Ashamed to Admit

Episode #14 "American Jews are politically homeless" with journalist & editor Peter Savodnik

September 02, 2024 • The Jewish Independent • Season 2 • Episode 14

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The pageantry and ecstatic 'vibe' of last month's Democratic National Convention (DNC), in which Kamala Harris was certified the party's presidential nominee, belied a dark reality: American Jewish voters, once home among Democrats, are now politically homeless. That's the view of Peter Savodnik, a Washington-based journalist and senior editor for The Free Press. Peter reported on the DNC and the Republican National Convention (hello, Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock) and is increasingly troubled by what he sees on the left and the right.

Tami and Dash caught up with Peter to get his take on the DNC, Harris's posture towards Israel and the war in Gaza, and an answer to a question that's been bugging Tami for weeks: what does Julia Louis-Dreyfus smell like?

TJI articles relevant to this week’s episode:

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/kamala-harris-declares-for-israel-and-palestinians

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/tim-walzs-record-on-israel-holocaust-education-and-antisemitism

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/which-us-president-will-be-better-for-the-palestinians-neither

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/what-a-jd-vance-vice-presidency-would-mean-for-american-jews-and-israel

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/brisbane-poet-takes-out-inaugural-jewish-literary-prize

More from Peter Savodnik:

Peter Savodnik is senior editor at The Free Press. Previously, he wrote for Vanity Fair, as well as GQ, Harper’s, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Wired and other venues—reporting from the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, south Asia and across the United States. His book, The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union, was published in 2013.

You can find his Presidential election coverage  and more at The Free Press.

Email your feedback, questions, show ideas etc: ashamed@thejewishindependent.com.au

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Dashiel Lawrence:

Are you ashamed to admit that you're not across all the issues affecting Jews in Australia, the Middle East and the world at large?

Tami Sussman:

Well, you shouldn't be. It's a lot. There's so much to take in. You're busy, I'm busy, we're all busy. There are so many articles out there. I have about five of them from the Jewish Independent opened in multiple tabs on my laptop. I still haven't read them all.

Dashiel Lawrence:

You okay, Tammy.

Tami Sussman:

I'm okay, just need a minute. It's been a big week. I'm Tammy Sussman and in this podcast series I ask journalist, historian and TJI's executive director, dashiell Lawrence, some of the ignorant questions that I, and maybe you, are too embarrassed to ask.

Dashiel Lawrence:

I'm Dash Lawrence and I'm going to attempt to answer most of Tammy's questions. Sometimes I might have to bring in an expert and sometimes I might have a few questions of my own.

Tami Sussman:

But together, Dash and I are going to try to cut through the week or the month's chewiest and jewiest topics.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast A Shame to Admit. Hello Melbourne, hello Sydney, brisbane, canberra, perth, tiawana, aranana, and hello to our one and only listener in Phu Quyen, vietnam. This is our fourth episode for season two of A Shame to Admit, aka episode 14. I'm Dashiell Lawrence from the Jewish Independent.

Tami Sussman:

And I'm your old high school vice captain Tammy Sussman.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Wow.

Tami Sussman:

Does that surprise you?

Dashiel Lawrence:

No, it doesn't. No, do you know why?

Tami Sussman:

Why.

Dashiel Lawrence:

I actually fully expect that you probably would have won a popularity contest.

Tami Sussman:

I got voted vice captain. Is that the popularity vote?

Dashiel Lawrence:

Well, you tell me I'm assuming it is.

Tami Sussman:

I think the way it worked back then was that students had 50% of the vote and then the staff and teachers had the other 50%. The reason why I'm giving so much thought and so much airtime to my claim to fame as your high school vice captain is because over the weekend was at Sydney Jewish Writers Festival.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Yes, yes, mazel Tov, by the way, on your nomination. Thank you.

Tami Sussman:

Mazel Tov to Anna Jacobson, who won.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Yes, yes very big Mazel Tov Young Jewish Writer Award. That's right For her book.

Tami Sussman:

Anxious in a Sweet Store.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Yep, anna's Lovely A collection of poetry about anxiety and mental health.

Tami Sussman:

And the Australian Jewish experience. I met Anna for the first time in Anna's Lovely, so you know I'm a big loser, but if I wanted to lose to anyone, it would be to Anna Jacobson.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Not true. You're a winner in our hearts, Tammy.

Tami Sussman:

Thank you, but could have really used that prize money. So if anyone has a spare 5K for the other three shortlisters, please reach out, because in order to write books, we need to actually take time off our jobs. As I was saying at one of the events I ran into another, into another author, jonathan C Kaplan Weisselbaum. Sorry, dr Jonathan C Kaplan Weisselbaum. And I said Jonathan, dr Jonathan C Kaplan Weisselbaum, are you a Sydney person? He's like yeah, yeah, I am. And I said why haven't we met before? And he said well, actually, tammy and I'm he's got a British accent, but we don't know why, because he grew up in Sydney said actually, tammy, I have met you before. In fact, you were my school vice captain and it made my life. Highlight of the festival was being recognized as a high school vice captain, because it just really means that, like, I left my mark, you know.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Wow Okay.

Tami Sussman:

Something else that might surprise you, dash is I've been reading the 88-page document from the JCA.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Well done. We had a conversation last week about the census data and I gave you the Jewish Communal Appeals census report to help you understand your Jewish community much better. You've gone and done some reading.

Tami Sussman:

So I've done some reading, and I mean by reading I mean skim, and by skimming I mean jumping to the sections that interest me.

Dashiel Lawrence:

So Did you poop and scroll this?

Tami Sussman:

You sent it to me via text and I actually went to the effort of getting it up on a browser because it's too dense to poop and scroll. So I went onto the JCA website and that's just to be clear. That's the original JCA, the Jewish communal appeal, the organization that actually makes a genuine effort to advocate for Jews who shots fired. Um, so I control F.

Tami Sussman:

Same sex oh, right, yeah and this is what I found there were 634 Jewish same-sex couples in Australia in 2021. And this is 2% of all Jewish families in the country, compared with 1.4% generally. I actually don't even think that that's like completely accurate, because they're not accounting for the non-practicing queer Jews, the ones who are still in the closet or just repressed because of their retro Jewish education. There's so many of us out there, I see you. So I think it's fair to say that the Australian Jewish community is pretty gay.

Dashiel Lawrence:

It's probably too big of a statement to summing up, but anyway, yes, it is still something to note.

Tami Sussman:

I really just wanted to get the executive director of the Jewish Independent to say yes, tammy, the Australian Jewish community is pretty gay.

Dashiel Lawrence:

No, he's not going to do it. Well, I just you know. Yeah, I wonder whether the statisticians out there would quibble with that as a significance.

Tami Sussman:

Damn. By the looks of things, it sounds like we won't have this kind of data in the next census. What's happened?

Dashiel Lawrence:

The Australian Bureau of Statistics, after lengthy public consultation, had quietly dumped a proposal to include a question about sexuality and gender diversity in the upcoming census. So this is, yes, outraged. Lgbti advocates and groups who believe that this is excluding this part of the Australian population and it is very likely that that decision will be one would expect to be overturned.

Tami Sussman:

If enough people send them kvetch mail, then it can be overturned.

Dashiel Lawrence:

It's a good question. I don't know whether it can be.

Tami Sussman:

I really feel like I'm not across the detail on this. Maybe we can start an Ashame to Admit campaign. Yeah, to have it overturned. On the topic of queer families, I have a single friend and he would really like to create a family, a partnership.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Okay.

Tami Sussman:

He's looking for his bichette Yep, sorry, old Hebrew teacher bichette and I'm told that the queer dating apps have become like just another platform for anti-Zionist, anti-jewish, racist propaganda. As we now know, the pool of Aussie queer Jews is small, so much so that my friend's actually contemplating seriously considering packing up his life and moving to Israel, which is huge, and I suggested, before you do that, why don't you try a matchmaking service? He said he's already reached out to one and they quoted something like 9k, which is outrageous. Also, why haven't they employed me? Back to my friend. I asked him if he wanted me to do a call out on the podcast and he reluctantly said okay, and he reluctantly said okay.

Tami Sussman:

So if anyone listening knows of a Jewish or Jewish adjacent or just not racist against Jews because the bar is so low man who is lovely and smart and hot and wants something serious, that's key. If he's between the age of 30 to 40, and, of course, like if he's 29 or 28 or 41, 42, that's fine. Please reach out. You can contact me via email, ashamed at the jewishindependentcomau dot a-u. Hey Dash, you own a proper grown-up house, don't you?

Dashiel Lawrence:

I do.

Tami Sussman:

No need to glow.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Look, Tammy, I live in Melbourne. Owning a home here isn't quite as unattainable as it is in Sydney, in the Harbour City.

Tami Sussman:

And you've clearly made some good life choices Can't relate.

Dashiel Lawrence:

If you're a listener who likes to make good life choices and you're thinking about buying a new property or refinancing the one you currently have, then you need to speak to the team at AusFinance, the sponsors of today's show.

Tami Sussman:

AusFinance helped my cousin with her property and she spoke so highly of them and I usually tune out of these discussions at family gatherings, but when I recognised the name I got a little bit excited.

Dashiel Lawrence:

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Tami Sussman:

AusFinance home loans made personal.

Dashiel Lawrence:

So from the Australian Census home loans. It's now time for a conversation that I have been wanting to have for quite a few weeks now, tammy.

Tami Sussman:

And that's American politics.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Correct yes, the upcoming US presidential election. I just need to be a bit vulnerable with you about this, tammy. I've actually been extremely anxious about the upcoming presidential election in November and its implications for not just for the US and for the Middle East, but for really the entire world.

Tami Sussman:

I'm sorry to hear that. That's something I should know is your bestie.

Dashiel Lawrence:

There's some things you just don't share with, even with your bestie. You just keep to yourself and you know, kind of ruminate over, or you, as I tend to do, just wrap yourself around as much content as you possibly can to understand every possible permutation and outcome and follow things relentlessly. Hence why I was really excited to talk to today's guest.

Tami Sussman:

Okay, because I'm not ashamed to admit that I live on the opposite end of the spectrum. I don't know a lot about American politics because I don't live there, as opposed to Aussie politics, which I also don't know a lot about, and I am ashamed to admit that.

Dashiel Lawrence:

God. It feels like this campaign has just taken so many strange twists and turns, but we wanted to have a conversation with someone who understands the machinations of US politics and, in particular, can discuss its implications for American Jewish voters. We wanted to talk with someone who's an insider and I've been really enjoying in recent months, tammy the coverage of American Jewish journalist Peter Savodnik. He's a senior editor at the Free Press. Previously he worked for Vanity Fair, as well as GQ, harper's, the Atlantic, the Guardian, wired and many other publications reporting previously from the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, south Asia and across the United States. His book the Interloper Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union was published in 2013. But more importantly, tammy Peter was ringside the recent Democratic National Convention, in which Kamala Harris was elevated as the Democratic nominee for the presidential campaign.

Tami Sussman:

Before we play the interview. You and Peter did mention the Abraham Accords and I'm ashamed to admit I don't know what they are, and there might be some listeners who are like me. So can you give us a quick explainer?

Dashiel Lawrence:

So I did ask Peter about the Abraham Accords, which were arguably one of the most significant things that came out of Donald Trump's administration with regard to Israel and its relationship with the wider Middle East. So, in September of 2020, israel signed bilateral agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and the following year also signed an agreement with Morocco. Now, that's significant because for decades, israel's relations with those countries and other countries in the Middle East were. You know, israel had effectively no relationships, no diplomatic or bilateral agreements in place with those countries. The fact that the UAE and Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords was a big deal. It was a big substantive shift in relationships and it was leading to and creating the pathway for other Arab countries to do the same thing. And just prior to the 7th of October, it appeared as if Israel was making progress towards having some form of agreement established with Saudi Arabia. So the Abraham Accords appeared as if they were going to usher in a new era in relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours. Then October 7th happened and it blew up.

Tami Sussman:

I love how you said as you know, like you assume that I knew all that I didn't. I didn't even know that Bahrain was a country. How do you spell it?

Dashiel Lawrence:

Bahrain, b-a-h-r-a-i-n.

Tami Sussman:

There it is. Something else to flag before we play that interview is that Dash and I spent most of the time with Peter talking about Kamala and the Democrats Before we get fetch mail from our Republican listeners. That was purely a timing issue, so we hope to have a special episode about Trump and the Republicans for balance in due course.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Peter Savodnik, thank you for being on A Shame to Admit. Thank you so much for having me, peter. It's been just under a week, I think, since you finished up at the Democratic National Convention and that was coming off the back a few weeks earlier of you also covering the Republican National Convention. Peter, help our Australian listeners understand the role of these conventions, because here in Australia we have a very different system for electing and choosing our political representatives to go to the next election. None of the fanfare, none of the pageantry that you seem to have Tell us about the conventions in the US.

Peter Savodnik:

So the modern American political convention is really an infomercial. It's not a convention. Nothing that happens there actually has to happen, or I should say it could all be done elsewhere. It's a way of capturing a large number of viewers and boosting your numbers and trying to convey to Americans that you have a unified and compelling message and then also showcasing, you know, rising talent, people who will be running for president in four, eight years or whatever, all of whom at the conventions are the best of friends, brothers and sisters in arms in their shared mission, but who in a cycle or two, will be tearing each other apart, as they both, I should say, all seek out. You know, their party's nominations.

Peter Savodnik:

This year was especially absurd, I guess you could say, in the sense that the Republican Convention was a typical sort of coronation. We all knew who was going to be in advance Donald Trump, and he was formally nominated. At the convention in Milwaukee With the Democrats. They actually nominated Kamala Harris virtually before the convention in Chicago With the Democrats, they actually nominated Kamala Harris virtually before the convention in Chicago. So the coronation that took place was actually a completely pointless coronation. It didn't actually have to happen, I think, from the vantage point of the Democratic power elite. It did have to happen, however, because Harris's rise to the nomination was so unusual and the whole process was so disjointed and arguably undemocratic lowercase d that there was this feeling of this need to communicate to everyone with a pulse in America that Democrats were united and they were positive, and anyone who tuned in would have heard the words freedom and joy. And we're not turning back, whatever that means. Over and over and over.

Tami Sussman:

So who had the wackier, the more absurd convention or infomercial?

Peter Savodnik:

I don't know that either is wackier than the other. You know, republicans are running on American decline. Everything is going to hell, everything is broken, everything is going to be over very, very soon unless we take immediate action and elect Donald Trump. They've sort of been in this mindset more or less for eight years now. This is the so-called kind of like Flight 93 mentality that gripped Republicans back in 2016. Flight 93, for those who aren't aware, is a reference to one of the airplanes that went down on September 11th. It was the one that went down in Pennsylvania, and the thinking is well, you either storm the cockpit and you try to do something to save the country the metaphorical plane or you just roll over and we all die. And so this is the siege mentality, the embattled mentality of the rank and file American first Republican today who is convinced that everything is dead or dying, rotten to the core, that we are confronting a stage four cancer on multiple fronts, and so we really have to take action immediately.

Peter Savodnik:

The Democrats, conversely, ran on a platform not so surprisingly, given that they control the White House of, you know, kind of relentless positivity, and it was all about celebrating America and freedom, and they actually sound to me a lot like sort of the Republicans in 2008, or with a little bit of like the Democrats too, very positive, very much about sort of the things that we had to look forward to and our best days are ahead of us. And they attempted to link the Obama campaign of 2008 with the Harris campaign of 2024. And the genius of the Obama campaign, hope and change back in 2008 was that Barack Obama's personal ambitions were welded together with the nation's ambitions. So by Obama achieving his ends, we national achievement and kind of pushing through all of our division and achieving a long sought unity. Mention the fact that the Republicans chose to have Hulk Hogan up on the stage and Kid Rock.

Dashiel Lawrence:

And by contrast, the Democrats had perhaps more of the Ayer class celebrities endorsing. But still, the journalist in you is going to find either of this pageantry and colour quite bizarre at times.

Peter Savodnik:

I think, look, both theans and democrats had a very specific aesthetic that they were going for. Yeah, the republicans were very much going for a pining for the 1980s, maybe 1990s, kind of vibe that the cover band that they had was this kind of like all white dudes from nashville band playing acdc and think, was there some Motley Crue? There was a lot of very bad music was played for four straight days and the crowd loved it.

Dashiel Lawrence:

You. Poor thing, Peter, having to listen to that.

Peter Savodnik:

But the Democrats, you know, are this has nothing to do with the politics, the substance of their program, which actually this year there is no substance. The Democrats are much, much, for lack of a better way of putting it a much slicker and cooler bunch of people. They were always going to put on a better production. The Democrats are the only party that could pull off the roll call of the states where everyone kind of goes through who they're voting for and they actually make it entertaining. So it's like the most boring part of the whole convention, where you know it's like in the great state of Kentucky, you know, cast its 43 delegates for whoever. But the point is that like it's a completely perfunctory moment in the convention, there's nothing interesting about it, there's nothing unexpected about it and the Democrats were able to kind of like, do like a soundtrack and spotlights and it was fun and people actually had fun. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

Ladies and gentlemen, we are here tonight to officially nominate Kevin O'Hara for president. Fire, get loud. Another round of shots. Chc. Turn out for what?

Dashiel Lawrence:

If the objective was to generate energy and to get the vibe going, it definitely ticked that box, yeah.

Peter Savodnik:

Yeah, they ticked it. But again, like, both are absurd in their own ways. But I think the aesthetics, yes, are very, very different. The Republicans, you know, are going for, I guess, like sort of like beach boy chic, and the Democrats they're just trendier, cooler, more fashionable. How are we going to put it?

Tami Sussman:

Julia Louis-Dreyfus chic, yeah, yeah, maybe Essence.

Dashiel Lawrence:

I wouldn't have described that as a chic actually.

Tami Sussman:

More on her later.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Yes, and let's get to the substance, though, because we got you here to talk today about presidential nominee Kamala Harris and how she is viewed by the American Jewish vote, what her nomination might mean for Israel and for tensions in the Middle East. Our Australian listeners understand the historic alliance, if you like, between American Jews and the Democrats, how far it goes back and how important Jewish voters, jewish donors and power brokers have been when it comes to the success of the Democratic Party.

Peter Savodnik:

So the relationship between the kind of Jewish community the American Jewish community and the Democratic Party goes back a long way. There's a kind of a great deal of interwovenness to the two communities. The Democratic Party is inconceivable today without democratic or I should say Jewish fundraisers and bundlers. These are kind of the mega donors, Jewish candidates, the whole kind of network of, you know, jewish influencers who are part of the political universe in New York and Washington, la, san Francisco, silicon Valley, the universities. They're just part of the left-wing ecosystem in America and that has been the case for a long time and remains the case today. However, I don't know if it's correct to say it's changing the case today. However, that is, I don't know if it's correct to say it's changing, but there has been a shift for sure, and I think it will change a great deal over the next several cycles.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Is it fair to say that the events of October 7th have accelerated that?

Peter Savodnik:

Yeah, I mean I think October 7th exposed what a lot of conservatives and more skeptical Jews had been saying for a long time, which is that the left is no longer really a home for Jews in America, and the reason for that it doesn't have to do with like this or that election or policy decision, or where you come down on the settlements or Netanyahu. It's not about any of these kind of sort of more ephemeral developments. It's that on the left in the United States and I think this is true across the West and I imagine in Australia as well, you know, sort of like a racial identitarianism has supplanted the old economic determinism.

Peter Savodnik:

In other words, like it used to be the case, that like money was the most important thing, money in class and now race and identity are the important things.

Peter Savodnik:

So you know, it was impossible a few decades ago to have a conversation with anyone on the american left about anything without class coming up. So you could be talking about schools, the environment, space, space taxes, everything. It all fell under the view through the prism of class and money and the class divide. And Republicans like to make fun of Democrats for being, you know, like, so called class warriors, and that was actually a pretty effective cudgel with which to batter liberals in the in the 1980s. In the subsequent three or four decades, what's happened is that the old concerns with the old sort of obsession with class has been replaced by this obsession with race. And by obsession what I mean is that it's incapable or it's impossible, I should say, for a Democrat or a progressive, for most Democrats and certainly for progressives in general in this country.

Peter Savodnik:

And I think again across the've got like a new. You know ships there and whatever and how much they're spending in the Pentagon, and and suddenly race will be injected into that conversation. If we're talking about like, what do we do about? Like? There's a long been like discussion of like building like a bullet train from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Race is going to figure into that somehow. When we get to the question of Israel, race is at the very, very center of that, and the reason for that is that the Jews are now taken to be, or assumed to be, on the left, to be the whitest of white people, the reason being that they are viewed as more successful and therefore they are whiter. There are so many problems with that that we can get into it. Some you know later in the conversation, but that is the kind of crudely put. That is the. That's the assumption.

Dashiel Lawrence:

And they're the colonizers and the settlers.

Peter Savodnik:

They're the colonizers right.

Peter Savodnik:

And so everyone who is Jewish is suspect at the very least, because you can disavow Israel all you want, but you're going to have family or friends, you will have taken trips to the Holy Land, you will have a connection to it.

Peter Savodnik:

So, unless you are like a feverishly rabidly anti-Zionist Jew who just denounces the whole, you know sort of like Israeli, you know project Zionist project unless you take that stance, you are necessarily a member of a suspect class, which is to say, the vast majority of Jews in this country, in the world, are necessarily, then members of a suspect class. And so that brings us back to the election right now. So I think that, like, kamala Harris did a brilliant job of coming down strong for Israel. So what that means is that she was able to kind of keep the kind of pro-Hamas crazy people outside the United Center, where they all convened in Chicago and disruptions were at a minimum and everyone there was. This again, this front of unity and happiness and shared sense of purpose and all that, and that I think will serve her well in November when the election happens. But we should distinguish between Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party and then more generally the kind of left wing in the United States.

Dashiel Lawrence:

I want to talk a bit more about how Kamala Harris has positioned herself in regards to all of this and how she did that at the convention in a moment herself in regards to all of this and how she did that at the convention in a moment. But let's go to the kind of rising chorus of sort of anti-Israel activism within the Democratic Party.

Peter Savodnik:

Is that the squad I mean the squad is the most visible part of that because they have the biggest like social media accounts.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Perhaps just briefly tell our Australian listeners who the squad are.

Peter Savodnik:

Sure. So the squad started in 2018. It really begins with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Who is this?

Peter Savodnik:

For those who haven't been paying attention to Twitter at all in the past six years.

Peter Savodnik:

She is this very telegenic, attractive, very articulate millennial democratic congresswoman from New York City.

Peter Savodnik:

She represents her district, is in the Bronx and Queens, and she is a perfect distillation of sort of like millennial progressive thought.

Peter Savodnik:

The way that she, you know, makes her arguments, the way that she presents herself, the way that she talks about the world, the degree to which she imports emotion into her conversation, the way that she comports herself online, she's a kind of again like a perfect sort of crystallization of the kind of the millennial apprehension of reality in 2024 or from 2018 to the present, which is, I think, why she's had this phenomenal, you know, upward trajectory, amassing millions and millions of followers and becoming this sort of household name in the United States. I should mention that, as far as legislation goes on the Hill, I don't think that she or any other member of the squad is actually regarded as much of a powerhouse, and their influence is not so much in kind of pushing through legislation as much as commanding a very large audience and swaying opinion. So I think the way the power is wielded now in Washington, like I think many places, has changed because of the internet.

Dashiel Lawrence:

But yeah, that's sort of the ABCs of AOC Washington of various backgrounds, most of them either African American or Latino, with a strong identitarian politics behind them.

Peter Savodnik:

Yeah, I think they are all sort of you know, kind of like millennial progressive left. So they're all woke they are. You know, I think there's a Bernie-ish, bernie Sanders element to some of them, certainly with AOC, I think that they are staunchly anti-Israel. They would put it that way exactly, although maybe Tlaib would, or Ilhan Omar in Minneapolis.

Tami Sussman:

How would they put it?

Peter Savodnik:

I think they would probably say they're anti-Israel, they would say they're kind of weaselly about the whole thing, but what they're going to say is they're pro-Palestinian and they're fighting for the rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and they believe in Palestinian statehood.

Peter Savodnik:

And you know nothing that they ostensibly care about is something which I think the vast majority, or a large majority of American Jews or, for that matter, israelis, you know, wouldn't, you know support, you know, were it not for you know, hamas or sort of the Palestinians, you know sort of failure over these many decades to kind of forge any kind of meaningful peace with the Israelis. So, look, their attitude is that Israel is the very worst of sort of the warmongering, quasi-democratic, not really democratic apartheid states in the world. It is backed the American empire and really it's backed by I don't think they would say this out loud, but it's really backed by wealthy American Jews, which is actually not true, not in the way that it used to be, for sure. And they have a pretty, to say the least, they have a pretty cartoonish and deeply ignorant idea of what the Jewish state is all about.

Tami Sussman:

Okay, and just for our listeners, I'm not ashamed to admit that I hadn't heard of the squad until this morning did a cheeky Google search. So it's an informal left wing group of nine democratic members of the US House of Representatives.

Peter Savodnik:

Yeah, and, by the way, like their ranks were just, you know, they just lost two members and I think it did not help the Jewish community a great deal that both John Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in St Louis, who are both black members and were both members of the squad, were targeted by AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is the big pro-Israel lobby, or the most powerful pro-Israel lobby. Aipac subsidiaries spent a fortune trying to beat both those candidates and they succeeded, and so it's become a kind of like this assumption that you know like AIPAC or Jews are targeting progressives of color. I think that's, to say the least, kind of myopic, but you hear that a lot.

Tami Sussman:

What does myopic mean?

Peter Savodnik:

I think they're not taking into account the fact that these candidates both the ones who were defeated were already doing very, very badly. Aipac probably failed to move the needle. In either case, they spent a fortune, but I don't think they actually had much of an impact on the race. So, if anything, the person who's in charge of spending AIPAC dollars should maybe think about, like, what he or she is doing. I don't know who this person is, but they didn't actually accomplish a great deal.

Peter Savodnik:

Those races were already going to go APAC's way, and I think, and so what APAC's return on that investment was was just a lot of ill will. It was not actually like turning an election.

Tami Sussman:

So a waste of money bad for optics? Yeah, okay, actually like turning an election.

Peter Savodnik:

So a waste of money, bad for optics, yeah, okay, but in the end, like two really really bad members of congress are out, you know the apac like have any impact. I mean it couldn't have hurt, I think.

Tami Sussman:

But yeah, I mean like they, I don't think they did much and they were targeting them because they were bad, not because they were black no, of course not.

Peter Savodnik:

Has anything to do. Like they targeted these districts because these people have said and done crazy things. Bob Bowman in New York both Bowman and Bush have minimized the atrocities of October 7th, both of them have been repeatedly disparaging the whole idea of a Jewish state, and both of them traffic in various kind of anti-Semitic tropes. So no, these are not good people. The United States congress is better off without them. And it just happens in the case that that they're they're both black okay, good, I obviously knew that.

Tami Sussman:

I just wanted you to say that so that I could send that soundbite to people, because we also have this problem in australia of being accused of targeting people of color yeah, and look, it's not.

Peter Savodnik:

It's really simple. Again, if you buy into the racial essentialism and you believe that Jews are uber white, then you're going to attract a certain subset of plankton level, not very smart people of all races who are able to glom onto this, and it's a good If you are a Cori Bush or Jamal Bowman, neither of whom are terribly smart or certainly imaginative. It's a great platform to run on. It's a great. This is a way of getting a lot of people kind of worked up. It's very, you know, it's feverish, but it's also stupid and ignorant and it's got no basis in history or reality for that matter. And yeah, so I think like American politics is better off without either of them in it.

Peter Savodnik:

Okay.

Dashiel Lawrence:

We kind of have to bring into the conversation the Republicans briefly, because in order to understand, perhaps, the way that American Jews may have fallen out of love, as it were, with the Democratic Party over time, but perhaps also need to talk about the Republicans and Donald Trump and the perception correct me if I'm wrong that some people would have that for better or worse, he is able, or was able, to broker a deal and get the Abraham Accords done, and that was seen as being a big, important step in terms of Israel's normalization of its relationships with the wider region. You're shaking your head, so I imagine you disagree.

Peter Savodnik:

No, I agree, I think the Abraham Accords are inconceivable without Donald Trump. I think you know like the best way I think of Donald Trump for like anyone out there who's like been to New York City is to think of like the world in terms of like Manhattan versus the outer boroughs, and Donald Trump is a function of the outer boroughs. Everything about him, his mannerism, the way he speaks, the gruffness about him and also, I think, some of the resentment, the kind of the looking longingly at the power and the wealth and money in Manhattan and saying one day I'm going to have that. And so everything about Trump is about sort of, you know, coming from Queens and then conquering Manhattan. And I think that you know, when it comes to the Abraham Accords and the Middle East, I think Trump approached that.

Peter Savodnik:

The way Trump approaches many problems and the way he approached which is the way he approached sort of like the world of real estate in New York City which is to say, let's make a deal, let's do this, let's just do things that other people who are more refined or come from more rarefied circles can't get done.

Peter Savodnik:

And I think his attitude is really like look you people in the Persian Gulf, you obviously like making money and you Jews, well, you obviously like making money. I mean, I know lots of you people. So let's just, can't we just like make this happen? And it's crude and crass, and and it also works. It works brilliantly because the truth is that anyone who's been to Tel Aviv and to Dubai knows that they're like the economies are radically different, the histories are different, et cetera, et cetera, but there is a shared desire for innovation and growth and and kind of looking toward the future.

Peter Savodnik:

And nobody who spent any time in the Gulf actually thinks that there's like a deep kind of like cultural or religious affinity with like the, the kind of the angry, revanchist, backward, looking kind of like Palestinian resistance, if that's the right word. I think that Trump kind of, by looking beyond all the sort of you know the issues that you know make up the Israel-Palestinian quagmire discourse, by kind of pushing past all that and saying I don't care about you know settlements or borders or religion, or I just care about settlements or borders or religion, I just care about everyone making money and let's do a deal that wound up in its very kind of crude but effective way of getting it done. So I think, yeah, he deserves a lot of credit for that. It's hard to imagine any other American president accomplishing that.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Just to be clear, I didn't want you to necessarily give him credit, but I did want to paint a picture of how an American Jewish voter, and also how an Australian Jewish voter here, perceives the differences between both the left and the right.

Dashiel Lawrence:

So this feeling that there's this growing hostility, antipathy towards Israel on the left In our country that's the Australian Labor Party and in your country that's the Democratic Party and then this feeling that you're only ever going to get stuff done and you can only ever back a party on the right that is arguably the strong man that has Israel's best interests at heart. And that is why, increasingly, jewish voters in this country have decided to vote for the Liberal Party, when historically they had, you know, been a bit like the Democratic Party, had a strong alliance with the Australian Labor Party, and I think the same thing has happened in the United States, hasn't it, peter? Clearly, this election will be an interesting test to see whether they are deserting the Democratic Party. But if you look at the data, I think over the last decade or so there has been a gradual trend away voter-wise from the Democrats towards the Republicans.

Peter Savodnik:

So I think it's been very, very gradual among Jewish American voters moving away from the Democratic Party. Very gradual, even though one Republican administration after the next has been very kind of robustly pro-Israel and Democrats have been very pro-Israel. But there's been this growing chorus on the left that's distinctly anti-Israel and so there was kind of cause for concern. But you could, as an American Jew with like these, like deep affinities or loyalties to the Democratic Party, you could kind of ignore that because you had Bill Clinton and you know he was as pro-Israel as they came. I think that you know Barack Obama was not as overtly gushingly pro-Israel and the deal with Iran definitely gave a lot of Jews pause, but I think a lot of them couldn't bring themselves to vote against him because he was this historic achievement in America and because he was a Democrat and because their tribal affinities, like those of everyone else in this country you know, transcend any other. You know, concern or issue I think profoundly is October 7th, and not just October 7th, but maybe much more importantly than October 7th, is the reaction to October 7th and what has happened on campus especially. So for now I think a lot of American Jews can content themselves with, you know Kamala Harris making a very, very kind of clear pro-Israel statement in her acceptance speech at the convention in Chicago, and I think they'll derive a lot of comfort from that and they'll be happy that there were no pro-Hamas speakers on stage and that the protesters outside the hall were a tiny sort of shadow of what they were expected to be. It was nothing like the sort of 1968 Chicago redux that they were all fearing, which was what all the protesters were kind of like, the images they were conjuring up. So it was nothing like that and I think for now, like American Jews, will content themselves a lot of them, I think a large majority by saying, well, look like the Democratic Party is still my party. I think those who are being a little bit more realistic and I think that's a growing segment will say, yeah, but look at what's going on on campus and look at like shifting attitudes, like among Jews.

Peter Savodnik:

American Jews are under the age of 40 or 50. There is this generational gap, there is a different way of thinking about Israel and it is frightening, at least from the vantage point of American Jews, and I think again, for now they can kind of ignore that if they want to Jews, and I think again, for now they can kind of ignore that if they want to, but it's going to become very, very hard to do that. So I think Joe Biden and or Kamala Harris will wind up being, I think, among the very last democratic presidents who are unequivocally pro-Israel, supportive of Israel, who aren't going to kind of dangle support of Israel kind of over the Israeli's heads. You know, if only you cut this or that deal with Hamas or whomever. I think we haven't quite reached the inflection point, because the standard bearers, the Democratic Party standard bearers, are still very kind of, you know, they look and sound good to the American Jewish community, but they're not the future.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Let's take a listen to what Kamala Harris had to say on the subject of both the need for a hostage deal and the need for a ceasefire.

Speaker 6:

With respect to the war in Gaza. President Biden and I are working around the clock because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done. Deal and a ceasefire deal done. And let me be clear. And let me be clear I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival. Unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival. At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost, desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.

Dashiel Lawrence:

We expected her to talk about the need for a ceasefire and a hostage deal, but what about that unequivocal support for Israel? It's quite a balancing act that she's trying to do here, isn't it?

Peter Savodnik:

Yeah, and so I think, like that's what you just said when you said balancing act is the problem, right. So, like with the base of the Republican party, there's no balancing act required. They feel deeply that the Israelis are right, like that's it period. Now, that's not to say there aren't anti-Semitic elements on the right, and in fact there are. And I wrote a whole story when I was in Milwaukee about sort of the guardrails having come down and the Republicans having made room for a whole bunch of crazy that would previously not have been on stage. That's entirely a function, I think, of Trump having upended all the kind of traditions and mores and guardrails. And so you get people like you know, like Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, who is just one degree of separation from Candace Owens, who's now like the most prominent anti-Semite in the country, and you know it's Tucker Carlson who's, you know, making the sort of introductory remarks, you know, immediately prior to Donald Trump coming on stage. So there's this kind of like a lack of choreography with Republicans, because you have the fulcrum around which the Republican Party revolves now is Donald Trump, and that is to say, again, there are none of these guardrails that would have kept, you know, sort of unacceptable voices outside of the party that were once part of the party, you know, but no longer are With the Democrats. You're absolutely right, there is a balancing act. The problem is that the balancing act works if you're very, very careful with your language. So you can't talk about antisemitism too much, you can't talk about the Jewish state, you can talk about Israel's right to defend itself, and that's important, okay. But for anyone who is on the floor in Chicago, they would have noted that the two moments in Harris's speech that elicited the most kind of thunderous applause were when she talked about defending a woman's right to choose abortion, abortion rights and Palestinian statehood, which is interesting, of course, because abortion is outlawed in the Palestinian territories. But okay, nevermind that.

Peter Savodnik:

But point being that the kind of progressive activist base, the delegates, the honorary guests, the people who made up the 50,000 human beings crammed into the convention hall in Chicago, they are very taken with the idea of Palestinian statehood and I think that they are okay with sort of Israeli self-determination or Jewish self-determination, israeli, you know, self-defense, but again, they inhabit this racial, identitarian worldview and so they all sort of know on some level that, or I think they all fear or believe on some level that you know the Jewish state is really like kind of maybe sort of an apartheid state. I think there's like this kind of like discomfort with you know Israel I shouldn't say allid state. I think there's like this kind of like discomfort with you know Israel I shouldn't say all of them. I think I'm sure there are plenty of like you know delegates, certainly plenty of Jewish delegates, plenty of non-Jewish delegates who are in Chicago who don't feel that way.

Peter Savodnik:

But that is a sentiment that you encounter, that kind of courses through the democratic base, because it's part of the progressive base. And so I think the triumph of Chicago, as far as the Harris campaign was concerned, is that they were able to pull off this unified front and convey this very positive message which was kind of remarkable. The Hollywood level production quality was just outstanding, and it's not a coincidence that there was almost zero substance in the whole convention. That's part of the unifying effect, right. If you introduce like meat into the conversation, then people are probably going to disagree about some of that. We don't want that or mask some real problems with the kind of Jewish question, the Jewish state, that they can kind of keep at bay for now, but it's going to become just harder and harder over the next few cycles to contain.

Tami Sussman:

So Rachel Goldberg-Pollen and John Pollen, the parents of Hirsch Goldberg-Pollen, who is being held captive by Hamas, spoke at the convention and, Peter, you described it as the most powerful moment in the convention. Why and why was their inclusion in the program significant?

Peter Savodnik:

Yeah, so look, apropos everything we've been talking about, they were very, very warmly received. They'd been warned that they might not be warmly received, which is telling in itself, but then they were very warmly received, and I think there are a few reasons for that. The first and foremost is that it's really really hard not to sympathize with a mother and father who go on live television in front of the whole world just pleading for their son to come home in one piece alive.

Speaker 3:

At this moment, 109 treasured human beings are being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. Among the hostages are eight American citizens. One of those Americans is our only son. His name is Hirsch. He's 23 years old. Hirsch is a happy-go-lucky, laid-back, good-humored, respectful and curious person. He is a civilian. On October 7th, hirsch and his best friend, honor, went to a music festival in the south of Israel. All together, at the Nova Music Festival, 367 young music lovers were killed. This was just one of the many attacks on neighborhoods and communities in southern Israel on that terrible day.

Peter Savodnik:

Just their presence and their message was felt by almost all the Democrats in the room and probably by countless viewers at home, and it was touching to see all these Democrats. They rise for them and applaud and they, you know, welled up and there are tears and that's all. Very. That's a wonderful sign of an indication that there are, you know, at roots or of, like, most people, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, are basically basically decent. They basically think that you know, like you shouldn't kidnap people and they belong with their know, like you shouldn't kidnap people and they belong with their parents and you shouldn't kill innocent. So that was beautiful and touching and, as I reported, I think that if you apply like a slightly more kind of critical lens to the remarks and you consider, like the context in which they were speaking, they emphasized a few things that one would not have had to emphasize, that none of the parents who spoke at, say, the Republican Convention had to emphasize.

Peter Savodnik:

One the hostages include people from all around the world and all different religions, and this is not just about Jews, it's about Christians and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus, and it was this idea of you know, like these poor hostages, and it was not about religion. That was the first thing. And then I think they also made a point of not using the word antisemitism, not talking about Judaism or Jewishness. They didn't avoid it conspicuously, but they just didn't emphasize that and they probably had been advised not to. I think, look, what they did was exactly what any parents in their position who could muster the strength would have done, and I admire them for doing it and I thought it was wonderful. But I also think that the way they tailored their message to the Democratic Convention tells you something. I mean, I saw similar parents in a similar situation in Milwaukee and the message there was a lot raw, if you will. This is about Jew hatred and anti-Semitism and we are pushing back against that. So I think the messages were somewhat different.

Tami Sussman:

How much time more time do we have with you, peter?

Peter Savodnik:

I mean, I've got like 10, 15 minutes Okay.

Tami Sussman:

Now I haven't tuned out once. I came into this interview thinking oh my God, I'm going to fall asleep. Politics, and this is just amazing should be are politically homeless.

Peter Savodnik:

They might think that you know their home is the Democratic Party because it's always been that and maybe it was, but it's not anymore and they should kind of realize that and stop pretending. But at the same time, like just because you know there were a lot of Israeli flags at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee and there was lots of talk about anti-Semitism on campus and the evils of October 7th, we shouldn't pretend that there aren't all kinds of crazy voices that have like seeped into the GOP discourse, and so you know, I think that right now in America there is no obvious place for American Jews and really for American liberals in the kind of traditional sense of the word liberal, not liberal as in like big government liberal, but like people who believe in the bill of rights, in free expression and in a kind of really kind of traditional american kind of democratic lowercase d values. There's not like an obvious home for for those voters right now, uh, and they will kind of ping pong back and forth, depending on who's less repugnant from one cycle to the next.

Tami Sussman:

Okay, we have to vote for our local council in a few weeks in Sydney, new South Wales, and there's always the question of well, who's good for the Jews? So, who's good for the Jews? Who's better for the Jews, kamala or Trump? Yeah, I have no idea.

Peter Savodnik:

But look, good luck in Australia. I hope everything goes well, I think, here. The other thing I guess we should say is that Americans have a hard time imagining anything outside of the realm of America. So the funniest thing about the leftist take on the October 7th in my mind is that it superimposes race relations in America onto this conflict thousands of miles away. That has literally nothing to do with race in America. So there's this America centrism about the whole thing. That is that is kind of perversely solipsistic and stupid and ignorant and all that. But I kind of yeah, I kind of think that like in the end, as far far as the Jews are concerned, it's hard to say as far as Israel is concerned, I think that America will matter less and less over the next few decades and so it may not matter that much.

Tami Sussman:

Okay, Peter, I did tell you I'm not a journalist, but nevertheless I just feel in my kishkas that it would be journalistically irresponsible of me to not ask you. Was Julia Louis-Dreyfus at the democratic convention?

Peter Savodnik:

she might have been. I did not see her.

Peter Savodnik:

There were a lot of celebrities um I only care about julia I wouldn't be surprised if the democrats told her to stay away because, like, the idea of like veep and kamala harris together is not helpful to them. Like the whole point of the harris campaign is Harris campaign is kind of like transcending the caricature of Kamala Harris as like empty-headed veep. But then again, you know, I think Julius Dreyfus is a long-time Democrat and I'm sure you know supporting Harris and she may have come and I have no idea.

Tami Sussman:

Have you met her?

Peter Savodnik:

before. I have not met her. No, I've not met her.

Tami Sussman:

Well then, I can't ask you what she smelled like, because that was going to be my next question.

Peter Savodnik:

I have no idea what she smelled like. Okay, she seems like a nice person. I don't know. I have no idea what she smells like.

Tami Sussman:

I think she'd smell like Dead Sea Mineral Face Mask mixed with Hawaiian Bullet Coffee, and her sweat probably smells like pickle brine.

Peter Savodnik:

Yeah, I don't know, I'm like, I'm a man, so I just think, like in terms of like you know, like sometimes like exfoliator and maybe like a little cologne, but yeah, Thanks so much for being with us, Peter. Of course, of course. Thank you guys.

Dashiel Lawrence:

And if you'd like to read all of Peter's coverage on the US presidential election, you can find Peter's work at the Free Press. Their website is thefpcom or you can follow him on X. His handle is at Peter Savodnik. S-a-v-o-d-n-i-k.

Tami Sussman:

I've just realised I've missed an opportunity. I should have asked him what Barry Weiss smelled like.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Oh yeah, that would have been good. Do you know who she?

Tami Sussman:

is yeah, she does Honestly with Barry Weiss.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Yeah, oh, so you know that.

Tami Sussman:

Very clever.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Yeah, you should have asked.

Tami Sussman:

Anyway, let's do our outro.

Dashiel Lawrence:

That's it for today. You've been listening to A Shame to Admit, with Tammy Sussman and me, dash Lawrence. This is a TJI podcast.

Tami Sussman:

Today's episode was mixed and edited by Nick King, with music by Donovan Jenks and that free Shutterstock Klezmer track.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Links to the articles relevant to today's episode, including reporting from Peter Savodnik, are in the show notes.

Tami Sussman:

If you like the Ashamed to Admit podcast and if you want to take your support to the next level, leave a positive review, tell your friends, include links on your social media posts or become a sponsor.

Dashiel Lawrence:

Get in touch via the contact form on the Jewish Independent website or email. Ashamed at thejewishindependentcomau.

Tami Sussman:

As always, friends, thank you for your support and look out for us next Tuesday. Thank you.