Giving a lecture at the 92nd Street YMCA in New York City is a high honor, and Bari Weiss, former NYT writer and now editor of The Free Press, was chosen for it, giving a lecture in a decades-long series on the state of world Jewry. You can either read or hear the talk below (click headline or video). I read it, for I have little patience for long videos. However, since the whole talk is given in transcript, the only thing I missed was the visuals. See below for my take on what she said.
Here is Weiss’s message as I understood it, with the main points put in bold. All the text below is mine except for quotes from the transcript, which are indented.
1.) Jews are endangered because of loss of freedom.
This loss of freedom involves, among other things, the denigration of Jews by DEI (which paints us as white oppressors and engages in racial equity that in effect discriminates against Jews. It was even instantiated in this lecture! The bit below is from Bari’s introduction and isn’t in the talk.
But for a sense of the state of Jewish life in America these days, you need only to have walked by the building that night. You would’ve found that police had cordoned off the entire block—and for good reason. Anti-Israel protesters, many wearing masks, gathered to intimidate those who came to the lecture. On the way in, you would’ve been screamed at—told you were a “baby killer” and “genocide supporter” among other choice phrases. You might have even glimpsed Jerry Seinfeld being heckled and called “Nazi scum” on his way out of the talk. (Classy.)
I am beyond grateful to the NYPD, and the entire staff of the 92nd Street Y, for making sure that everyone who attended the talk was able to do so safely. But everyone must ask themselves: Do we want to live in a country in which simply giving a speech about a Jewish subject requires serious police protection? What does that reality say about the state of our country and our freedoms?
From the text:
Because freedom isn’t only under siege in Russia and Iran and Hong Kong. It is also under siege here at home.
By leftists who glorify terrorists. . . and by rightists who glorify tyrants. By technology companies that revise history and tell us it’s justice. By demagogues who point to the grocery stores and the subway system in Putin’s Russia and insist that they are symbols of human flourishing. And by an elite culture that has so lost all sense of right and wrong, good and bad, or has so cunningly transformed those categories, that it can call a massacre “resistance.” A genocidal chant, a call for “freedom.” And a just war of self-defense “genocide.”
. . .There are now whole realms of American life where you cannot be free as a Jew.
Ask the terrified Jewish schoolteacher in Queens who hid in a locked room in her school as a mob of hundreds of “radicalized” kids rampaged through the halls—for almost two hours—after they discovered she had attended a pro-Israel rally.
Ask Matisyahu, who announced that two of his concerts were canceled by venues after anti-Israel activists planned protests. Or the actor Brett Gelman, whose book signings faced the same fate.
Ask Princeton University student journalist Alexandra Orbuch. When pro-Palestinian students didn’t like the questions Orbuch asked, they got the school to issue a no-contact order against her, which effectively prevented her from reporting on them.
Go apply for a job as a curator at MOMA and mention that you’re a Zionist or have the word Israel on your résumé. See what happens.
2.) Jews are the “canary in the coal mine”: in periods of despotism, authoritarianism, and xenophobia, we are among the first to lose our freedom but not the last.
Where liberty thrives, Jews thrive. Where difference is celebrated, Jews are celebrated. Where freedom of thought and faith and speech are protected, Jews are safest. And when such virtues are regarded as threats, Jews will be regarded as the same.
In other words: when people turn against freedom, they turn against us.
Some of the indignities suffered by Jews are mentioned above. Here are other signs of the dissolution of freedom in America (I am giving her take, not necessarily mine).
And it’s time to go to war for our values.
When Apple’s diversity chief—a black woman—was forced to step down for saying that being a minority or a woman are not the only criteria for diversity, did you take her side?
When Asian Americans were discriminated against, did you see their cause as being essential to our own?
When American doctors were censored for questioning the efficacy of lockdowns, were you as outraged about this as you were about people who refused to wear masks in March 2020?
When, just across town, a statue of Teddy Roosevelt was removed from outside the American Museum of Natural History, did you protest?
We glance at these things, feel a twinge of discomfort, and then decide to move on—giving ourselves one excuse after another. But these are the moments for action, because they are wrong. They are bad for America, and because they are bad for America, they are bad for Jews.
I thought for sure that although we saw yesterday that Jews are by far the religious minority that suffers the most per capita from victimization by hate crimes, black people would surely have a higher rate. But the FBI statistics for 2022 (below) seem to show that Jews suffer more from hate crimes per capita than any other group. Using the data below on number of victims, combined with the number of blacks (about 50 million) and Jews in America (about 7.6 million), it seems that an individual Jew in America is 2.7 times as likely to be the victim of a hate crime than is a black person. I’m not sure what that means except that Jews are under siege.
3.) Jews have fallen for the false god of materialism. Weiss notes this by recounting the Biblical story of Aaron and the golden calf—a false idol that Jews worshiped when Moses was slow in coming down the mountain with the tablets. Weiss says that our false idols are STUFF instead of ideas:
We modern Israelites have also been worshipping false gods.
Our American idols are prestige, power, social acceptance, popularity, elite opinion, and the Ivy League—but I repeat myself. Our idols are the coveted board seat. The best tables. Relationships with the pretty people.
We put truth on the altar, as if it were a tithable commodity, to remain insiders, to have bragging rights.
We have been willing to sacrifice what is most precious to us—including our own children—for the sake of it.
Why are we doing this?
We are doing it because we are a tiny minority, and because we feel vulnerable and scared and alone. And because fitting in feels safer than standing apart.
. . . We are doing it because we also live in a culture of idolatry, only this time the materials are pixels and diplomas, adherence to a particular ideology and an emergent social credit system based on likes and retweets.
. . . What is being asked of us is to give up what feels central to our lives—but isn’t. To stop caring so much where your kid goes to college; to give up that museum board seat; to stop funding schools that treat Israel as a pariah and thus Jews who support it as the same; to detach from the friend or institution that has made clear that, to them, you are a second-class citizen.
Now throughout the talk there are scattered references to God (including the notion that are rights are given by God), which suggests that Weiss is indeed religious and believes, at least, in a higher power. I of course am not down with that because we don’t need God to give us rights, and, if you espouse a rational approach to life (as Weiss emphasizes), then you shouldn’t believe in gods. But I’m not sure that her mention of “idolatry” above really means “we should be worshiping God, not things.” It could well mean (and I think it does mean) that our “idols” should be freedom and truth:
4.) The solution to the “othering” of Jews is to embrace our state of being “the other”, to strive for freedom for ourselves, and to seek the truth. Below is our task; I love the quote from Dara Horn, who wrote the absorbing book People Love Dead Jews:
So what do we do?
The charge is as simple as it is spiritually difficult. We fulfill our duty and our responsibility to be free.
As my friend, the brilliant Dara Horn, has written: “Since ancient times, in every place they have ever lived, Jews have represented the frightening prospect of freedom. As long as Jews existed in any society, there was evidence that it in fact wasn’t necessary to believe what everyone else believed, that those who disagreed with their neighbors could survive and even flourish against all odds. The Jews’ continued distinctiveness, despite overwhelming pressure to become like everyone else, demonstrated their enormous effort to cultivate that freedom: devotion to law and story, deep literacy, and an absolute obsessiveness about transmitting those values between generations. The existence of Jews in any society is a reminder that freedom is possible, but only with responsibility—and that freedom without responsibility is no freedom at all.”
. . . .To be free is to tell the truth even in a world awash with lies.
And what is truth? It is the state of the world determined by observation and confirmed by unanimity:
The sky is blue. Robin DiAngelo might say it’s pink. Candace Owens might say it’s green. But it’s not. It is blue. That is as true as asserting that there are good governments and evil ones. There are societies organized to generate progress and well-being and those organized around terror and debasement. There are better cultures for women and minorities and there are worse ones. There are historical truths, even if they’re inconvenient for people to know about, even if the activists running places like Google are frantically working to disappear the old facts.
Here’s Solzhenitsyn again: “Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.” To be a free person is to refuse to tell lies, to refuse to stand by as they are told. To be a free person is to live in truth.
Some of the best bits of Weiss’s talk are the quotes she uses. And she ends with one more:
One time a few years ago, before the pandemic and the wars and so much else that would reshape our world, these themes were already on my mind. And so when, on a trip to Israel, I met my hero and now my friend, Natan Sharansky, I really only had one question for him. I asked him if it was possible to teach courage. He paused and said this: “No. You can’t teach it. You can only show people how good it feels to be free.”
And that’s what I want to end on. Fighting the lies against us, fighting the lies against history, living in truth—it feels good. It’s relaxing to tell the truth. You’ll laugh more. Not that I’m here selling a new cure for depression, but I promise this is a start.
What a blessing to be free to choose. I know what my choice will be. I am determined to be free.
********
Several readers sent me a link to this talk extolling it as a masterpiece. I can’t go along with that take, but I can say that it’s a very good and inspiring talk. Yes, its lessons seem a bit trite or anodyne, and they really apply not just to Jews, but to everyone. Still, it’s good to hear a Jewish woman stand up and assert that the Jews aren’t “white adjacent” oppressors who have to live with that label, that we must fight against those who would put us in that box, and that we should work constantly to dispel the lies and false rumors spread about Israel in an attempt to erase that state from the map.
Hers was a very good talk, but not a masterpiece. I think that she may have tried to be all things to all people—rather than being laser-focused on the state of Jewry itself. She seems to be at her best (IMHO) when she has a bit more focus.
All that said, she is a bright, brave, star in my book. I will continue to listen to her avidly, and I will share her best talks to everyone I can.
I agree, this speech is not a masterpiece. But I agree as well that it is a worthy and, indeed, necessary message in this moment. I have admired Bari Weiss for many years. In the face of the appalling antisemitism spreading like wildfire, we need to stand up for the truth, and stand up for ‘am yisra’el.
I agree with Jerry’s summation in the last paragraph. While I admire and support Weiss in her fight against anti-Semitism, I get exasperated with her regular invocations of her religious beliefs. This otherwise honorable speech is weakened by just those invocations.
Do Dr. King’s speeches invoke the same reaction in you? He too often (referred) to his faith, both in his writing and his speeches.
I’m not being (deliberately) provocative, simply curious.
Cheers.
I appreciate the spirit of your question, Rosemary. When I was growing up in the 60s, I was religious, so King’s religiosity wasn’t an issue. As I became more and more irreligious over the ensuing years, King’s references to religion stuck out more like bumps in the road that I had to expect and cushion myself for. This is the same approach I use for Bari Weiss and, for that matter, other thinkers I respect like Andrew Sullivan, Garry Wills, and James Carroll. I take their religiosity into account to determine how much of it informs their opinions. If their opinions are based solely on religious beliefs, then I will most likely discount them.
Thanks for responding. I hear you.
+1
Many good suggestions to help me answer my continually nagging/dumb question “What exactly in the hell kind of problem did anyone exactly have with Jews, of all people?!”
I thought she captured exactly what the problem was that people had with Jews:
“Since ancient times, in every place they have ever lived, Jews have represented the frightening prospect of freedom. As long as Jews existed in any society, there was evidence that it in fact wasn’t necessary to believe what everyone else believed, that those who disagreed with their neighbors could survive and even flourish against all odds.”
That Dara Horn quote hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never thought of antisemitism as authoritarian efforts to suppress freedom of thought. IDK if that’s correct but it’s a new way for me to think about it, and a little gift of freedom. Uplifting for sure.
What is the bar for a masterpiece? Who decides? On what basis?
This speech was a masterpiece. I’d encourage people to watch her and listen to it, merely reading it isn’t sufficient; you lose so much.
The whole package does deliver a masterpiece – in my opinion.
A few notes:
I thought the speech was cohesive and well arranged contrary to comments above. The focus of the speech was on freedom and what freedom means in a culture that has so much choice, too much choice, but little courage. Weiss was making the case (ultimately) that freedom is a state of mind, one that leans heavily on courage; yes, freedom is many other things as well, but if one is not free (courageous) one isn’t free, can’t be free.
Hence her words -repeatedly- pointing to those who *are* “free”.
She used an anaphoric strategy -which worked well- speaking of Americans (and others) she knew who were -truly- free. One of the examples she used -which stayed with me- was of Roland Fryer (Harvard). I believe Bari referred to him as “profoundly free”, because, “he didn’t covet those things that they covet”. She used Ronald’s own words to make her case. If you watched her interview with Ronald, it all comes together:
Here: https://youtu.be/IQ9tTottjB8?si=YMxz3_3wQQRH0e8g
She Also mentioned Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A free human.
If we live our lives coveting things that are (in the end) meaningless, we are destined not to be free for the simple reason that we will not have the courage to shed such things when we must, when we are called to.
Regarding rights, I agree with Bari, rights come from natural law (to some this translates to God and to others “something else”), importantly, they are not *given* us by governments, nor our parents, nor tribes, nor churches, nor (even) the constitution, or anything else. Hence “inalienable”. Knowing this in one’s gut goes to underwriting “freedom of mind”.
Finally, reading Dr. King’s words and speeches don’t make them masterpieces, listening to them do. And no, I’m not comparing Bari to MLK, but I am making the point that a speech is meant to be listened to (like music), not read.
I only read it (I didn’t have time to listen for over an hour) but I fully agree with you that it was a masterpiece. And I agree with every one of your notes. Thanks!
😊
Cheers.
I also find it a masterpiece. Thank you for this post!
I agree with Norman, in part, that the speech could be more focused. But rather than more specifically being about Jewry, I would have tightened the connection between the general demise of freedom in America and the rising antisemitism. The former is more important than the latter, and all her injunctions against idolatry apply equally to non-Jews who covet praise, positions, and prosperity. When others control the things that you most desire, when they have the power to deny you what you most want, then they can also control you. Those who dare to live differently, think differently, speak differently, believe differently, will become targets of the illiberal powers; the accomplished will incur wrath, the unaccomplished disdain. Jews will incur both.
I think it a mistake to belittle her religious invocations. I have no idea what she believes; her words work well either as religious appeals or as literary metaphor and illustration. It is easy to see in her talk of idolatry a self-serving elevation of the inessential over the essential, a self-imposed slavery to one’s lusts, a selling of one’s birthright for a pot of stew. Whatever the depth or sincerity of her religious beliefs, there is a strength in appealing to both the religious and to those who are not. One seeks allies where one can find them. And if it weren’t for the those of traditional Christian faith in America, then Israel would find precious few allies in this world. There is little that Jerry says here about the plight of Israel and the need for its defense that wouldn’t be entirely at home in evangelical congregations across America. I’m sure that they would cringe at the association, too! But the deeper problems that Weiss addresses cannot be corrected unless we start to bridge divides—and until we relearn the difference between what is fundamental and what is “nice to do.”
Beautiful. Thank you.
+1
The venue dictated her focus be -primarily- on Jewry. Nevertheless, your point is well taken.
Very nicely put, Doug.
Is the reported increase in anti-Semitism rather a rise of criticism against the state of Israel? Let us not conflate the two. I believe that the presented statistics might be blending criticism of the Israeli government with actual anti-Semitism. In this context, it’s reasonable to observe a surge in criticism, especially considering the current accusations of potential genocide against the state by the world’s highest court.
The only statistic I give are those of hate crimes. If you think they reflect attacks on Jews because of what the state of Israel does and not antisemitism, then I can’t help you.
“World’s highest court”
Scoff.
Scoff agree. World’s lowest both in stature and physical location in my opinion, it is the Hague after all.
“Is the reported increase in anti-Semitism rather a rise of criticism against the state of Israel?”
In the last 10 years the state has killed vastly more Muslim people in Yemen, Syria, and Sudan than Israel has in Gaza. It’s only the Israeli state that is made up of Jews, and thus it’s the only state in the docket. It’s antisemitism.
[edit: All of these killings are deplorable and terrible. Nobody here wants any of this to be happening. But only Jews are brought up on genocide charges, and in their case for pursuing the bastards who raped and murdered and mutilated 1200 of their people!]
“Giving a lecture at the 92nd Street YMCA in New York City…”
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/92nd_Street_Y) saith that it was originally the “Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA)”. I’m unsure it was ever affiliated with the YMCA.
I don’t want to argue “masterpiece”, but I liked it a lot.
I agree that her speech was very powerful, and very much needed. She is a brave woman.
But I wonder if she oversteps the mark when she asserts that Jewishness, and Jewish commitment to their distinctiveness, represents their commitment to freedom. It is not difficult to see how commitment to distinctiveness could be seen by some as refusal to commit to the norms of the rest of society, which in turn might lead to society treating them as outcasts. I certainly don’t see why Jewish commitment to freedom should be regarded as distinct to anyone else’s, let alone better.
There is another serious question here, about the assimilation of incomers, and the extent to which traditional customs should be accepted in the interests of creating a cohesive society. The journalist Matthew Syed, himself of Pakistani-Welsh parentage, argues in today’s Sunday Times that, for instance, we should consider banning cousin-to-cousin marriage with the aim of breaking down traditions that perpetuate in-group and ideological isolation: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/to-beat-extremism-we-must-remove-the-barriers-that-block-integration-spdwqvg3s (may be paywalled). How might this viewpoint translate into attitudes towards Jewish traditions? And should Jewish traditions be given any greater weight than Muslim or Hindu traditions?
It’s all rather difficult.
The Roman Catholic Church frowned on cousin marriages. Arab societies not only marry cousins but hire them in their firms as well, which is why the Arab world stagnated while Europe Enlightened. Not for genetic reasons but for reasons of willingness to trust people you weren’t related to so you could do business with strangers. Eschewing cousin marriages would be a great start for the efforts of the Arab/Muslim societies to leave the eighth century behind if they want to do so.
Ashkenazi Jews do not but rarely marry cousins even though the Torah (or local law) doesn’t forbid it. The population is hardly anywhere close to being that inbred. I read that Orthodox Jews can have DNA testing if they wish. Even Icelanders can avoid marrying near cousins. (They have a genealogy registry so they don’t by accident.)
For my money, Jewish “clannishness” (as some call it) is not a problem for social cohesion because the social mores and customs (as distinct from religious ritual) of even highly observant Jews are so close to the mainstream as to be a non-frictional difference, whether they marry cousins or not. I don’t expect their daughters to marry my sons…although one did. I’ll give Bari Weiss the benefit of the doubt on this one. In any event it is but a tangential side light to her outstanding speech.
I really liked the calm intelligent conversation after her speech. We don’t hear enough of that sort of thing.
“We should be worshiping God, not things. ”
Isn’t this some sort of puritanism?
The idea that materialism is bad doesn’t follow from the facts; for instance, the sharpest decline in poverty in the history of mankind happened after sixties and seventies, during the heydays of neo-liberalism and consumerism.
The track record of materialism is much better than the track record of religion. Materialism does make religion look bad.
I felt similar to you about that line, and I agree that materialism has a much, much better record than religion. However, my biggest problem is with worshiping, period. I think it is bad to worship anything. Exhortations to worship anything are a major turn off for me.
Overall, though, I think her speech was very good. I’m not sure if her claims are correct, but it was a good speech.
Agree, worshiping makes people often blind for the negative side of their favorite ideology or worldview.
Of all the lies about “Palestine” – the fraudulence about its claim to nationhood, the lies about their actual demographics, the historical howlers detached from reality, what burns me up is this “MOST CROWDED PLACE ON EARTH” garbage which I can still remember from the 1990s!
It is nowhere NEAR that. The numbers (pop’n v sq. miles) prove its density to be about twice that of Washington DC.
Any google.earth search will disabuse you of “crowdest place” bs.
It is nowhere near the density of MOST South Asian or Middle East cities. Nor independent city states.
And the “worst poverty” myth of course. Their poverty is entirely self earned and there despite BILLIONS in charity and Israeli transfers. Further, Gaza and WB, GDP-wise are better than nearly all of the 3rd world.
So much bs. That, antisemitism and the woke virus = masses of morons downtown in our cities chanting river/sea calls for Israeli annihilation and jihad.
D.A.
NYC https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/