Episode Details

Our call this week will be at our new regular time: Friday at 11 AM Eastern.

Our guest will Joshua Leifer, author of the new book, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life. It’s the best history of American Jewish politics I’ve read and offers a provocative analysis of the American Jewish future.

Paid subscribers will get the link this Tuesday and the video the following week. They’ll also gain access to our library of past Zoom interviews with guests like Rashid Khalidi, Thomas Friedman, Ilhan Omar, Omar Barghouti, Benny Morris, Noam Chomsky and Bret Stephens.

We’ve added a new membership category, Premium Member, which is $179 per year (or higher, if you want to give more). In addition to our weekly Friday calls, Premium Members will get access to a monthly “ask me anything” zoom call.

Our first one will be on Thursday, August 29 at 11 AM Eastern.

We’re also slightly increasing the prices of regular paid subscriptions. It’s the first time I’ve done this since I launched the newsletter a few years ago. Starting September 1, regular subscriptions will be $79 per year (up from $72) and $7.99 per month (up from $7). This will apply to all new subscriptions and to everyone whose subscription renews. If this increase creates a hardship for you, email me and we’ll figure it out.

Things to Read

(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with).

In the Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Alex Kane profiles Florida State Representative Randy Fine, one of a new breed of MAGA Jewish Republicans.

In The New York Times, I argued that Kamala Harris could radically change Joe Biden’s policy on Gaza by simply enforcing US law.

Israeli-born Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov on how Jewish Israelis justify what he now considers a genocide.

An Uncommitted delegate who grew up being bombed by Israel on what it’s like to watch the destruction of Gaza.

Please consider supporting a scholarship fund for displaced students in Gaza who want to study in the US.

See you on Friday at 11 AM,

Peter

TRANSCRIPT

So Monday night at the first night of the Democratic Convention. It's going to be devoted to Joe Biden, and I think to say it will be a love fest is probably an understatement. There will be raucous applause and tears, and the whole thing will be devoted to the heroism, the courage, the magnanimity of Joe Biden, what he's achieved, particularly the fact that he was willing to abandon his own ambition to step aside and give the Democrats a better chance of defeating Donald Trump. And, to be clear, I do think it's a very good thing that he did that. But I don't think he should be celebrated. Certainly not in that unambiguous way.

And it really bothers me that so many people in the US center, even center-left people, will be doing that tomorrow night. They'll be saying, "Joe Biden is that rarest of person in American politics, someone who really puts country above himself as an individual." I just d