as regimes, first of
all, but the thing I'll add is the reason that I.
Wrote a column about her statements and reached out to
her. Is, I believe, very, very
strongly in giving people the benefit of the doubt and giving
(20:09):
them the most generous read until proven.
Otherwise. But right after that clip, you
wrote the column she tweeted at you.
Hey, Barry Weiss. Yes.
In all sincerity, it was after my CNN interview that I heard
from Jewish organizations that my use of the word hypnotize and
the ugly sentiment it holds was offensive.
So did anything come of the exchange between the two of you?
(20:31):
I had hoped that it would. I extended an invitation for her
to come to The New York Times and talk to me and talk to my
colleagues about certainly abouther views on Israel and the
Jewish people, but also more broadly, like what is her?
What is her view of where the Democratic Party should be
going? I see a Democratic Party where
(20:52):
the winds are at the backs of people like Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan
Omar and AOC, and I want a senseof where they think the party is
going. But unfortunately she didn't
come in. One of the most enduring
anti-Semitic tropes is that the Jews are not completely loyal to
the United States of America. We mentioned this earlier that
they hold dual nationality or dual loyalty, and this came up
(21:14):
in an original firing line with William F Buckley Junior when he
hosted Stephen Isaacs in 1974. I'd like to show you clip of
that and and how Buckley dealt with anti-Semitism.
Let's take a look. There's nothing wrong with a
lobby. It's OK for the oil industry to
have a lobby in the United States or for the dairy farmers
where it becomes this is a classic anti-Semitism if you
(21:35):
will. It becomes different if suddenly
it's Jews doing it. No one screamed when Italians
put heavy pressure on our government to get to more
Italians in the United States many years ago.
Oh, yes, it did. The Congress did.
Well, I mean, native refused to pass the law, right?
But nativism is an old American thing.
(21:56):
But, but people weren't suggesting suggesting something
invidious. They weren't suggesting dual
nationality, which is always thethreat that bothers Jews.
Jews have sort of an ingrain, you know, this Jewish radar
which says, there they go, they're getting us for dual
nationality. Again, American Jews are
American Jews, but they have other interests, and they worry
(22:19):
when those interests are looked upon as something evil.
Is this something you've seen? I love that clip.
I mean, William F Buckley was soimportant on the right in his
time, especially at National Review.
When you talk about guardrails and keeping the guardrails of
civilization up, he absolutely prohibited anti-Semitism on the
(22:39):
page. Yes, I mean, so most famously
there was an employee, Joe Sobrin.
And for viewers who are interested, look him up.
He was a very hardcore anti semite and Buckley fired him.
And then he goes on to write this 40,000 word essay called In
Search of anti-Semitism, about anti-Semitism of the right in
the person of Sobrin. But also in the case of someone
(23:01):
like Pat Buchanan, someone who was until very recently
considered a very fringe marginal figure and whose idea,
as you could say, have found somewhat of a home in Trumpism.
When I think about how responsible adults behave in
moments like this, or in the face of bigotry and Jew hatred,
even at considerable cost, like I think about Buckley.
(23:23):
Well, so let me take that and give you a counterfactual.
President Trump in April of 2019, while speaking at the RJC,
the Republican Jewish Coalition,to a room full of American Jews,
said this. I stood with your Prime Minister
at the White House to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the
(23:44):
Golan Heights. Yeah.
So your president, your Prime Minister, this is the horrible
situation the president has put American Jews in.
He can stand in front of a room of American Jews and say, I've
given you all of these policies with regard to Israel that you
or even the executive order on college campuses that a lot of
(24:06):
American Jews support. And yet at the same time, he is
creating both in his word and the signals he sends.
I mean, I would say dog whistles.
It's beyond that. It's just the dog.
Like it's not subtle. It's not subtle.
He's creating an atmosphere thatis incredibly dangerous for us.
But you did write that Donald Trump is a Philo Semite.
What is that? Well.
So a Philo Semite, like in the way that my dad thinks about it,
(24:28):
is someone who loves the Jews. But there's someone who said
that, and I thought this was brilliant, that Donald Trump
thinks all of the bad stereotypes about the Jews are
true. He just thinks they're good
things. He thinks that we're greedy,
that we're power hungry, that like we control the levers of
power. All the rest.
Values he shares aspires to. Exactly.
(24:48):
So you yourself, because of yourstrong views and because of of
your heartfelt positions that you articulate so effectively,
have been in the middle of firestorms, Twitter firestorms,
and much controversy around yourstatements and your positions.
What is it like being in the middle of these kind of
(25:09):
controversies? Well, look, there are
controversies that are good and intended, and there are ones
that are not intended that are tripping into landmines.
I don't think I've tripped on a landmine in quite a while.
But I will say that those suck. And there's just no way to lie
to you about that. Like, it's a terrible thing.
And Twitter, I think in a lot ofways elicits the worst impulses
(25:33):
in all of us. But when I create a controversy
because I've, you know, afflicted the comfortable, I'm
really happy about that. When I create controversy
because I am willing to be different and think differently
and express those views, I'm really, really proud of that.
(25:54):
And I have to tell you that one thing that helps me in those
moments is it will sound cheesy maybe, but a sense of how lucky
I am in the in history and especially in Jewish history.
And the fact that I have the ability as a Jewish woman, as a
Zionist, and as a feminist to walk into every room and never
check those identities at any door I walk through.
(26:17):
That is a reality that would have been unimaginable, not just
to my ancestors, to my grandmother.
And so when I keep that in mind,like, I'm sorry, but then like
Twitter stuff becomes like nothing.
Barry Weiss, thank you for sharing your views and for
coming to Firing Line. Thank you.
So. Much, Margaret.
Thank you.
There's a few things that I see happening that create a sort of
Petri dish for anti-Semitism to thrive. 1A sort of post truth
culture aided and abetted by a president who talks about fake
news in which conspiracy theories in general are on the
rise. 2 We're living in an age in which the political center is
(00:22):
not holding. And the last thing I'll say is
technology is the fact that, youknow, a lie can spread around
the world in an instant on social media.
That's Barry Weiss in 2020 reflecting on forces fueling a
rise in anti-Semitism. I'm Margaret Hoover.
(00:42):
This is the FIRING Line podcast.When I spoke to Barry Weiss in
2020, she was an opinion editor and writer for the New York
Times. Months later, she resigned and
went on to found her own opinionwebsite, The Free Press.
Free pressers are people who want to face the truth because
we understand that knowing is the only way to improve lives,
(01:05):
our own and those of our fellow citizens.
That background made her a controversial choice to become
editor in chief of CBS News under Paramounts new owner,
billionaire David Ellison. I'm now editor in chief of CBS
News, working with new colleagues on the programs that
have impacted American culture for generations.
Here's what Barry Weiss had to say in 2020 about anti-Semitism
(01:28):
on the right and about Donald Trump.
He has made things that were rightly a few years ago,
unsayable and unacceptable, sayable and acceptable, and that
has LED, I believe, to a domino effect culturally.
And here's what she said then about the danger posed by
anti-Semitism on the left. When it comes to the left, it
comes cloaked in the language that, frankly, is a siren song
(01:52):
to American Jewish ears. And when we hear someone talking
about cloaking a political project in the language of
progress, of social justice, of anti racism, of civil rights,
well, those are the things we want to be a part of.
Very wise. Welcome to Firing Line.
Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.
(02:12):
You have recently published a book, How to Fight
anti-Semitism, and in Full disclosure, you and I have known
each other for a couple of yearsnow.
Yeah, you grew up in Pittsburgh.Yes, you.
I spent a year in Israel abroad before you attended Columbia
University, where you were a proIsrael activist on campus.
As someone who has made a careerout of writing opinions, I think
(02:34):
you've also elicited many strongopinions, and we'll get to that
later. Sure, but first I'd like to
start with October 27th, 2018. Yeah.
So that's a date that for anyonewho's from Pittsburgh and, of
course, the Pittsburgh Jewish community, it's a date that's
emblazoned on our brains like 911 is on the national
(02:55):
consciousness. That was the morning that a
white supremacist named Robert Bowers walked into Tree of Life,
which is the synagogue where in 1997 I became a bat mitzvah.
He said all these Jews need to die and then he tried to kill as
many Jews as he could. So you've written about the
massacre, particularly that before that you had felt that
(03:15):
the United States provided a safe haven for Jews.
Yeah, I mean, it's funny when I say that as someone who's now
studied pretty deeply the history of Jew hatred, because
it's not as if America was inoculated from Jew hatred.
You had Henry Ford, who used hisnewspaper, the Dearborn
Independent to promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theories
(03:36):
like the Jews were behind World War.
One, how your innocence was shattered that day, and yes, how
how safe you felt Jews could be and yes.
I mean, I was raised on the ideathat America was unique in
history, not just for Jews, but for all of history.
The fact that America's foundersdidn't see Jew for all of their
(03:56):
flaws, right? And we don't need to go into
them. But for all of their flaws, that
they didn't see Jews as second class citizens, George
Washington wrote in 1790 to the first Jewish community of the
country in Rhode Island that they would enjoy not just mere
tolerance but possess full citizenship in America.
You know, I was raised, my dad would always tell us on Passover
(04:17):
that Benjamin Franklin wanted the image on the great seal of
this country to be Moses crossing the Red Sea.
In other words, the founders sawthemselves as the new Israelites
enacting a new exodus, and they were in thrall to the very
stories that Judaism is based on.
But do you doubt that idea now? I don't doubt the history of
(04:39):
that and the history of that exceptionalism.
What I doubt is the idea that that means that Jew hatred
cannot take root here. I no longer am of the illusion
that we're somehow exceptional in history.
I'm no longer of the view that America is somehow protected not
just from the virus of anti-Semitism, but protected
(05:01):
from the virus, I would say, of anti liberalism that we see
taking root in so much of our. Politics.
So clearly this event was a watershed moment for you
personally and it directed you towards writing this book.
Yeah, looking back, there were things that happened to me that
are just very clearly symptoms of anti-Semitism, meaning I
(05:23):
remember waiting at the school bus with my second sister,
waiting to get on the school busand.
The. Catholic school bus would ride
by and they would scream kikes and dirty Jews.
And things certainly happened tome when I was a student at
Columbia University under the guise of anti Zionism.
But because I was so steeped in this, you know, myth that
(05:45):
America was unique in history and unique for the Jews and the
best I asked for experience we've ever had.
And by the way, that last part is still true, still true.
But all of those, the, the pointis that all of those things kind
of rolled off my back. I saw them as vestiges of an
uglier time. And that those people who were
expressing those views were somehow fundamentally out of
(06:08):
sync with America itself. I can no longer confidently say
that in the same way so. One of the things that struck me
about how you've characterized anti-Semitism is that you've
called it a global conspiracy theory.
Yes, that is different from xenophobia or racism and I'd
love for you to help me understand.
Sure, the racist sees themselvesas punching down.
(06:30):
There's not a racist around probably that you can find that
would suggest that black people are the secret hand that
controls the world. They would just say black
people, brown people, immigrants, as the xenophobe
would say that they're subhuman,right?
What the anti semite is saying, what the Jew hater is saying, is
that there is a secret hand controlling the world and that
(06:50):
secret hand is the Jew. And so the Jew becomes something
not just subhuman, but almost like anti human.
And that, I think, is a very important distinction.
They see themselves as punching up, yes.
But the irony, of course, is that by all accounts, you know,
we are an oppressed minority. And yet, because of the
(07:13):
incredible success we've been able to attain in this
exceptional country, anti Semites see themselves as
punching up. According to the Anti Defamation
League, anti-Semitic incidents have increased more than 150%
between 2013 and 2018. Two of the highest three years
on record were 2017 and 2018, two years in Donald Trump's
presidency. You've you've written that the
(07:36):
rule of thumb is that anti-Semitism rises at times of
great insecurity and upheaval. Yes, we have a we have a perfect
storm right now in this country.Tell me why.
Well, there's a. There's a few few things that I
see happening that create a a sort of Petri dish for
anti-Semitism to thrive. 1A sortof post truth culture aided and
(07:59):
abetted by a president who talksabout fake news in which
conspiracy theories in general are on the rise.
And of course, as we just discussed, you know the key
conspiracy theory is the conspiracy theory of the Jew
controlling the world anti-Semitism of over and above
anything else. If your viewers walk away with
one thing, it's the idea that it's an ever morphing conspiracy
(08:20):
theory that knows no political class, no color, no economic
class. It can take root and has in
every culture all over the world.
So that's 1-2. We're living in an age in which
the political centre is not holding.
Instead what we see is the rise of neo isolationism and populism
on the far right and in the far left.
(08:41):
Populism in general is somethingunderstandable in a time of
incredible economic inequality, which by the way, another reason
for the rise of anti-Semitism often happens in a time of
economic upheaval. But populism in general is not a
very good thing for the Jews. And the last thing I'll say is
technology is the fact that, youknow, a lie can spread around
(09:03):
the world in a second and conspiracy thinking and you
know, the all of the rest can can just spread around in an
instant on social media. You've taken some time to sort
of characterize anti-Semitism asit reveals itself on the right
and on the left and let's just start with the right.
Sure. The kind of anti-Semitism that
(09:26):
we saw during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville
in 2017 where neo Nazis and white supremacists gathered
around a rally. I want you to take a look at
something from that you've written about.
Sure. So you've written about the line
(09:47):
Jews will not replace and replacement theory on the.
Right. They're screaming Jews will not
replace us. Well, at first, I have to tell
you, when I heard that, this wastwo years ago now, I've been
disabused, I thought what they were saying was something very
straightforward. I thought what they were saying
was the Jew is not going to. I thought it was anti-Semitic,
but I thought it was straightforward in the sense of
the Jews not going to take my place in a university, in the
(10:11):
corner office at a law firm. Go down the line.
Really, what they're talking about is the conspiracy theory
that we were talking about before.
In this disgusting view of the world, the Jews are the greatest
trick the devil has ever, ever played.
We pass as white, we look as white, and therefore we trick
white people into thinking this is their view, not mine, that we
(10:33):
are of them and are making common cause with them.
Instead, what we really are is slavishly loyal to immigrant
groups, to Muslim groups, to black people, to brown people,
and all of the other minorities in this country that the racists
on that screen believe are sullying the true nature of
America. So, I mean, I know that you've
(10:54):
said that you don't think that President Trump is anti-Semitic,
but you've also said that anti Semites and frankly white
supremacists find safe harbor insome of his actions and his
rhetoric. Oh yeah.
When I've said Donald Trump isn't an anti semite or whatever
I've said in the past. And what I mean to say is only I
don't know what's in his heart anymore than I know what's in
(11:17):
yours, although I know you, so Ido.
But in what I what I mean to sayis it's sort of irrelevant.
What I know is that we have a president who, as my colleague
Brett Stevens has perfectly written, he is dismantling the
moral guardrails that keep bigotry down.
When he talks about the enemies of the people, when he talks
about globalists, there is a reason that anti Semites, like
(11:40):
the people in that clip are drawn to his banner.
He is playing all of the major chords that anti Semites are
drawn to. And so, you know, and I'll go
further than that when he says things about the members of the
squad, people like Rasheeda Talei and Ilhan Omar and AOC and
Ayanna Presley, people that I disagree with vehemently on any
(12:01):
number of policies, but people who are American either by birth
or by citizenship and have pledged an oath to uphold the
Constitution. When he says of those people
that they need to go back to thetotally broken and crime
infested places from which they came, he is playing on one of
the oldest anti Jewish tropes, which is this notion of dual
(12:25):
loyalty and a provisional belonging.
And so when I, as a Jew, hear him saying that, I hear one of
the oldest, most insidious tropes that has led to the mass
murder of my people. Do you think it's an accident or
a coincidence that incidents of violence against Jews have gone
(12:48):
up under his presidency? No, of course not.
He has made things that were rightly a few years ago,
unsayable and unacceptable, sayable and acceptable, and that
has LED, I believe, to a domino effect culturally.
So all right, I want to search to the left then, because it
might surprise people given whatyou've said about anti-Semitism
on the right, page for page in your book, you actually spend a
(13:10):
lot more time on the left and anti-Semitism as it's embedded
in the left. You write that anti-Semitism
that originates on the left is more insidious and perhaps more
existentially dangerous than right wing anti-Semitism.
So help me understand that. Look, first of all, I've written
a tremendous amount about anti-Semitism from the right.
(13:31):
I and I know without going into detail in my own life how much I
fear the violence of the anti-Semitism of the far right.
Those are the people that want to kill me and those are the
people that want to kill my family.
The difference, so to speak, is that they announce it.
They don't try and pretend to besomething that they aren't.
They go in to a synagogue and they say all Jews need to die.
(13:53):
When it comes to the left, and the reason I think it is more
difficult, becomes cloaked in the language that frankly is a
siren song to American Jewish ears and which are liberal ears.
75% of American Jews identify asliberal.
And when we hear someone talkingabout cloaking, cloaking a
political project in the language of progress, of social
(14:15):
justice, of anti racism, of civil rights, well, those are
the things we want to be a part of.
Let me give you an example. On the left we had Tamika
Mallory, one of the Co leaders of the Women's March, Co
founders of the Women March on this program and here's what she
had to say about Israel the. Palestinians are native to the
land. You know, they were there for a
very long time and so they're native to the land.
(14:36):
Do you feel that the Jewish people are native as well?
I mean, I know, I understand thehistory that, you know, that
there are people who have a number of sort of ideologies
around why the Jewish people feel this should be their land.
I'm not Jewish, so for me to speak to that is not.
(14:57):
Fair. If you're willing to say that
the Palestinians are native but not the Jews are native.
I mean, you're not Palestinian. Either because I'm Speaking of
the people who we know are beingbrutally oppressed in this
moment. That's just the reality.
The idea that it's simply ideology that connects Jews to
the land of Israel is belied by all of history, by archaeology,
(15:21):
by literal things that are stillbeing dug out of the ground, and
by what Jews frankly pray for three times a day, which is a
yearning to return to Jerusalem.Now, it's having said all of
that, I believe deeply in the Palestinian right to self
determination. I believe that the Jewish state
cannot maintain its Jewish and democratic character without
(15:44):
that. So I will echo Tamika Mallory in
the sense that I will never sit here and deny that the Arabs who
are living in that land, the Palestinians don't also have a
right to that land. But it's simply a lie of
history. It's revisionist to suggest that
the Jews don't have an indigenous claim to the land of
Israel. You identify as a Zionist, Yes.
Can you define Zionism for us? Sure, it's very straightforward.
(16:07):
To me, it is the belief in the Jewish right to self
determination somewhere in our historic homeland between the
Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Unfortunately, Zionism itself isa word that has sort of become a
dirty word. One example that will always
stick out to me given the fact that you showed the
Charlottesville clip. There was a in the wake of this
(16:27):
Unite the Right March, there wasa minority student coalition
that was formed at the University of Virginia and all
the groups were allowed except for the Jewish groups.
Why? Because they were Zionists?
Because they were on the side ofthe oppressors.
Because oppressors have no placein a coalition of the oppressed.
Now that is a very rich thing, given that the people who
(16:48):
marched in Charlottesville were anti Semites.
Shouting Jews will not replace us.
There's a canard that's often used on the left that any
criticism of Israel is accused of being anti-Semitism.
If that were true, I would be ananti Semite many times over,
including in the pages of the New York Times.
I am deeply critical of the policies of the Netanyahu
(17:10):
government and of lots of policies currently enforced in
the state of Israel, just as I am deeply critical of policies
of the Trump White House and of the American.
Government. So you can be a Zionist and
still be critical of the state of Israel.
I think it. Is in fact a Zionist position,
just as I think it is the position of an American patriot
(17:31):
to want America to live up to its ideals.
So I think it is an expression of my Zionism to criticize
Israel. Now the, the, the way that that
becomes complicated is the people that say because Israel
has all of these flaws, it doesn't have a right to exist
when you never hear them saying that about, I don't know, China,
(17:51):
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and even this country.
So that there's a very clear line to me of where it crosses
the line into anti-Semitism. Let's talk about where
anti-Semitism has appeared on the left in Congress.
There's been a long history of tweets and exchanges between you
and Representative Ilhan Omar. She tweeted years ago before she
(18:14):
ever ran for Congress. Israel has hypnotized the world
may allow awaken the people and help them see evil doings of
Israel and that too. It was then taken down but
reemerge in an interview she didon CNN.
Why is the word hypnotized so problematic?
Because the idea of the Jew as capable of hypnotizing the
world, as she put it, the idea that the Jew somehow has this
(18:39):
unbelievable superhuman power and ability not just to persuade
people, but to hypnotize them, that is sort of the template,
right? That is sort of the template for
the Jew as the duplicitous manipulator, the evil puppeteer.
Then you have the demonology right now on the far right of
people like George Soros, Lloyd Blankfein, all of the rest,
(19:01):
these evil Jewish bankers is pulling the levers of power for
their own benefit. And I would argue that what you
see in that Ilhan Omar tweet is that she is using Israel as a
stand in for that. That the sort of the in certain
ways the biggest Jew in the demonology of modern
anti-Semitism is the Jewish state.
And she's saying that Israel hashypnotized the world.
(19:22):
So when she came under fire for that 2012 tweet, here's what she
said on CNN. Nii don't know how my comments
would be offensive to to Jewish Americans.
My comments governments precisely are addressing what
was happening during the the Gaza war, and I am clearly
speaking about the way that the Israeli regime was conducting
(19:47):
itself in in that war. We don't usually talk about
democratically elected governments as regimes, first of
all, but the thing I'll add is the reason that I.
Wrote a column about her statements and reached out to
her. Is, I believe, very, very
strongly in giving people the benefit of the doubt and giving
(20:09):
them the most generous read until proven.
Otherwise. But right after that clip, you
wrote the column she tweeted at you.
Hey, Barry Weiss. Yes.
In all sincerity, it was after my CNN interview that I heard
from Jewish organizations that my use of the word hypnotize and
the ugly sentiment it holds was offensive.
So did anything come of the exchange between the two of you?
(20:31):
I had hoped that it would. I extended an invitation for her
to come to The New York Times and talk to me and talk to my
colleagues about certainly abouther views on Israel and the
Jewish people, but also more broadly, like what is her?
What is her view of where the Democratic Party should be
going? I see a Democratic Party where
(20:52):
the winds are at the backs of people like Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan
Omar and AOC, and I want a senseof where they think the party is
going. But unfortunately she didn't
come in. One of the most enduring
anti-Semitic tropes is that the Jews are not completely loyal to
the United States of America. We mentioned this earlier that
they hold dual nationality or dual loyalty, and this came up
(21:14):
in an original firing line with William F Buckley Junior when he
hosted Stephen Isaacs in 1974. I'd like to show you clip of
that and and how Buckley dealt with anti-Semitism.
Let's take a look. There's nothing wrong with a
lobby. It's OK for the oil industry to
have a lobby in the United States or for the dairy farmers
where it becomes this is a classic anti-Semitism if you
(21:35):
will. It becomes different if suddenly
it's Jews doing it. No one screamed when Italians
put heavy pressure on our government to get to more
Italians in the United States many years ago.
Oh, yes, it did. The Congress did.
Well, I mean, native refused to pass the law, right?
But nativism is an old American thing.
(21:56):
But, but people weren't suggesting suggesting something
invidious. They weren't suggesting dual
nationality, which is always thethreat that bothers Jews.
Jews have sort of an ingrain, you know, this Jewish radar
which says, there they go, they're getting us for dual
nationality. Again, American Jews are
American Jews, but they have other interests, and they worry
(22:19):
when those interests are looked upon as something evil.
Is this something you've seen? I love that clip.
I mean, William F Buckley was soimportant on the right in his
time, especially at National Review.
When you talk about guardrails and keeping the guardrails of
civilization up, he absolutely prohibited anti-Semitism on the
(22:39):
page. Yes, I mean, so most famously
there was an employee, Joe Sobrin.
And for viewers who are interested, look him up.
He was a very hardcore anti semite and Buckley fired him.
And then he goes on to write this 40,000 word essay called In
Search of anti-Semitism, about anti-Semitism of the right in
the person of Sobrin. But also in the case of someone
(23:01):
like Pat Buchanan, someone who was until very recently
considered a very fringe marginal figure and whose idea,
as you could say, have found somewhat of a home in Trumpism.
When I think about how responsible adults behave in
moments like this, or in the face of bigotry and Jew hatred,
even at considerable cost, like I think about Buckley.
(23:23):
Well, so let me take that and give you a counterfactual.
President Trump in April of 2019, while speaking at the RJC,
the Republican Jewish Coalition,to a room full of American Jews,
said this. I stood with your Prime Minister
at the White House to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the
(23:44):
Golan Heights. Yeah.
So your president, your Prime Minister, this is the horrible
situation the president has put American Jews in.
He can stand in front of a room of American Jews and say, I've
given you all of these policies with regard to Israel that you
or even the executive order on college campuses that a lot of
(24:06):
American Jews support. And yet at the same time, he is
creating both in his word and the signals he sends.
I mean, I would say dog whistles.
It's beyond that. It's just the dog.
Like it's not subtle. It's not subtle.
He's creating an atmosphere thatis incredibly dangerous for us.
But you did write that Donald Trump is a Philo Semite.
What is that? Well.
So a Philo Semite, like in the way that my dad thinks about it,
(24:28):
is someone who loves the Jews. But there's someone who said
that, and I thought this was brilliant, that Donald Trump
thinks all of the bad stereotypes about the Jews are
true. He just thinks they're good
things. He thinks that we're greedy,
that we're power hungry, that like we control the levers of
power. All the rest.
Values he shares aspires to. Exactly.
(24:48):
So you yourself, because of yourstrong views and because of of
your heartfelt positions that you articulate so effectively,
have been in the middle of firestorms, Twitter firestorms,
and much controversy around yourstatements and your positions.
What is it like being in the middle of these kind of
(25:09):
controversies? Well, look, there are
controversies that are good and intended, and there are ones
that are not intended that are tripping into landmines.
I don't think I've tripped on a landmine in quite a while.
But I will say that those suck. And there's just no way to lie
to you about that. Like, it's a terrible thing.
And Twitter, I think in a lot ofways elicits the worst impulses
(25:33):
in all of us. But when I create a controversy
because I've, you know, afflicted the comfortable, I'm
really happy about that. When I create controversy
because I am willing to be different and think differently
and express those views, I'm really, really proud of that.
(25:54):
And I have to tell you that one thing that helps me in those
moments is it will sound cheesy maybe, but a sense of how lucky
I am in the in history and especially in Jewish history.
And the fact that I have the ability as a Jewish woman, as a
Zionist, and as a feminist to walk into every room and never
check those identities at any door I walk through.
(26:17):
That is a reality that would have been unimaginable, not just
to my ancestors, to my grandmother.
And so when I keep that in mind,like, I'm sorry, but then like
Twitter stuff becomes like nothing.
Barry Weiss, thank you for sharing your views and for
coming to Firing Line. Thank you.
So. Much, Margaret.
Thank you.
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