In this episode, Karol sits down with scholar Izabella Tabarovsky to discuss her new book, Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student Survival Guide. They trace the roots of Soviet anti-Zionism, connect it to today’s wave of campus antisemitism, and examine the identity challenges facing Jewish students in modern academia. Tabarovsky offers practical guidance on choosing colleges, building resilient communities, and reclaiming Jewish and American identity in an era of rising ideological pressure. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcoit Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Isabella Tabodowski. Isabella is a scholar
of Soviet anti Zionism and contemporary anti Semitism, a senior
Fellow with the Z three Institute, a fellow with the
Wilson Center, a contributing writer at Tablet Magazine, and the
author of an excellent new book, Beer Refusnik, a Jewish
(00:27):
student survival guide. You can follow Isabella on x Atza Tabaro. Hi, Isabella,
so nice to have you on.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
It's so great to be with you, Carol.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
So I feel like we have a lot in common,
clearly in affinity because of our backgrounds, and I've always
enjoyed your work. Tell us about your new book, Beer Refusedick.
First of all, tell my audience what does it mean
to be a refusnick?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
So a refuse nick. The term refuse nick was given
to Soviet Jewish activists in the late sixties seventies, and
is they fought for their rights as Jews, and they're
mostly known and they're known in America because American Jews
fought on their behalf. But they're usually associated with a
movement for emigration, the emigration of Soviet Jews from the USSR,
(01:15):
and the term comes from there. You know, people couldn't
emigrate from the USSR, but when they applied to emigrate,
they were refused the permission, and therefore they were called
refuse nick. However, there is a different way.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
To look at the term and to understand it. What
they refused.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
It's not that the system refused them the right to emigrate,
before that even happened. They refused the system. They refused
the anti Semitic system they lived in. They refused the environment.
They rejected all of it. And they was an environment
in which they were supposed to forget about their Jewish identity,
their connection to the Jewish people, their connection to the
(01:56):
land of Israel. They were supposed to reject their Zionism,
and so they refused all of it. And this was
really the essence of their struggle. And I think their
story is incredibly relevant for the current moment.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Did you always want to be a writer?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Did?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I know?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Wow, that's a really great question. I think.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I don't know if I ever thought about it until
a really wonderful person, Yosi klin Halevi, told me that
I have a story to tell, and I can tell
that story and I should do it. And when he
told me that, I thought, wow, that's no, no, no,
I'm a foreigner. English is not even my first language.
How do I become a writer. But here we are,
(02:39):
years ago, I have written a book, and I think
it's an important one, if I may say so myself.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Absolutely, So, you know, I just the ex Soviet families generally,
when you tell them you're going to be a writer,
they don't take it that great. So that's why I
was asking if you had always wanted to or if
it was something that you came to maybe later in
your life.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
I came to it later in my life. And what
really got me to start writing is in fact, you know,
this book is really a culmination or it comes out
of many years of my research and writing about Soviet
anti Zionism. And I began writing about it when I
first noticed around twenty eighteen that on American campuses there
(03:23):
was language about Zionism in Israel that we had heard
back in the USSR right when I we emigrated in
nineteen ninety. I was already twenty years old then, so
I remember the Soviet system very very well, growing up
in the seventies and eighties, but when we came to America,
I didn't understand. We forgot all about anti Semitism until
(03:44):
that time, like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and I remember thinking,
how is it possible? Why is this language here?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Why has it caught up.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
With me almost thirty years later? And once I started
looking into it, I realized that the similarity was incredible.
You know, this equation that we hear all the time
today that Zionisms, Nazism, and racism and fascism and cythle
colonialism and imperialism, none of it is new. It was
all there already in Soviet times. And so I thought
(04:15):
to myself, well, it can't be that this language just
got reinvented from scratch, because the similarity is so It's
just it's like one to one. You know. It's the words,
it's the slogans, it's the explanatory logic, the way you
explained the world in very conspiratorial terms, by the way,
as claiming that zion you know that Zionists control everything,
(04:38):
zion Is rule everything, zion Is own and run America
as we hear today. And I started asking myself, well,
there must have been channels of transmission. At some point,
the US of SR doesn't exist anymore, so sometime in
the seventies and eighties, there must have been channels of transmission.
And in fact there were channels of transmission, and I've
traced it through my work, and once I did, and
(05:00):
this is how I got to the book is I
started asking myself, well, if the ideological environment was so similar,
Jews were facing the same kind of anti Zionist the rasure.
Obviously the country is a very different, the system is
very different, but the Jews experienced a kind of anti
Zionist pressure that American Jews are experiencing today. Then what
(05:24):
can we learn from the Soviet Jewish story, from the
story of Soviet Jewish resistance, from the Refuseniks story that
can be useful for us today? And so this is
really the book. It's not just it's not history. I
tell stories of the refuse Nicks and I matched them
with stories of young American activists today, some of whom
(05:46):
already household names like Traboscestenbaum, like Kyalia Kobe, Adela Kohav,
who are in many cases, in most cases unknowingly landing
on the same kind of mindset and the same strategy
that the Refusenicks of the Soviet Refuseniks landed on. And
so this is the story I tell you. Asked whether
(06:08):
I always wanted to write it. I think it just
came to me as I was myself on this journey
of trying to understand this anti zion is that reappeared
in our lives.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
So your book is Beer Refusenik, a Jewish Student's survival Guide.
What is your top piece of advice for Jewish students
China survive on campus in twenty twenty five?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
So what I tell them is, perhaps it's the opposite
of what many are inclined to do. I know it's
a time of a lot of fear and confusion. You know,
I just came from California, where I met and spoke
to a number of Jewish communities, and I sense this
(06:50):
kind of there's a dual feeling or sentiment that I
pick up. One is confusion and fear and the question
of how said that, all of a sudden the standing
American Jews standing in America seems to be much more
uncertain than there ever was, and there a lack of
confidence among many, But at the same time, I sense
(07:12):
that I think there is a wave of grassroots resistance
that's happening, that people are longing to fight really for
their Jewish dignity. The Jewish people have really been under
such an assault since October seventh that that people are
realizing that we need to fight against it and the
way to fight against it. And this is what I
(07:35):
write about, based on the experience both of the Soviet
refuseniks and the activists who I profile, is that you
actually have to reclaim everything that they want you to
give up. You have to reclaim your Zionism, you have
to reclaim your connection to the Jewish people. You have
to reclaim your Jewish story, because today the entirety of
(07:57):
Jewish story is under attack. You have to give up victimhood.
That's a really crucial piece of advice. I think victimhood
has become sort of this holy grail in our society.
And what's interesting is when you look at the refuse next,
people like Natansa Ranski, a lot of Peopleski, he's amazing,
He's a real hero of the Jewish people. You know,
(08:18):
he spent nine and a half years in prisons. In
prison colonies and the Gulag really being tortured, you know,
terrible ways.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
But you know, you talk to him.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
And the other people that I interviewed, and none of
them ever thought of themselves as victims.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
They stood for what they believed was right.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
They stood for their values, and we have to be
doing the same.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
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(10:19):
Marko Witch Show continues right after this. Where do you
fall on the debate going on in the Jewish world
about where to send your kids to college? Do you
tell these college kids to opt out of some of
the like I wouldn't send my kids to Columbia, And
that's not post October seventh, that's you know, for years
(10:40):
and years I thought Columbia was just a hotbed of
like Islamism and and just really anti Semitic activity. But
I don't want my kids to opt out of like
the Ivy leagues, because I think it's unfair. And I
think back to my own parents in Russia and in
Ukraine not being able to go to certain schools because
(11:01):
they were Jewish, And now Jewish people are opting their
kids out of the best schools, and I find that
all to be difficult to swallow. At the same time,
I don't want my kids to have a bad four
years where they're stepping over hamasniks and tents on their
way to class. So where do you fall on that?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
You know, I don't think that there is any virtue
in going to a school where you're going to be hated,
and not just hated, right what we see, for example
from the Harvard report. You know, the anti Israel and
anti Zionist sentiments have penetrated the school so deeply that
it's not only about avoiding let's say, departments of Middle
(11:42):
East studies or specific courses. It's there even in these
prestigious schools that so many kids want to go to,
you know, the medical school, the School of Public Health.
For some reason, these schools also have courses on Zionist oppression, right,
and they anti Israel. They're permeated by anti Israel propaganda.
(12:03):
I don't think that our kids should be going to
those schools. However, if they do go, and by the way,
I think that wherever they go, they'll make those schools better,
you know. So I think a lot of good people
are opting out of the IVY leagues, and I think
this will be to the benefit of a lot of
other schools or not IVY leagues. Ultimately, it's the people
(12:24):
who make the school great. But if they do go,
I think they should go be prepared, prepared to stand
up for themselves, and prepared to not let this propaganda
penetrate them.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I think it's.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Part of my message in the book is you have
to understand, you know that there are It's something that
we as ex Soviet Jews, really understand. We understand the sources,
we understand the point of it, and so we don't
let this language doubt who we are and undermine our identity. Unfortunately,
American Jews have never really experienced anything like this, and
(12:58):
so right so they allow for that to undermine their
confidence and create doubt. And I think that if a
student is well prepared to face that, and I think
it should be a priority for Jewish parents and for
Jewish schools to prepare students for that. Then that's okay,
then why not go? But I think we also we
should ask ourselves are these really the best schools given
(13:19):
what's going on in them?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
They do open doors, it's hard to ignore that. You know,
people do still hire from these schools at a much
higher rate than out of other schools. I'm sure that
does change. But I have a fifteen year old. You know,
this isn't like in the distant future for me. This
is coming up very very soon and my concern and
you know, I would say, also, you know, how do
(13:40):
they have an anti Zionism class and in the mathematics department.
I really do think a lot of this is just leftism.
I always say, you know, the problem is liberalism. The
problem is it's not that the problem is antisemitism. The
problem begins with a leftist point of view and then
encompasses antisemitism. But my issue is not I'm not worried
(14:01):
about sending my kids off and having them come back woke,
like none of that is a concern to me, or
denouncing their Jewish faith or Israel or any of that
I'm just worried about them not having a fun for
years battling through that. But your book is specifically about
that kind of survival. I mean, I guess that's why
I wanted to ask you whether that's what you mean
(14:23):
by a Jewish Student's survival Guide, the way to survive
in places like that.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Well, I think definitely it's a part of it. I
think it's really critical if you go to a school
like that to find other Jewish students who think like you,
and to have a community and to be together and
learn together and analyze what's happening together. This is what
the Refusenicks did, and I think that this is what's
really important. And when you look at for example, at Columbia,
(14:51):
was one of the students had profile. Lisha Baker was
a co author of a letter that Columbia students wrote.
For Columbia students wrote a let that came to be
known the Letter of five hundred. It's a letter in
which they reclaim, they reclaim their design is they kind
of state their values very clearly. You know, again, it's
(15:13):
not for everyone, but I think if you have a student,
you know, not everybody is meant to be an attach Ranski.
Let's be cleaned right, right, right right. Not everyone is
meant to be a Shabos Kestenbaum who really can go
and review his political commitments and realign them according based
on what he views as really priority for the Jews
(15:33):
people today, not everyone is willing to go and sue
a university the way Adela Koha did, for example, and
the way Shabos did as well, and Aalia Kobe. But
you know, I think what's crucial is to have an
internal framework that prevents you from succumbing to this environment
and really integrating into this antisemitic environment at schools. And
(15:56):
I want to just comment very quickly on what you
said that the problem is leftism and that the universities
have succumbed to that. And I think the bigger problem
is that the universities have forgotten that they're supposed to
be non political environments, right. They're supposed to be teaching
teaching people how to think, not what to think. And
what we see today is an academy that believes it
(16:18):
needs to tell students what is the right way of thinking.
We see academics who are activists as opposed to educators,
and that is definitely a broader problem. The fact another
problem is that, you know, we no longer teach students,
or maybe we never did, about the history of Soviet Communism.
For example, they have no idea what happened in the
(16:41):
USSR in the seventy years or seventy five years that
it existed. They only know they know that Nazi Germany
was bad. They either don't know anything about the Soviet
Union or they actually think that it.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Was a force for good.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
And that is just it's educational malpractice and that really
needs to change.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It absolutely is. I think that that's such a gaping
hole in our education system and the fact that people
just don't know what went on, and when you tell them,
their eyes get wide. It's like, how did you not
know this already? How did you not learn this? But
of course you and I grew up. You know, I
came to the US as a child. I came in
(17:21):
seventy eight. I was very little. I wasn't even two yet,
so it's a little bit different. But you saw it firsthand,
and I grew up with the stories of it.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I grew up with.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
You know, your great grandfather was in the Gulag, and
this is how it all happened, but right for people
who don't grow up with the stories, the schools are
supposed to fill that in and they kind of choose
not to.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Oh right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Switching a little bit topics. What are you most proud
of in your life?
Speaker 3 (17:49):
So there are two things and they go hand in hand.
For me, one is becoming an American and the other
is becoming finding myself in the Jewish community, connecting to
Judaism and to Jewish culture, and they go together because
they both they involved really profound transformation. And I think
(18:10):
today it's hard for people to appreciate when you come
to America from behind the Iron Curtain. It's like you
land on a different planet and you know, different values,
different everything. And I understood very quickly that to be
an American is not just about acquiring the citizenship and
(18:31):
not just saying an oath of allegiance even and not
about acquiring an American passport. It actually means changing yourself.
And I really worked on it. I understood, for example,
that having been blocked off from the rest of the
world behind the Iron Curtain meant that you missed. People
love to talk about how Soviet people were so educated
(18:54):
but we missed so so much. You know, we missed
years and decades for example, of musical culture, a whole
cultural development, film, music book, certain books, absolutely and you know,
imagine growing up not knowing anything about I don't know
Audrey Hepburn or Bruce Springstey, and take your favorite musician,
(19:17):
you know. I remember there was this funny episode when
at some point in the nineties the film Forrest Gump
came out, and it, of course has this whole musical.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Love that musical yes, exactly a musical part.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
And I remember going there with a friend and everybody
is responding to the events and the film and the music,
and I'm sitting there like I'm watching a movie in
a foreign language without subtitles, you know. So my friend
then had to explain to me what all the music
was and introduce it to me. So you were really
knocked out of global culture for years and decades and
(19:54):
so and then of course, and then the whole you know,
philosophical thought underlining the United States and the Constitution, Declaration
of Independence, all of that. So I had to learn
all of that from scratch. And I just feel incredibly
grateful that I took the time to do it. It
was really transformative.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Actually, I think that that's the right way to be
an American, to catch up on, you know, not just
the history and the politics, but also the culture.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yes, absolutely absolutely give us.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
A five year out prediction, and it could be about
anything you want.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Well, you know, I am a historian by training and sensibility,
and we hate giving predictions. But you know, I'll go
out on the limb. I hope people don't, you know,
don't bookmark this part of it. But I do want
to believe, maybe it's more of a wishful thinking. I
do want to believe that the Academy will not look
the same in five years because I think that the
(20:53):
ideological abuse that we see in elite American universities is
so severe that I think things will change. And I
think what's the great thing about America is that you
have the market and people can vote with their feet
and with their money. And I think other universities will
appear and already are appearing, and other schools will draw people,
(21:17):
young people to them because they will offer them something better.
They will offer them better education, they will offer them
a better environment. Then, and professors will act the same
and so I want to believe more wishful think in
the prediction that in five years there will be changes.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I hope you're right, because again I have kids that
are butting up right up against that system that I
would love to see change. And you know, I don't
know five years is going to be fast enough for me,
because again I have a fifteen year old. Maybe the
twelve year old and a nine year old will benefit
from that. Well. I've loved this conversation, Isabelle. I've always
been a fan of yours, and I think you do
such great work.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Leave us here with your best tip.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
For my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
So you know, I'm a scholar of ideology and I'm
a scholar of propaganda, and I'm going to say I
think my big, big, big wish for Americans today is
to understand that we live at a time when we
are under an ideological assault as a country, you know,
and we see individual groups being targeted, but I think
(22:23):
the biggest target is our unity as a nation. And
I hope that you know this propaganda is very sophisticated.
I think there are multiple actors who contribute to it.
And I just wish look, in Soviet times, we had
this skill which I forgot that we used to have it.
I remembered it recently of reading between the lines. You know,
(22:44):
we knew that we were constantly under a propaganda assault,
and so nobody ever read took what they read for granted.
You read between the lines, which is different than being conspierological.
I want to make you know there's a distinction there,
so distinction there. Really trying to take kind of take
a step back and instead of responding to a stimulus
(23:05):
that comes through social media, asking yourself, what are they
trying to do? Really, what is the what is what
are they trying to achieve? Whoever they are, you know,
they're different actors, and not letting yourself, not letting yourself
follow or become the tool of that agenda. And I
think really remembering the foundation, foundational values and foundational what
(23:28):
you know, the foundational story of us as Americans, and
basing your decisions and working for changes from that place,
as opposed to by joining radical movements that have proven
themselves to be morally bankrupt already in the past.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
I love that she is Isabella Tabarovski. Her book is
Beer refusedk a Jewish student survival guide by it now
anywhere books are sold. Thank you so much, Isabella for
coming on.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Thank you for having me, Carol
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcoit Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Isabella Tabodowski. Isabella is a scholar
of Soviet anti Zionism and contemporary anti Semitism, a senior
Fellow with the Z three Institute, a fellow with the
Wilson Center, a contributing writer at Tablet Magazine, and the
author of an excellent new book, Beer Refusnik, a Jewish
(00:27):
student survival guide. You can follow Isabella on x Atza Tabaro. Hi, Isabella,
so nice to have you on.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
It's so great to be with you, Carol.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
So I feel like we have a lot in common,
clearly in affinity because of our backgrounds, and I've always
enjoyed your work. Tell us about your new book, Beer Refusedick.
First of all, tell my audience what does it mean
to be a refusnick?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
So a refuse nick. The term refuse nick was given
to Soviet Jewish activists in the late sixties seventies, and
is they fought for their rights as Jews, and they're
mostly known and they're known in America because American Jews
fought on their behalf. But they're usually associated with a
movement for emigration, the emigration of Soviet Jews from the USSR,
(01:15):
and the term comes from there. You know, people couldn't
emigrate from the USSR, but when they applied to emigrate,
they were refused the permission, and therefore they were called
refuse nick. However, there is a different way.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
To look at the term and to understand it. What
they refused.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
It's not that the system refused them the right to emigrate,
before that even happened. They refused the system. They refused
the anti Semitic system they lived in. They refused the environment.
They rejected all of it. And they was an environment
in which they were supposed to forget about their Jewish identity,
their connection to the Jewish people, their connection to the
(01:56):
land of Israel. They were supposed to reject their Zionism,
and so they refused all of it. And this was
really the essence of their struggle. And I think their
story is incredibly relevant for the current moment.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Did you always want to be a writer?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Did?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I know?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Wow, that's a really great question. I think.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I don't know if I ever thought about it until
a really wonderful person, Yosi klin Halevi, told me that
I have a story to tell, and I can tell
that story and I should do it. And when he
told me that, I thought, wow, that's no, no, no,
I'm a foreigner. English is not even my first language.
How do I become a writer. But here we are,
(02:39):
years ago, I have written a book, and I think
it's an important one, if I may say so myself.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Absolutely, So, you know, I just the ex Soviet families generally,
when you tell them you're going to be a writer,
they don't take it that great. So that's why I
was asking if you had always wanted to or if
it was something that you came to maybe later in
your life.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
I came to it later in my life. And what
really got me to start writing is in fact, you know,
this book is really a culmination or it comes out
of many years of my research and writing about Soviet
anti Zionism. And I began writing about it when I
first noticed around twenty eighteen that on American campuses there
(03:23):
was language about Zionism in Israel that we had heard
back in the USSR right when I we emigrated in
nineteen ninety. I was already twenty years old then, so
I remember the Soviet system very very well, growing up
in the seventies and eighties, but when we came to America,
I didn't understand. We forgot all about anti Semitism until
(03:44):
that time, like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and I remember thinking,
how is it possible? Why is this language here?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Why has it caught up.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
With me almost thirty years later? And once I started
looking into it, I realized that the similarity was incredible.
You know, this equation that we hear all the time
today that Zionisms, Nazism, and racism and fascism and cythle
colonialism and imperialism, none of it is new. It was
all there already in Soviet times. And so I thought
(04:15):
to myself, well, it can't be that this language just
got reinvented from scratch, because the similarity is so It's
just it's like one to one. You know. It's the words,
it's the slogans, it's the explanatory logic, the way you
explained the world in very conspiratorial terms, by the way,
as claiming that zion you know that Zionists control everything,
(04:38):
zion Is rule everything, zion Is own and run America
as we hear today. And I started asking myself, well,
there must have been channels of transmission. At some point,
the US of SR doesn't exist anymore, so sometime in
the seventies and eighties, there must have been channels of transmission.
And in fact there were channels of transmission, and I've
traced it through my work, and once I did, and
(05:00):
this is how I got to the book is I
started asking myself, well, if the ideological environment was so similar,
Jews were facing the same kind of anti Zionist the rasure.
Obviously the country is a very different, the system is
very different, but the Jews experienced a kind of anti
Zionist pressure that American Jews are experiencing today. Then what
(05:24):
can we learn from the Soviet Jewish story, from the
story of Soviet Jewish resistance, from the Refuseniks story that
can be useful for us today? And so this is
really the book. It's not just it's not history. I
tell stories of the refuse Nicks and I matched them
with stories of young American activists today, some of whom
(05:46):
already household names like Traboscestenbaum, like Kyalia Kobe, Adela Kohav,
who are in many cases, in most cases unknowingly landing
on the same kind of mindset and the same strategy
that the Refusenicks of the Soviet Refuseniks landed on. And
so this is the story I tell you. Asked whether
(06:08):
I always wanted to write it. I think it just
came to me as I was myself on this journey
of trying to understand this anti zion is that reappeared
in our lives.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
So your book is Beer Refusenik, a Jewish Student's survival Guide.
What is your top piece of advice for Jewish students
China survive on campus in twenty twenty five?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
So what I tell them is, perhaps it's the opposite
of what many are inclined to do. I know it's
a time of a lot of fear and confusion. You know,
I just came from California, where I met and spoke
to a number of Jewish communities, and I sense this
(06:50):
kind of there's a dual feeling or sentiment that I
pick up. One is confusion and fear and the question
of how said that, all of a sudden the standing
American Jews standing in America seems to be much more
uncertain than there ever was, and there a lack of
confidence among many, But at the same time, I sense
(07:12):
that I think there is a wave of grassroots resistance
that's happening, that people are longing to fight really for
their Jewish dignity. The Jewish people have really been under
such an assault since October seventh that that people are
realizing that we need to fight against it and the
way to fight against it. And this is what I
(07:35):
write about, based on the experience both of the Soviet
refuseniks and the activists who I profile, is that you
actually have to reclaim everything that they want you to
give up. You have to reclaim your Zionism, you have
to reclaim your connection to the Jewish people. You have
to reclaim your Jewish story, because today the entirety of
(07:57):
Jewish story is under attack. You have to give up victimhood.
That's a really crucial piece of advice. I think victimhood
has become sort of this holy grail in our society.
And what's interesting is when you look at the refuse next,
people like Natansa Ranski, a lot of Peopleski, he's amazing,
He's a real hero of the Jewish people. You know,
(08:18):
he spent nine and a half years in prisons. In
prison colonies and the Gulag really being tortured, you know,
terrible ways.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
But you know, you talk to him.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
And the other people that I interviewed, and none of
them ever thought of themselves as victims.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
They stood for what they believed was right.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
They stood for their values, and we have to be
doing the same.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
More with Isabella Tabarovski coming up. But first, history shows
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(10:19):
Marko Witch Show continues right after this. Where do you
fall on the debate going on in the Jewish world
about where to send your kids to college? Do you
tell these college kids to opt out of some of
the like I wouldn't send my kids to Columbia, And
that's not post October seventh, that's you know, for years
(10:40):
and years I thought Columbia was just a hotbed of
like Islamism and and just really anti Semitic activity. But
I don't want my kids to opt out of like
the Ivy leagues, because I think it's unfair. And I
think back to my own parents in Russia and in
Ukraine not being able to go to certain schools because
(11:01):
they were Jewish, And now Jewish people are opting their
kids out of the best schools, and I find that
all to be difficult to swallow. At the same time,
I don't want my kids to have a bad four
years where they're stepping over hamasniks and tents on their
way to class. So where do you fall on that?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
You know, I don't think that there is any virtue
in going to a school where you're going to be hated,
and not just hated, right what we see, for example
from the Harvard report. You know, the anti Israel and
anti Zionist sentiments have penetrated the school so deeply that
it's not only about avoiding let's say, departments of Middle
(11:42):
East studies or specific courses. It's there even in these
prestigious schools that so many kids want to go to,
you know, the medical school, the School of Public Health.
For some reason, these schools also have courses on Zionist oppression, right,
and they anti Israel. They're permeated by anti Israel propaganda.
(12:03):
I don't think that our kids should be going to
those schools. However, if they do go, and by the way,
I think that wherever they go, they'll make those schools better,
you know. So I think a lot of good people
are opting out of the IVY leagues, and I think
this will be to the benefit of a lot of
other schools or not IVY leagues. Ultimately, it's the people
(12:24):
who make the school great. But if they do go,
I think they should go be prepared, prepared to stand
up for themselves, and prepared to not let this propaganda
penetrate them.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I think it's.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Part of my message in the book is you have
to understand, you know that there are It's something that
we as ex Soviet Jews, really understand. We understand the sources,
we understand the point of it, and so we don't
let this language doubt who we are and undermine our identity. Unfortunately,
American Jews have never really experienced anything like this, and
(12:58):
so right so they allow for that to undermine their
confidence and create doubt. And I think that if a
student is well prepared to face that, and I think
it should be a priority for Jewish parents and for
Jewish schools to prepare students for that. Then that's okay,
then why not go? But I think we also we
should ask ourselves are these really the best schools given
(13:19):
what's going on in them?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
They do open doors, it's hard to ignore that. You know,
people do still hire from these schools at a much
higher rate than out of other schools. I'm sure that
does change. But I have a fifteen year old. You know,
this isn't like in the distant future for me. This
is coming up very very soon and my concern and
you know, I would say, also, you know, how do
(13:40):
they have an anti Zionism class and in the mathematics department.
I really do think a lot of this is just leftism.
I always say, you know, the problem is liberalism. The
problem is it's not that the problem is antisemitism. The
problem begins with a leftist point of view and then
encompasses antisemitism. But my issue is not I'm not worried
(14:01):
about sending my kids off and having them come back woke,
like none of that is a concern to me, or
denouncing their Jewish faith or Israel or any of that
I'm just worried about them not having a fun for
years battling through that. But your book is specifically about
that kind of survival. I mean, I guess that's why
I wanted to ask you whether that's what you mean
(14:23):
by a Jewish Student's survival Guide, the way to survive
in places like that.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Well, I think definitely it's a part of it. I
think it's really critical if you go to a school
like that to find other Jewish students who think like you,
and to have a community and to be together and
learn together and analyze what's happening together. This is what
the Refusenicks did, and I think that this is what's
really important. And when you look at for example, at Columbia,
(14:51):
was one of the students had profile. Lisha Baker was
a co author of a letter that Columbia students wrote.
For Columbia students wrote a let that came to be
known the Letter of five hundred. It's a letter in
which they reclaim, they reclaim their design is they kind
of state their values very clearly. You know, again, it's
(15:13):
not for everyone, but I think if you have a student,
you know, not everybody is meant to be an attach Ranski.
Let's be cleaned right, right, right right. Not everyone is
meant to be a Shabos Kestenbaum who really can go
and review his political commitments and realign them according based
on what he views as really priority for the Jews
(15:33):
people today, not everyone is willing to go and sue
a university the way Adela Koha did, for example, and
the way Shabos did as well, and Aalia Kobe. But
you know, I think what's crucial is to have an
internal framework that prevents you from succumbing to this environment
and really integrating into this antisemitic environment at schools. And
(15:56):
I want to just comment very quickly on what you
said that the problem is leftism and that the universities
have succumbed to that. And I think the bigger problem
is that the universities have forgotten that they're supposed to
be non political environments, right. They're supposed to be teaching
teaching people how to think, not what to think. And
what we see today is an academy that believes it
(16:18):
needs to tell students what is the right way of thinking.
We see academics who are activists as opposed to educators,
and that is definitely a broader problem. The fact another
problem is that, you know, we no longer teach students,
or maybe we never did, about the history of Soviet Communism.
For example, they have no idea what happened in the
(16:41):
USSR in the seventy years or seventy five years that
it existed. They only know they know that Nazi Germany
was bad. They either don't know anything about the Soviet
Union or they actually think that it.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Was a force for good.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
And that is just it's educational malpractice and that really
needs to change.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It absolutely is. I think that that's such a gaping
hole in our education system and the fact that people
just don't know what went on, and when you tell them,
their eyes get wide. It's like, how did you not
know this already? How did you not learn this? But
of course you and I grew up. You know, I
came to the US as a child. I came in
(17:21):
seventy eight. I was very little. I wasn't even two yet,
so it's a little bit different. But you saw it firsthand,
and I grew up with the stories of it.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I grew up with.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
You know, your great grandfather was in the Gulag, and
this is how it all happened, but right for people
who don't grow up with the stories, the schools are
supposed to fill that in and they kind of choose
not to.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Oh right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Switching a little bit topics. What are you most proud
of in your life?
Speaker 3 (17:49):
So there are two things and they go hand in hand.
For me, one is becoming an American and the other
is becoming finding myself in the Jewish community, connecting to
Judaism and to Jewish culture, and they go together because
they both they involved really profound transformation. And I think
(18:10):
today it's hard for people to appreciate when you come
to America from behind the Iron Curtain. It's like you
land on a different planet and you know, different values,
different everything. And I understood very quickly that to be
an American is not just about acquiring the citizenship and
(18:31):
not just saying an oath of allegiance even and not
about acquiring an American passport. It actually means changing yourself.
And I really worked on it. I understood, for example,
that having been blocked off from the rest of the
world behind the Iron Curtain meant that you missed. People
love to talk about how Soviet people were so educated
(18:54):
but we missed so so much. You know, we missed
years and decades for example, of musical culture, a whole
cultural development, film, music book, certain books, absolutely and you know,
imagine growing up not knowing anything about I don't know
Audrey Hepburn or Bruce Springstey, and take your favorite musician,
(19:17):
you know. I remember there was this funny episode when
at some point in the nineties the film Forrest Gump
came out, and it, of course has this whole musical.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Love that musical yes, exactly a musical part.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
And I remember going there with a friend and everybody
is responding to the events and the film and the music,
and I'm sitting there like I'm watching a movie in
a foreign language without subtitles, you know. So my friend
then had to explain to me what all the music
was and introduce it to me. So you were really
knocked out of global culture for years and decades and
(19:54):
so and then of course, and then the whole you know,
philosophical thought underlining the United States and the Constitution, Declaration
of Independence, all of that. So I had to learn
all of that from scratch. And I just feel incredibly
grateful that I took the time to do it. It
was really transformative.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Actually, I think that that's the right way to be
an American, to catch up on, you know, not just
the history and the politics, but also the culture.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yes, absolutely absolutely give us.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
A five year out prediction, and it could be about
anything you want.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Well, you know, I am a historian by training and sensibility,
and we hate giving predictions. But you know, I'll go
out on the limb. I hope people don't, you know,
don't bookmark this part of it. But I do want
to believe, maybe it's more of a wishful thinking. I
do want to believe that the Academy will not look
the same in five years because I think that the
(20:53):
ideological abuse that we see in elite American universities is
so severe that I think things will change. And I
think what's the great thing about America is that you
have the market and people can vote with their feet
and with their money. And I think other universities will
appear and already are appearing, and other schools will draw people,
(21:17):
young people to them because they will offer them something better.
They will offer them better education, they will offer them
a better environment. Then, and professors will act the same
and so I want to believe more wishful think in
the prediction that in five years there will be changes.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I hope you're right, because again I have kids that
are butting up right up against that system that I
would love to see change. And you know, I don't
know five years is going to be fast enough for me,
because again I have a fifteen year old. Maybe the
twelve year old and a nine year old will benefit
from that. Well. I've loved this conversation, Isabelle. I've always
been a fan of yours, and I think you do
such great work.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Leave us here with your best tip.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
For my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
So you know, I'm a scholar of ideology and I'm
a scholar of propaganda, and I'm going to say I
think my big, big, big wish for Americans today is
to understand that we live at a time when we
are under an ideological assault as a country, you know,
and we see individual groups being targeted, but I think
(22:23):
the biggest target is our unity as a nation. And
I hope that you know this propaganda is very sophisticated.
I think there are multiple actors who contribute to it.
And I just wish look, in Soviet times, we had
this skill which I forgot that we used to have it.
I remembered it recently of reading between the lines. You know,
(22:44):
we knew that we were constantly under a propaganda assault,
and so nobody ever read took what they read for granted.
You read between the lines, which is different than being conspierological.
I want to make you know there's a distinction there,
so distinction there. Really trying to take kind of take
a step back and instead of responding to a stimulus
(23:05):
that comes through social media, asking yourself, what are they
trying to do? Really, what is the what is what
are they trying to achieve? Whoever they are, you know,
they're different actors, and not letting yourself, not letting yourself
follow or become the tool of that agenda. And I
think really remembering the foundation, foundational values and foundational what
(23:28):
you know, the foundational story of us as Americans, and
basing your decisions and working for changes from that place,
as opposed to by joining radical movements that have proven
themselves to be morally bankrupt already in the past.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
I love that she is Isabella Tabarovski. Her book is
Beer refusedk a Jewish student survival guide by it now
anywhere books are sold. Thank you so much, Isabella for
coming on.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Thank you for having me, Carol
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