Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback welcomes back civil rights attorney and Zioness founder Amanda Berman for her second appearance on Search for Meaning. Recorded days after Tisha B'Av, the conversation opens with the atmosphere in New York following Mayor Mamdani's video calling Prime Minister Netanyahu a war criminal, the mayor's Tisha B'Av statement, and a stabbing on the Upper West Side — and what it feels like, right now, to be a visible Jewish activist in the city.
From there, Amanda unpacks the framework she's spent years refining: the distinct categories of Jews, Judaism, Israel, and Zionism, and why collapsing them into one another fuels both antisemitism and bad-faith political attacks — including on committed Zionists like Rahm Emanuel. She makes the case against binary language like "pro-Israel" and "anti-Israel," and argues for why Zionism still matters as a living movement even 78 years after Israeli statehood.
The second half turns to hope: the Black-Jewish coalition work Amanda has built alongside Rabbi Zweiback and Bishop Michael Fisher, including their trip to Israel timed to the Ethiopian holiday of Sigd, the "wedge issues" that complicate Black-Jewish solidarity today, and what real, non-transactional coalition-building actually requires.
Podden och tillhörande omslagsbild på den här sidan tillhör
Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback. Innehållet i podden är skapat av Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback och inte av,
eller tillsammans med, Poddtoppen.
