Elite, Educated, Antisemitic: How Academia Fosters Jew Hate with Shai Davidai

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What happened on American campuses after October 7 did not come out of nowhere. In this episode of The Honest Take, Shai Davidai joins HonestReporting to trace the intellectual roots of the antisemitism now shaping elite universities. From Edward Said’s Orientalism and the rise of the activist professor, to moral relativism, postcolonial theory, and the normalization of anti-Zionism as virtue, Davidai explains how decades of academic ideas helped create a culture where Jew hatred is repackaged as justice. The conversation also explores Columbia’s long history with antisemitism, the role of groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, and why so many students and faculty cannot even recognize their own bigotry. Davidai argues that this is not just campus radicalism. It is a broader moral and intellectual failure with real consequences for Jews, for higher education, and for American society. Shai Davidai is a social psychologist, former Columbia Business School professor, and host of Here I Am with Shai Davidai. His forthcoming book, American Intellectual Antisemitism, is scheduled for release on October 6, 2026.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE NAKBA: The Forgotten History of 1948 — with Yossi Klein Halevi

Yossi Klein Halevi grew up the son of Holocaust survivors in Brooklyn. As a teenager, he joined Meir Kahane's Jewish Defense League. Then he moved to Israel, broke with extremism, and wrote a book called Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor - released free in Arabic - asking Palestinians to see Jews as an indigenous people returning home, not colonizers. Today, on college campuses across America, the answer is: you're colonizers. The Nakba proves it. With Nakba Day approaching, Ben sits down with Halevi for an honest, unflinching conversation about what actually happened in 1948 - the partition vote, the Arab invasion, Deir Yassin, the Hadassah convoy massacre, the 850,000 Jews expelled from Arab countries that nobody talks about. And then: how a legitimate historical grievance became a weapon of delegitimization. Halevi is not a denialist. He openly names the Nakba as a real catastrophe. He has criticized Israeli education for refusing to teach it. But he also argues that collapsing 1948 into a "narrative of total innocence" - and using it to erase Jewish indigeneity - is something categorically different from honest historical reckoning. This is the conversation about 1948 that most people never get to have. In this episode: 00:00 — Cold Open (Deir Yassin / Hadassah convoy quote) 00:22 — Intro: Ben introduces Yossi Klein Halevi and the episode 00:53 — The Real Story of 1948 — episode framing 02:43 — Growing up in Brooklyn, joining the JDL 04:12 — Breaking with Kahana and moving to Israel 05:25 — Living with the partition wall in Jerusalem 07:42 — Two overlapping geographies: Land of Israel vs. Land of Palestine 08:02 — The UN Partition vote (1947) — Arab rejection and the pattern of refusals 12:07 — The Palestinian maximalist frame vs. the Israeli counter-narrative 14:08 — When does land become about existence? 14:55 — The Israeli center: head vs. heart on two states 16:33 — Why two states feel impossible after October 7th 16:54 — The six months between partition and war (Nov '47–May '48) 18:50 — Ethnic cleansing on both sides — flight vs. expulsion 20:58 — The 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries 25:20 — Why Arab countries kept Palestinians as permanent refugees 27:34 — Inversion: Nazi collaboration accusations flipped 30:35 — Plan Dalet: ethnic cleansing blueprint or defensive plan? 34:04 — Deir Yassin vs. the Hadassah convoy massacre 36:06 — Acknowledgment vs. apology — teaching the Palestinian Nakba 41:13 — Settler colonialism goes mainstream: Al Jazeera, Jacobin, the Oscars 47:01 — Why 'indigenous' and 'no metropole' arguments aren't landing 48:13 — The language war: genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism as weapons 49:03 — Myths & Facts doesn't work anymore — it's about narrative now 53:00 — Has dialog survived October 7th? 58:02 — Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor — the German edition and new intro 01:00:59 — Outro About the guest: Yossi Klein Halevi is a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He is the author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor (Harper Collins, 2018), a New York Times bestseller released free in Arabic at letterstomyneighbor.com [http://letterstomyneighbor.com]. His previous books include Like Dreamers (National Jewish Book Award winner) and Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist. Follow him on X: @YKleinHalevi Hosted by Ben Chertoff @ben.chertoff The Honest Take is produced by HonestReporting - rebuilding trust in media.

11 de may de 20261 h 1 min

Elite, Educated, Antisemitic: How Academia Fosters Jew Hate with Shai Davidai

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