On the Nose

Jewish Currents
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On the Nose is a biweekly podcast by Jewish Currents, a magazine of the Jewish left founded in 1946. The editorial staff discusses the politics, culture, and questions that animate today’s Jewish left.

  1. 7 HR AGO

    On the Michigan Synagogue Attack

    On March 12th, 41-year-old Ayman Ghazali rammed his car into the front of Temple Israel, a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan. He engaged in a shootout with synagogue security, injuring one guard before turning the gun on himself. Thankfully, no one else was injured. Earlier in the month, Ghazali’s two brothers, niece, and nephew had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Mashghara, Lebanon. (The Israeli military claimed that one of the brothers was affiliated with Hezbollah, but offered no proof to The New York Times; Hezbollah denied his affiliation.) After spending years insisting on the absolute intertwinement of Judaism and Zionism, the Anti-Defamation League and other mainstream agents of anti-antisemitism rushed to insist that American Jews must be separated from the actions of the Israeli government. Meanwhile, like many American synagogues, Temple Israel proudly advertised its support for the Jewish state: raising funds, sharing hasbara resources, sponsoring trips, and even featuring an Israeli flag in its logo. This event raises uncomfortable questions about the interrelationship between safety and complicity in the Jewish diaspora: How do we talk about the material relationships between American Jews and the State of Israel in the wake of attacks on Zionist institutions? And how do we on the Jewish left keep pushing for daylight between Judaism and Zionism given the conflation pushed by the anti-antisemitism machine—a conflation that endangers Jews all over the world? On this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, publisher Daniel May, news director Josh Nathan-Kazis, and advisory board member Simone Zimmerman parse the Michigan attack and the missed opportunity for American Jewish reckoning. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Media Mentioned and Further Reading “Suspect in Michigan synagogue attack had lost family in Israeli strike on Lebanon,” William Christou and Richard Luscombe, The Guardian “The Tangled Knot of Anti-Zionist Violence,” Daniel May, Jewish Currents “A Poll Muddles the Picture of What American Jews Think,” Josh Nathan-Kazis, Jewish Currents Ben Lorber on anti-Zionism as an anti-antisemitism strategy Angela McCahey and Stephen Kent on GBN “America’s Threat to the World,” On the Nose “The Right’s Anti-Israel Insurgents,” Ben Lorber, Jewish Currents “We Need New Jewish Institutions,” Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents

    36 min

  2. 12 MAR

    MAGA Catholics in Revolt

    In early February, clips began circulating from Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission hearing, where the former Miss California Carrie Prejean Boller challenged Jewish activists Yitzhak Frankel and Shabbos Kestenbaum about the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Notably, Prejean Boller framed her opposition to political Zionism in terms of her Catholicism: “I’m a Catholic and Catholics do not embrace Zionism,” she said. She raised the charge of deicide, reading the New Testament verse about the Jews killing Jesus and questioning a panelist about whether he would have tech platforms censor the Bible on account of antisemitism claims. And she challenged the theology undergirding evangelical support for Zionism, dispensationalism, which understands Jews as God’s chosen people that help fulfill the end times prophecy by settling in the land of Israel. A number of prominent “America First” isolationists are Catholic, including Pat Buchanan, one of the fathers of America First paleoconservatism who famously opposed the Iraq War. Vice President J.D. Vance, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, far-right strategist Steve Bannon, and columnist Sohrab Ahmari are all America Firsters skeptical of foreign intervention. Catholicism also appears dominant among a cohort of extremist Groyper-style figures infusing their anti-Israel worldview with classically antisemitic language and ideas, including streamers Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens, the Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback, and now Prejean Boller, who has aligned herself with Owens in particular. On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Matthew Cressler, author of the forthcoming Catholics and the Making of MAGA: How an Immigrant Church Became America’s Law and Order Faith, and Julie Schumacher Cohen, co-author with Jordan Denari Duffner of the forthcoming Palestine, Israel, and Catholic Social Teaching: A Guide. They discuss how we should understand this apparent connection between skepticism about American intervention abroad and Catholicism. Cressler and Schumacher Cohen explain what Catholic theology has to say about Judaism, Zionism, and the modern political state of Israel. They explore how some figures on the right are hearkening back to the earlier days of the Church—before the Second Vatican Council’s modernizing changes, which included a condemnation of antisemitism—and they dissect the antisemitic and fascist threads in the Catholic tradition that are being surfaced in Fuentes’s and Owens’s rhetoric. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Media Mentioned and Further Reading Fifth Religious Liberty Commission Hearings, Parts 1 and 2 “Nostra Aetate” from the Second Vatican Council Matthew Cressler discussing MAGA Catholics on the Reign of Error podcast “No Catholic Brand of Christian Zionism, or Tolerance for Antisemitism,” Julie Schumacher Cohen and Jordan Denari Duffner, Contending Modernities “Catholic Guilt and Gaza,” Julie Schumacher Cohen, Commonweal Magazine “I am a Catholic. And a Zionist.,” R.R. Reno, The Washington Post “Maga Catholics are on a collision course with Leo XIV. They have good reason to fear him,” Julian Coman, The Guardian “Portrait of a Campus in Crisis,” Will Alden, Jewish Currents “‘Christ is king’ becomes a loaded phrase in US political debates, especially on the right,” Peter Smith, Associated Pres Kevin Roberts’s first statement on Nick Fuentes’s appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show Tucker Carlson interviews US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee “The Dangerous Exceptionalism of Christian Zionism,” Halah Ahmad and Mimi Kirk, Al-Shabaka Transcript forthcoming.

    44 min

  3. 5 MAR

    America’s Threat to the World

    Last weekend, the United States and Israel started a war with Iran. The Trump administration has offered no real or convincing reason why they have dragged the country into war except “Israel was going to do it anyway,” and the president has no discernible war plan. Many have commented that this war seems to be an expression of pure power, undertaken by Trump largely because he can. Have we entered a new phase in malignant American foreign policy or is this just a striking “mask off” moment? In this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart speaks with Aslı Ü. Bâli, the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law at Yale and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about what the war in Iran signals about the kind of global power the US has become, whether it represents rupture or continuity in the history of US imperialism, and what it means for the stability of the Middle East and the world. This episode first appeared on the Beinart Notebook on Substack. Thanks to Daniel Kaufman for editing help and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Further Reading “The Path to the Trump Doctrine,” Aslı Ü. Bâli and Aziz Rana, Boston Review Transcript forthcoming.

    59 min

  4. 26 FEB

    Who’s Afraid of the Z-Word

    Recently, the Jewish Federation of North America released a poll they conducted last year that shows that while 88% of respondents said they “believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state,” only 37% identified as “Zionist.” A small number identified as “anti-Zionist” and “non-Zionist,” 7% and 8% respectively, with a plurality answering “not sure” (18%) or “none of these” (30%). These numbers are confusing; they seem to indicate that while Zionist identification is waning—perhaps due to the stink of the term amid the genocide—the underlying commitment to a Jewish state, albeit one paradoxically imagined as “democratic,” is not. At the recent Conference on the Jewish Left at Boston University, nearly every presentation discussed or confronted questions about the terms “Zionist” and “anti-Zionist,” and whether they had enough of an agreed-upon meaning within the community to be useful terms to organize around. On this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Ari Lev Fornari, senior rabbi at Kol Tzedek in Philadelphia; Dove Kent, interim executive director of Diaspora Alliance and former executive director of Jews For Racial and Economic Justice; and Fadi Quran, the senior director at Avaaz and a Ramallah-based strategist and organizer. They try to make sense of the recent polling numbers and discuss different strategic considerations about using the Z-word in organizing contexts, including how to welcome newcomers to the Palestine liberation movement without coddling them. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Media Mentioned and Further Reading JFNA Survey of Jewish Life since October 7 – Zionism Findings “The ‘Zionism’ gap: What JFNA data really shows about Jews, Israel and Zionism today,” Mimi Kravetz, JTA Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ 2025 Greater Boston Jewish Community Study “Do American Jews Really Know What ‘Zionism’ Means?,” Mira Sucharov, Haaretz Jewish Electorate Institute July 2021 National Survey of Jewish Voters Synagogues Rising 2026 Conference on the Jewish Left sessions on YouTube Transcript forthcoming.

    1h 1m

  5. 12 FEB

    Epstein and the Capitalist Conspiracy

    Recently, the Department of Justice released millions of files from disgraced financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Since their release, part of the discussion has revolved around the way Jewishness appears in the files. Epstein and his friends make clannish jokes about Jews and “goyim,” many of them simultaneously self-deprecating and chauvinistic. Epstein himself is extremely interested in genetics, sending out a number of DNA Kits to Jews and non-Jews alike, and referencing a natural Ashkenazi intelligence. The files also show close—and sometimes criminal—relationships to a number of prominent Jewish men. These details, along with information about Epstein’s role as fixer for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, have fueled conspiracy theories about Jewish power. But what do we do with a story whose real-life details are so fitted to antisemitic conspiracy? In this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with author, thinker, and activist Naomi Klein about how to make sense of the capitalist conspiracy outlined in the files, and the grave importance of holding our depraved elites accountable. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Media Mentioned and Further Reading Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein Harsha Walia on Epstein and sexual violence A collection of Epstein’s comments on “Jews” and “goyim” from Tikkun Olam “Eugenics Isn’t Dead—It’s Thriving in Tech,” Julia Métraux, Mother Jones “Jeffrey Epstein’s assistant ordered so many 23andMe kits, the company asked why,” Ariana Bindman, SFGate “The Myth of the Chosen Nation: The Colonial Period,” Richard T. Hughes “The crisis in modern masculinity,” Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian Epstein in China “Epstein tells ex-Israeli PM Ehud Barak to speak with Palantir founder Peter Thiel in released audio,” Middle East Eye “Epstein celebrated Brexit and ‘return to tribalism’, newly released emails suggest,” Millie Cooke, Independent “Jewish Moneylending,” Norman Roth, My Jewish Learning Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple “Latest Epstein files release unleashes wave of antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media,” Grace Gilson, JTA “Epstein trained as an Israeli spy, FBI document says,” Peter McNamara, Middle East Eye “How the men in the Epstein files defeated #MeToo,” Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge “The Right Kind of Continuity,” Ari Brostoff and Noah Kulwin, Jewish Currents Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt “DOJ Files Contain Alleged Epstein-Gates Discussion on 'Getting Rid of Poor People,'” National Today “Peter Thiel and the Antichrist,” Ross Douthat, The New York Times “What Barak-Epstein audio says about Israeli controlling demographics,” Al Jazeera “U.N. Says It’s in Danger of Financial Collapse Because of Unpaid Dues,” Farnaz Fassihi, The New York Times “Why would Elon Musk pivot from Mars to the Moon all of a sudden?” Eric Berger, Ars Technica “New data reveals how Jewish neighborhoods split between Cuomo and Mamdani,” Jacob Kornbluh, The Forward

    41 min

  6. 29 JAN

    Fighting the ICE Occupation of Minnesota

    In December, ICE agents began arriving in Minneapolis under the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge.” As of late January, 3,000 agents are on the ground in the city, outnumbering local police officers three-to-one, pursuing a campaign defined by its cruelty: ICE has abducted children as young as two, and agents have used those children as bait to draw out and arrest their families. To counter these efforts, locals have organized vast mutual aid and rapid response operations, with block-by-block networks mobilizing to deliver supplies and run errands for undocumented people who can’t leave their homes without fear of detention. These locals have been met with violence. On January 7th, Renee Good, a mother and poet, was shot in the face by an ICE agent while she attempted to turn her car around. On Saturday—one day after a general strike brought tens of thousands to the streets in subzero temperatures—Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, was murdered while observing ICE, with agents firing at least ten shots at close range. On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with three organizers on the ground in Minneapolis: Lily Cooper from UNIDOS’s rapid response team, which has conducted legal observer trainings for almost 30,000 people across Minnesota; Kandace Montgomery, a local organizer, trainer, and movement strategist who co-founded Black Visions in 2017; and Jesse Meisenhelter, an organizer with Minneapolis Families for Public Schools, whose current campaign aims to build sanctuary school teams across the state. They discuss the legacies of local organizing since George Floyd’s murder in 2020, the opportunities for the left-liberal coalition in this moment, and navigating the steep risks involved in this resistance work. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Articles Mentioned and Further Reading “Organizing for Abolition in the Spotlight,” Kandance Montgomery and Hahrie Hahn, Hammer & Hope “Ten years ago, killing of Jamar Clark prompted wave of Twin Cities activism,” Danny Spewak, Kare11 The St. Paul Principles Minneapolis Families for Public Schools ICE OUT OF MN Toolkit UNIDOS MN and Monarca “ICE Is a Virtual Secret Police,” Jamelle Bouie, The New York Times “Minnesota National Guard mobilizes around Minneapolis following fatal shooting,” Jonathan Limehouse, USA Today “Minneapolis City Council votes unanimously to strengthen separation ordinance,” MPRnews “Minneapolis schools cancel classes after Border Patrol clash disrupts dismissal at Roosevelt,” Elizabeth Shockman, MPRnews “How Should Activists Relate to Risk?” Aryeh Bernstein and Maya Rosen, Jewish Currents “‘I heard screaming, I heard crying:’ Inside ICE detainment at the Whipple Building,” Katelyn Vue, Sahan Journal “ICE Making List of Anyone Who Films Them,” Ken Klippenstein, Substack “‘Trumped-Up Charges’: Out of Jail, Nekima Levy Armstrong Faces Prosecution for Anti-ICE Church Protest,” Democracy Now! “Whose Concentration Camps?” Noah Kulwin, Jewish Currents US Holocaust Museum tweet about Minneapolis “Trump ousts Biden-appointed Holocaust Museum board members, including Doug Emhoff,” Ed O’Keefe and Kathryn Watson, CBS News “Walz Invokes Holocaust, Calls ICE Agents ‘Modern-Day Gestapo,’” Lonny Goldsmith, TC Jewfolk An Open Letter from Catholic, Evangelical, and Jewish Community Leaders to Minnesota’s Federal, State, and Local Elected Officials Transcript forthcoming.

    1h 7m

  7. 15 JAN

    What Makes Marty Run?

    On Christmas, director Josh Safdie released his new film, Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet as a young table-tennis player bent on global recognition. Like Safdie’s previous film—Uncut Gems, co-directed with his brother Benny Safdie—Marty Supreme focuses on an American Jewish antihero and unfolds in a deeply Jewish milieu. But while Uncut Gems takes place in present-day New York, Marty Supreme transports us back to the Lower East Side of 1952, examining American Jewish ambition in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust and amid assimilation into whiteness. This mid-century setting is complicated by various anachronistic elements, including a soundtrack rooted in the ’80s and, perhaps most notably, Chalamet’s conspicuous lack of a period-accurate accent. On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, senior editor Nathan Goldman, contributing editor David Klion, and contributing writer Mitch Abidor discuss what, if anything, the film has to say about American Jewishness then and now. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Media Mentioned and Further Reading Uncut Gems, dir. Josh and Benny Safdie “An Unserious Man,” Jewish Currents “Marty Supreme’s Megawatt Personality,” Richard Brody, The New Yorker What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg Erik Baker’s Letterboxd review Marie Antoinette, dir. Sofia Coppola Anti-Semite and Jew by Jean-Paul Sartre “Marty Supreme Is the Moment, With Josh Safdie!,” The Big Picture Tough Jews by Rich Cohen Mari Cohen on Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You, Jewish Currents Shabbat Reading List “Demon Doubt,” Vivian Gornick, interview by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, Boston Review “Is This Anything?,” Mitchell Abidor, Jewish Currents

    54 min

  8. 9 JAN

    The Imperial History Behind the Raid on Venezuela

    On Saturday, January 3rd, President Trump announced that a military raid on Caracas had captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, and brought him back to the US to face drug charges. The operation followed months of deadly US strikes against boats purportedly ferrying drugs from Venezuela and a military buildup off its coast. But even after Maduro was seized, the administration still could not, or would not, clearly explain its intense interest in Venezuela any more than it could explain its plans for the country. And beyond the practicalities of “running” Venezuela, as Trump said the US would be doing, are even more disturbing questions about what comes next under the “Donroe doctrine”—the administration’s update of the 202-year-old Monroe Doctrine, which was used to justify generations of US interventions throughout the Western Hemisphere. This episode of On the Nose turns to a foremost expert on US interference in Latin America, Greg Grandin, to help us understand the historical context of Trump’s surge—and what it may suggest about his military adventures going forward. A Pulitzer Prize-winning history professor at Yale, Grandin has written several books on the tangled history of the US and Latin America, including his sweeping 2025 chronicle, America, América: A New History of the New World. Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart asks Grandin to break down the political situation in Venezuela and the history of its nationalized oil reserves—and to explain what Trump’s new doctrine of pure power may hold in store for the US and the Americas. This episode originally appeared on The Beinart Notebook on Substack. Thanks to Daniel Kaufman for editing help and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Books Mentioned and Further Reading America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Making of an Imperial Republic by Greg Grandin The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin “What the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ is and where Trump could use it next,” Rebecca Falconer and Julianna Bragg, Axios “After Venezuela, Trump Offers Hints About What Could Be Next,” David E. Sanger, The New York Times “The Trump Doctrine,” Patrick Iber, Dissent Transcript forthcoming.

    41 min
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About

On the Nose is a biweekly podcast by Jewish Currents, a magazine of the Jewish left founded in 1946. The editorial staff discusses the politics, culture, and questions that animate today’s Jewish left.

Information

  • Creator
    Jewish Currents
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    137
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Jewish Currents

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