Jewish Currents

America’s Threat to the World Peter Beinart speaks with Aslı Bâli about whether the war on Iran represents rupture or continuity in the history of US imperialism.

Highly recommended conversation between @peterbeinart.bsky.social and Yale Law professor Aslı Ü. Bâli for @jewishcurrents.bsky.social. Professor Bâli is incredibly sharp, nuanced and insightful

jewishcurrents.org/americas-thr...

The Upper Room Coleman Collins’s exhibition considers how attempts at making a new world risk reproducing the cruelties of the old.

"As Collins makes plain, this attempt at revalorizing the norms of Western conquest should make us hesitant about the heroic gestures of any nascent nationalist enterprise."

In Illinois, AIPAC-Backed Candidates Defected on Iran It's a sign of the predicament the unpopular war has created for AIPAC.

AIPAC backed Trump’s attack on Iran. The Illinois Democrats the group is backing in the March primaries, however, have opposed it, while omitting Israel’s role. It's a sign of the predicament the unpopular war has created for AIPAC, @alexbkane.bsky.social reports. jewishcurrents.org/in-illinois-...

America’s Threat to the World Podcast Episode · On the Nose · March 5 · 59m

This @jewishcurrents.bsky.social podcast featuring @AsliUBali from Yale Law blew my mind. She is so so smart and packs in all the things. Give it a listen and wow your brain will be bigger.

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Please listen to this. It’s very worth it.

Look what just came in the mail! “Reclaiming the Ladino Left” by my UW colleague Devin Naar — as a winter gift for subscribers of @jewishcurrents.bsky.social. Can’t wait to read (and trying singing, too)

This was the best, most insightful, smartest thing I’ve consumed this week. Strongly recommend. The Mark Carney analysis was spot on. #cdnpoli

Tehran has merely challenged Israel’s dominance in the region, not its survival. Yet the claim that Iran existentially threatens the Jewish state is rarely disputed in mainstream American debate, even by politicians who oppose war, @peterbeinart.bsky.social writes.
jewishcurrents.org/iran-is-not-...

The Upper Room Coleman Collins’s exhibition considers how attempts at making a new world risk reproducing the cruelties of the old.

In The Upper Room, the artist Coleman Collins turns to the colonization of Liberia to consider how attempts at making a new world risk reproducing the cruelties of the old. Introduced by Joseph Earl Thomas. Now online from our fall issue.
jewishcurrents.org/the-upper-room

This week on On the Nose, @peterbeinart.bsky.social speaks with Aslı Bâli about whether the war in Iran represents rupture or continuity in the history of US imperialism, and what it means for the stability of the Middle East and the world.
jewishcurrents.org/americas-thr...

Ramadan’s Rhythm of Refusal In Gaza, the holy month reminds us that loss is not time’s only path.

"This holy month does not restore what is gone. It does something quieter: It turns us toward the sea, which unlike us, remains ever faithful to its rhythm."

Ramadan’s Rhythm of Refusal In Gaza, the holy month reminds us that loss is not time’s only path.

"Part of me threatens to concede that what is lost cannot be retrieved, that history moves forward with or without our consent. Another part refuses to simply move on, to abandon what has been taken. Ramadan strengthens that refusal."

My Lover, the Rabbi “I, without a prehistory, became his forbidden, verklempt possession.”

"To the rabbi I’d promised a loyalty so primal and regressive it almost qualified as a throwback to a totalitarian, fascistic style of erotic attachment."

Fiction by @waynekoestenbaum.bsky.social:
jewishcurrents.org/my-lover-the...

Ramadan’s Rhythm of Refusal In Gaza, the holy month reminds us that loss is not time’s only path.

Abdullah Hany Daher reflects on the enduring meaning of observing Ramadan in Gaza.

jewishcurrents.org/ramadans-rhy...

Who’s Afraid of the Z-Word? New polling suggests American Jews don’t know what the word “Zionism” means. Should it change the way the Jewish left organizes?

Very interesting @jewishcurrents.bsky.social "On The Nose" podcast on the multiple and sometimes conflicting meanings of the terms "Zionism" and "anti-Zionism" to Jewish people, in light of recent polling and the Conference on the Jewish Left

jewishcurrents.org/whos-afraid-...

“We need to be helping move Jewish community members from the triangle of fear to the triangle of dignity....there still is antisemitism. ...The answer to that isn’t an ethno-supremacist state. The answer to that is building a world where human dignity is respected for all.”
— Fadi Quran (50:52)

The latest from the @jewishcurrents.bsky.social news desk... Subscribe for the rest... jewishcurrents.org/newsletter

got the @jewishcurrents.bsky.social winter freebie in the mail today! fantastic stuff about sephardic socialist organizing

Jewish establishment groups are backing a war Americans don’t want, and they’re setting up American Jews to take the blame, @joshnathankazis.bsky.social writes. jewishcurrents.org/jewish-group...

American Jewish leaders are creating a moment of political peril for their institutions, and for the American Jews they purport to represent. jewishcurrents.org/jewish-group...

My Lover, the Rabbi “I, without a prehistory, became his forbidden, verklempt possession.”

"It wasn’t the rabbi’s cock I wanted in my face, it was the sense of annihilation and relief that rushed over me when his cock finally arrived to smother and obliterate my restlessness and ambivalence."

Fiction by @waynekoestenbaum.bsky.social:
jewishcurrents.org/my-lover-the...

My Lover, the Rabbi “I, without a prehistory, became his forbidden, verklempt possession.”

“I, without a prehistory, became his forbidden, verklempt possession.”

Fiction by @waynekoestenbaum.bsky.social: jewishcurrents.org/my-lover-the...

Would Buffer Zone Bills Give New York Police More Power? Mainstream Jewish groups say yes. The NYPD says no.

This week, the New York City Council discussed bills to regulate protests outside of synagogues and educational institutions. Mainstream Jewish groups said the bill would increase police power. But the NYPD disagreed. Read the report from @alexbkane.bsky.social jewishcurrents.org/would-buffer...

Rival House bills show fractures between Jewish anti-occupation groups, @joshnathankazis.bsky.social reports. jewishcurrents.org/as-americans...

Elaine Mokhtefi “There was a current of confidence and warmth between all of us who were in Algiers working with liberation movements.”

“The Black Panther team in Algiers worked like a military organization; they wrote down everything they did. They all had roles to play and knew what their roles were. It was amazing."

Elaine Mokhtefi “There was a current of confidence and warmth between all of us who were in Algiers working with liberation movements.”

The organizer and writer Elaine Mokhtefi, who helped transform Algeria into an epicenter of anti-colonial liberation, in conversation with Ari Brostoff

Now online from our fall 2025 issue.
jewishcurrents.org/elaine-mokht...

Wow this goes hard, in the best way. But it is NOT for the faint of nuance, fam. I really love the fearlessness of @jewishcurrents.bsky.social - not afraid to wade on into the tough stuff. 🙏

The Line Between Affinity and Conspiracy Epstein relied on Jewish in-group bonds to cultivate the network that facilitated his crimes.

Epstein's Jewish Cohort: @davidklion.bsky.social in @jewishcurrents.bsky.social examines how Jeffrey Epstein exploited networks of Jewish elites through "affinity fraud," relying on shared cultural background and clannishness to facilitate his crimes.
jewishcurrents.org/the-line-bet...

New polling suggests American Jews don’t know what the word “Zionism” means. Should it change the way the Jewish left organizes? Arielle Angel speaks with Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari, @dovekent.bsky.social, and @fadiqu.bsky.social on the JC podcast.
jewishcurrents.org/whos-afraid-...

The Line Between Affinity and Conspiracy Epstein relied on Jewish in-group bonds to cultivate the network that facilitated his crimes.

This is a fucking amazing piece by @davidklion.bsky.social for @jewishcurrents.bsky.social, and I wish everyone would read it