Know Your Enemy - Zohran, the Jews, and Reckoning with Gaza (w/ Peter Beinart)

Matt and Sam talk to Peter Beinart about Zohran and Islamophobia, Jews and anti-semitism, the genocide in Gaza, and more.

Duration: 1h 14m
Broadcast on: 11 Nov 2025
Audio Format: other

This episode isn't focused on a single topic or text, but rather just wanting to have a wide-ranging conversation with our guest, Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents and author of the recent book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. We start by discussing the appalling wave of Islamophobic attacks against Zohran Mamdani during the last weeks of his victorious mayoral campaign, the short-sighted embrace of such bigotry by too many American Jews and Jewish institutions, the current iterations of anti-semitism roiling the right, religious tradition and progressive politics, changing your mind, and more.

Listen again: "Elon Musk, the Jews, and the ADL" (w/ Mari Cohen, Alex Kane, & Peter Beinart), Sept 26, 2023

Sources:

Zohran Mamdani, "My Message to Muslim New Yorkers—and Everyone Who Calls This City Home," YouTube, Oct 24, 2025

Peter Beinart, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning (2025)

Mark Mazower, On Antisemitism: A Word in History, (2025)

Arwa Mahdawi, "Mamdani's Mayoral Race was Marred by Unhinged Islamophobia. It's Not Going Away Soon," The Guardian, Nov 6, 2025

Romanus Cessario, O.P., "Non Possumus," First Things, Feb 1, 2018

George Washington, "To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island," August 18, 1790

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

- All right, welcome listeners to episode 124 of Know Your Enemy. I'm Matt Sippman, your podcast co-host, and I'm here as always with my great friend, Sam Otherbell. Hey, Sam. - Hi, Matt. - I was so excited to record this episode because our conversation was with a guest that has been on the podcast before, but not when I've been on the podcast. - That's right. - It's some deep cut Sam Solo episodes. You know, the Jerry Garcia Band of major enemies. - Oh, that's the most flattering thing you could possibly say. - I meant to flatter you, man. - You could have said it's like Phil Lesh and friends or Wolf Parade or whatever. - Well, you know, if I went to Phil Lesh, that would be a put down. So I went with Jerry. God rest his soul, no offense to the Lesh heads. Anyway, our guest is Peter Bynart. And I really, one reason I was looking forward to the conversation is I just find Peter so smart and interesting and also such a thoughtful, religious model of, you know, someone who is religious in the public, political square, making arguments. I really admire that about him. And in some ways, it's a kind of posture and ethos. I hope to emulate to the extent I can. So I was just, he's someone I've long wanted to have a conversation with. And boy, we did have one, didn't we, Sam? - Yeah, that's right. Well, Peter Bynart for people who don't know him, he's an editor at large at Jewish Currents. He's written several books, most recently a book called Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, A Reckoning, which came out beginning of this year. Peter was also, we talk about this at the end of the episode. He was a kind of like wonder kin at the New Republic in the 1990s and the ender. Well, in the arts, during the lead up to the Iraq war, you know, there's two things that I find really interesting about Peter. In addition to what you just said, which I think is so true about Peter, that he kind of, he wears his religiosity

Transcription truncated.

Matt and Sam talk to Peter Beinart about Zohran and Islamophobia, Jews and anti-semitism, the genocide in Gaza, and more.