It’s hard to say how Judaism fits into identity politics. As both an ethnicity and religion, comprising (in North America) mostly white-skinned people who may not look obviously Jewish, how can our community fairly compare antisemitism to racism of other kinds? Is such a comparison even needed? Do white-skinned Jews have white privilege? These are not comfortable questions, but longstanding Jewish involvement in social-justice causes makes them inevitable.

It’s a topic David Bernstein, the founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, has thought a lot about. He has written about the relationship and intersection between Jews, progressive activists and social media for several years, most recently in Quillette, an online magazine, in a piece called “Standing up to the Social-Justice Mobs Within the Jewish Community“.

David joins the weekly current affairs panel at Bonjour Chai to discuss his encounters with the far left, his take on critical social justice and what he feels is the right way to deal with dissenting opinions.

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Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Melissa Lantsman and Ilana Zackon. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andrew Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network.