jewish students association. on behalf of the chat of jewish students association and all chatting students of like to welcome you to our campus this evening for this important and timely conversation with bari weiss, author of the book "how to fight anti-semitism." as students at shadow our education is informed byis the universities mission to prepare graduates to be informed and engaged citizens in their communities and to recognize and respect diversity of culture, identity and opinion. both of these are on display this evening but it is this last idea, the respect for diversity of culture, identity and opinion that is needed more than ever in our society today. the tragedy at tree of life, the response to this book and the amazing tourniquet by all of you for this important conversation show why. bari will be available to personalize copy of her books of the back of the stage after the discussion. if you don't have a copy yet, the bookshop will bee sold them at that time. thank you for visiting our campus this evening, and please welcome to the stage dr. david finegold, the the president ofe chatham university to say a few remarks. [applause] >> good evening, everybody, and thank you for that introduction. as some of you may recall, it was just over a year ago today that we were gathered together in this chapel for a very similar purpose, to hear from a holocaust survivor who came to pittsburgh from chicago to share her moving story. at that time just one day after the shooting at tree of life we were initially uncertain about whether it made sense to go ahead with the event. but inspired by her own determination to make the flight to pittsburgh just minutes after learning of the shooting, we decided together that we should meet, gather in his place and send the message that we are stronger than hate. so when i i got the call last month from my friend at the jewish community center asking if we would host the nights event, i jumped at the opportunity to bring together the chatham community of the jewish community at a friends across pittsburgh to explore again tonight how we can work together to fight hate. it's my honor tonight to be able to introduce our two special guests, starting with bari weiss, a staff writer and editor for the opinion section of the "new york times,." reversed her first book as you s called "how to fight anti-semitism." before joining the times, bari worked for j the "wall street journal" and was a senior editor at tablet, the premier jewish online magazine of ideas,, politics and culture. she rightly appears on shows like the view, "morning joe." a graduate of columbia, she is also a winner of the foundations 2018 prize which annually honors writers who best demonstrate the importance of freedom with originality, with, and elegant. "vanity fair" recently recognized bari as the time star opinion writer of the jerusalem post name for the separate the most influential jew in the world. her parents who i met the city wanted to know who the other six were. [applause] most important for the nights event, bari is a proud member of the chatham family. her mother, her aunt and her sister are allnt chatham graduates, and she grew up with the chatham as her backyard with houses on murray hill avenue and w. woodland rd. [applause] are other guest this evening is mark nordenberg. mark joined university of pittsburgh for a nine-month stint as a fitting -- visiting assistant professor in the school of law over 40 years ago, and he hasas never left. [laughing] he had the honorev to serve as dean of the school of law, in turn produce and i'm sure as all of you are aware, i can use and a very successful reign as chancellor of the university to what she helped lead along with his partner jerry cohen, the revolution here in pittsburgh. now chancellor emeritus and distinguished service professor, mark nordenberg has received many important honors including pittsburgh's person of the year by pittsburgh magazine and history maker by the senator john tsai history center. he currently serves as chair of pittsburgh's institute of politics and director of its dick thornburgh forum online policy, and he is a member of the small independent committee appointed by the jewish federation, the aftermath of the attack at tree of life synagogue where he is actively engaged helping to create and lead new anti-hate initiatives. please. please join me in welcoming bari and market to our discussion this evening. [applause] >> it's like my bar mitzvah on steroids. [laughing] i see my teacher from middle school in the second row. >> you want to get her up on stage to question you? what a great crowd. it's so nice you are all here tonight, and i want to begin by thanking president feingold and the entire chatham university community for inviting us to be here on what has to be one of the most beautiful campuses in the world. [applause] >> chatham as a special place in every sense, andpe we really are grateful for the hospitality that the university is extending tonight. and as we walked across the campus tonight, i'm sure most of us felt a combination of peace and calm and the constructive power of youthful energy. but we all know as david said, it was just over a year ago and not very far from here at the tree of life synagogue that worshipers from three congregations were brutally attacked by an anti-semite arms with an automatic weapon. i'm not sure any event has ever had the impact on pittsburgh that days attack did. and i want to suggest on behalf of bari and david that we dedicate this program tonight to the victims of that attack, and to the victims of anti-semitism wherever they may be. and that we each take a moment tonight to think about how it is we might contribute to the fight that she hasht described in her very, very important book. this event attracted a capacity crowd and generated a waiting list within just a few days. the twin attractions of course of the opportunity to welcome bari back home and to learn more about the fight against anti-semitism from her well-written, thought-provoking, best-selling book of that title. . it is now ranked by amazon as . the top-selling book in its category of discrimination in constitutional law. i will claim most of her time for myself. [laughter] we will pick up audience question cards will make sure we try to leave enough time to answer quashed on - - questions posed by the audience. c-span is filming this program tonight and will be shown as part of their book tv program at a later date so behave yourself. [laughter] do not create a bad impression of pittsburgh for the rest of the country. so to begin with a different question it is not out of bounds. with the ranking of the jerusalem hoax that listed you the seventh most influential jew in the world in 2019. [laughter] and for those of you who did not see the article i want to add a little bit of context. only one american was higher and that was the ambassador to israel. [laughter] and to provide more color even longer trump and kushner were ranked as a pair at 14 even stephen breyer and notorious rvg were ranked 18 collectively and facebook mark zuckerberg and sheryl sandberg as a pair number 35. [laughter] so my question is it a blessing or a burden when your parents look at that list and say that's great but you should have ranked higher. [laughter] >> i would like to thank my tiger mother who did everything in my dad who has been almost like a father to me. [laughter] of course. my entire life is a blessing. my entire life would have been unimaginable to my great-grandparents or my grandmother sitting in the front row to whom this book is dedicated. hi grandma. my inheritance was unbelievable but i was born in this country and the golden age for american jewelry and after the feminist broke down the barriers that were the obstacle between my grandmother and her dreams i think about what she would have been if born in my era another part of my inheritance is that i was born in a country of founders and the jewish story. those new israelites and acting that modern day exodus then there was the fact my grandparents generation that you had to change her name in order to get a good job you were not accepted at certain law firms you had to build your own law firm so that was the world i was born into. in that sense my whole life is a blessing. with the jewish role model and in judaism that you wear the yarmulke on your head so that you live up to the obligations of what that means so you model the behavior that is worthy to be a jew in the world i don't wear one on my head but i feel i have the biggest one in the world stapled to my head all the time that cannot come off. [laughter] i think it has made me more conscientious and a better person because i'm very aware people are looking to me what does a jew mean in this day and age? and that obligation and that blessing i take seriously. >> in terms of ray reeve - - rave reviews or high rankings i am an american but a zionist in a proud daughter of pittsburgh. but in terms of the personal reactions to the attack of which we have referred and developing a sense of what it means to be a jew and 21st century america. and i didn't realize it until i left i thought it was normal that my parents belong to five different synagogues. but it was normal for us to have a shabbat dinner with a very political and religiously diverse group of people than normal to go to a conservative synagogue when we were the youngest torah readers and then to a family that's much more religious for lunch and then go to the jcc to play basketball that was normal for me. because i think pittsburgh is small enough and the values are such we don't say on those lanes that we find ourselves in we reach out from those barriers. only when it came to college in new york and even after the massacre at the tree of life and the reaction the crossing of barriers didn't just exist inside the jewish community but far beyond that. of what solidarity looks like and so on and if you go down the line there is a real sense of unity and an attack on the jewish community with the attack on everyone and that solidarity is a model not just for america but the rest of the world. and to be inculcated of the values of mister rogers neighborhood that i realized after i left how special that was. everything on that show i feel was not just a theory but a lived reality where i grew up. not to say there were exceptions i write about waiting for the school bus with my sister i will never forget the catholic school bus driving by kids screaming out the window dirty jews and i was told to pick up a penny because there was a jew. these are footnotes and then it with those vestiges from the old world and not at all the norm i'm very grateful for those that live up to those that wrote about us and the fact is a testament to so many leaders and to see so many faces to put in the effort that doesn't come out of nowhere. that is a result of incredibly hard work and that's what i am indebted to and grateful for. >> with the idea your life has been a blessing comes through very clearly in the book as you describe your own experience and the lessons from your grandparents and parents. and to hear the ability to listen to the english language that are memorable. in some sense looking at the big picture you view your life as a holiday from history. >> well, i meant by that, that it sounds depressing to put it this way but i think it's true. i think the reality that we have returned to in the aftermath not just of the attack on tree of life but, of course, six months later on the synagogue in california which had the honor to this comment book to her and just today where 27-year-old was arrested in two hours outside of denver, colorado, white supremacist by the fbi. he was attempting to blow up a synagogue, a small synagogue. that reality that we are living in, that is a return to the norm of jewish history. what i mean by that is with very rare exception in our 2000 years that the jews have been kicking around, the norm has been for us to think about our security in the room like this. the norm has been for us to be worried about an attack on a synagogue. the norm has been for us to be, should we actually walk around with a visible side of our jewishness or should we put our jewish star necklace inside our short? it's only to say i never thought about those things when i was growing up. that in and of itself is just an unbelievable departure and perhaps will get into this whata departure that's a something unique about what america can be at its very best. and so i think what we are living through now is i kind of this orienting almost nauseating feeling that the world that we inherited, certainly the world that i inherited and the world, parents i think i spent their lives living and is s no longer the world that i think would be the reality for the rest of our lives. that has to do not just with the jewish-american experience but, frankly, with the direction of where this country is going, at least at this moment. those things are deeply, deeply interconnected. >> you also said something that had all bit of an ominous ring to it. that is, you expressed a fear that during this holiday from history, which of course was shared by many other people, that american jews may have lost their instinct for danger. what did you mean by that? >> what i mean by that is that the jews of europe had not ever been so lucky. they were always aware of the kind of things that we now have to be incredibly conscience of and the kind of conversations that are nowf normal in our community about hardening our synagogues and to have armed guards at the doors of jewish schools on the upper west side of new york? this is a major departure. but what a mean in terms of the instinct for danger, it's kind of a double-edged sword, that instinct for danger. on the one hand, it's horrible because you have to think about your safety. but on the other hand, it's a constant reminder of who you are and what you are fighting for. i think there's a sense that the american jewish community, because of the blessings of the fact we been so accepted, the best experience it all jewish history and he continues to be that way. even after trump's election and the attacks of the past two years. i still think with the luckiest diaspora in history. that may or may not change and we get to see what will happen. but i think that part of the blessings of that diaspora experience of been a kind of complacency, which is to say because we've been so accepted and i would say -- we've had the privilege if youac can say that way, to forget who we are. at least some of us. and i think part of what's happening now is as we are sort of besieged in the way we've never have been, a it is both a scary thing because it is reminder of our difference but it is also an opportunity to try and dig deeper into understand what the difference is actually about. who are we and what are we fightinge for? that is the deeper thing behind this book. i sort of naïvely and foolishly thought isn't that obvious what we're fighting for? because my jewish identity isseo at the forefront of who i am, i actually think one of the things i've learned in this book and going all run around this couny talking to people is i really think the past year has been reawakening for people of, oh, my god, when any minority is attacked or really when you are ideas are you are there's a sense of like wanting to punch back and then as a sense of, why are they attacking me? what is that quality in me? do i want to sort of cut off that part of myself to be accepted, , or don't want to dig deeper into who i am as a reaction to that attack? i think if anything good can come from this uncertain and precarious moment we are in, it is not just for the jews for all minorities the find themselves in a very uncomfortable position given that we have a politics that is fundamentally attack civility and decency, is to use it, to use it as an opportunity to understand your difference and what your difference can offer, not just you in a sense of meaning in your own life but offer to this country. >> certainly in pittsburgh pilasters and reflection and resolve. and it's interesting to hear you say that you have found that in many of the parts of the country as you have been on this book tour. unit said we need to know who we are. youu also say in the book that e need to know what we are fighting against. and you made earlier reference to really anti-jewish prejudice, which you mentioned you had experienced here as a child in pittsburgh. you clearly experienced it as a young adult when you left pittsburgh. how do you distinguish between anti-jewish prejudice and anti-semitism so that we do know what we're focusing on? >> i draw a distinction between anti-jewish prejudice, which functions as a kind ofti inconvenience. it's morally disgusting butnc it doesn't fundamentally seek the erasure of the jewish people and a jewish civilization. so at the prejudice might mean i really don't wantt a jewish couple moving in next door. it's gross. all of us with think that's appalling but it doesn't fundamentally threaten the lives of jews in the jewish civilization. what anti-semitism is, it is, as i write in a book, it is sort of the oldest conspiracy theory. why'd it does is it singles out a quality, a loath some quality in any given society or civilization. so that's why under the nazi regime the jews are the ultimate race contaminated. how under the soviet union the jews are the arch capitalists because communism is a thing that is venerated. on the white supremacist far right, whatt are the jews? the jews of the people that appeared to be white but, in fact, they are the greatest trick the devil has ever played because they appear to be white but, in fact, they are slavishly loyal to the black people and the brown people and the muslims who they want to bring into this country and solely white christian america which of course is what the attacker of the tree of life believed and were publicly online. and on a far left i would say the way that this presents itself is that the most loath some quality on the far left is jewish power and expressions of that is why and israel which of course is the main main expression of jewish power in the world today needs to be disavowed and that is the think the far left increasingly asks of progressive jews which inwh a we will get into later. also another thing that at the semitismso which is we're never going to defeat it, okay? newsflash, it's never going away. our greatest hope i think is to keep it at bay, right? at the semitism in a way functions like a virus. in way that all of us in this room have hundreds probably thousands maybe tens of thousand viruses interbody at any given moment. but as long as we're physically healthy, those viruses don't express themselves and were able to act as healthy people in the world. i would say it's a very analogos to a society, a society that has a healthy social and cultural and political immune system. it's a society where anti-semitism not to mention racism, xenophobia and other kinds of bigotry, a sergeant, homophobia are kept at bay. but a society in which the immune system is weakened, and right now in america and god does in other parts of the world, our society, our social immune system is incredibly weakened. that is why it has become more and more normative for there to be expressions of anti-semitism, of racism, of anti-immigrant bigotry, , and all of the rest. >> again, , the language in your book is amazing when you talk about an ever morphing conspiracy theory. and, of course, there are those of o us who were that conspiracy theories are replacing reality in a lot of corners of american life today. is that the kind of sign that our immune system is at risk and that anti-semitism and some of these other awful social problems may be on the rise? >> i think that's issued center of it because as i sit at the semitism is it ultimate conspiracy theory, and it is a very big problem when people who paddle in conspiracy theories are in places of power, especially in this white house. i don't think it's possible to have this conversation without talking about the president and the fact that the president, somersworth and me wrote he's almost an anti-semite without the jews. they met the president traffics in conspiracy theories such as, you know, who's to blame for the problems of the working man and woman inh america? it's the globalist, , the eliti, the emigrants, it's the kind of scapegoating politics that we jews are alternately with from other times and places. doesn't even need a single us out for it to be a siren song for racists and white supremacist. it is not a coincidence the white supremacist like richard spencer were drawn to trump's banner, , because he played the major chords that are resident for people who already believe in a conspiracy theory about the world. in their conspiracy theory about the world there is a secret hand controlling the world, , and tht secret hand is thee jew. and when that person hears it's the globalist, the elitist, it's a george soros, and i could go on and on and on, they hear jew, jew, jew. and that's why it's so important be very attuned to that kind of language, especially when it's coming from places like the white house and members of cards on the other side of the aisle as well. >> and in your book you really talk about three strands of anti-semitism. the far right, the far left, and the problems with radical islam. and just to be clear, we are talking about far right white supremacists, anti-semitism right now. >> yes. i mean look, i could go on for a while about this, maybe i will. anti-semitism from the right is by far and away the most physically dangerous threat. god forbid someone was going to walk in this room, all of my money would be on the bed that person is white supremacist. 20 years ago i would not have said that. i would've said that person is a jihadist and then sue we had to fear but that is change and maybe will change again another ten ten years from now but right now in this moment that is very much the reality. what i fear for my own physical safety, that is who i most fear. if you look at all of the statistics, name your outfit suit jewish organization, not least the fbi and the rest, that is the reality. what does that is convenient is it announces itself. when the killer walked into tree of life, he said what he wanted to do. he said all jews must die and then he went and tried to kill as many jews as he possibly could. so the one thing that is sort of helpful when it comes to at the semitism from the right is it is extremely blunt and it announces itself in language we don't need to have a debate about. we can all acknowledge that that is what it appears to be, and all of us know from our great-grandparents and grandparents experienced in europe where the kind of thing can lead to. at the semitism from the left is something different and i've said many times in public that it's more insidious. what a mean byen that is not tht it's a greater danger. it's just it's more insidious in the sense that it can get smuggled into the mainstream. let me explain to you how that works. where anti-semitism from the far where anti-semitism from the far semitism from the far left comes cloaked to us in language that is very familiar to american jewish tongs and to the tongues of all good liberals and progressives. what does it say? it says we want social justice. we want to fight antiracism. what the universe is a brotherhood of man. and what it requires is not dead jews are quite anti-semitism from the far left requires is jewish zombies. what do i mean by that? it says to the jew you can live in a jewish body, no problem. all that is required of you is that you need to publicly disavow jewish culture, , jewish ideas, jewish particularism, jewish power, jewish statehood and whatever the new line is and it is constantly moving. what does it look like? it looks like the spanish inquisition where jews need to convert to catholicism in order to remain living as jews but, of course, they are emptied of the jewish soul. in the soviet union it looks like disavowing belief in god and jewish ritual practice, not circumcising your sons, so and so forth. you can live in a jewish body but not as a jewish soul. what it looks like today if you look across the p pond at the labour party in great britain it looks like you can be a jew, you just have to convert into jewish powerlessness i disavowing the jewish state and disavowing the movement for jewish liberation and self-determination which is zionism. so again it is not seeking dead jews, and in that sense it seems like less of a threat. but what it does is it marginalizes the jews and it's much more institutional. if you want to sue at the semitism looks like on a college campus, thank god it's not someone walking around with a gun, at least not yet. what it looks like is jews being told as it were at the university of virginia after the marchers walked shouting jews will not replace us, , there waa minority student coalition that was organized to fight white supremacy and the jewish students were told you cannot be a member of this group. even though people marching with the tiki torches wearing polo shirts were shouting jews will not replace us, then the jewish students were told you can't join a minority student coalition to fight white supremacy. how is that? how is that possible? the way that is possible is if you believe that the jews are sort of handmaidens of white supremacy because they support the state of israel, about which a giant lie is being told which is that the state of visual is a white supremacist project. so in a way the threats we face are twofold and i can expect more about that in the second. one is being hurt, , physically, by white supremacists. the other threat is being converted into white supremacist, being smeared as white supremacist by people on the far left. i don't think it's a coincidence that every community i go to people come up to me and they talk about how they feel so politically homeless in our community right now. there's very, very good reason for that. it is because of this double edged problem we are facing in which we are not pure enough on either side of the position, sorry, on either side of the lyrical i'll and it's an enormous problem we are facing. >> well, it is a huge problem, and i'm glad you were so clear about that because i do think that there is such a difference between marginalizing and murder. that it is at this point in your analysis that some of your friends stop. i'm not sure they leave you but they say are you suggesting that there is kind of equivalence between the anti-semitism of the right and the anti-semitism of the left. equivalent. they are different but they threaten us in different ways. there's line that i quote in the book from this judicial writer who was a member of stolons antifascist committee. stolons antifascist committee of course was made up of the most celebrated yiddish, jewish writers, poets, playwrights, directors of the time, and it would basically jews as window dressing by stalin to say i'm not really an anti-semite. look at all these jews that are surrounding me. he said the famous line went to camera to the fact that, indeed stalin was not a friend of the jews. he said hitler wanted to kill us physically. stalin wanted to kill us spiritually. if it ultimately he along with 27 others was self murder. so if a look at our history, there is, manyy of us are most similar of course with the show of the holocaust because that is the worst massacre and tragedy that ever befallen the jewish people. but i think as a result of the fixation on the history of the holocaust which makes good sense, we have lost track of this other strand of anti-jewish, anti--- of jewish hatred that again is not genocidal at first but leads to an erasure of jewish civilization by other means. .. i think also the criticism, you framed it in a nice way but i get a tremendous amount of criticism saying i'm soft on white supremacy. i want to be very clear, i don't know how anyone from this community or anyone that's paying attention could not be absolutely terrified about the rise of white supremacy in this country and isthe horrific effect that it can have on innocent people who are just trying to go to synagogue and pray on shabbat morning. i want to be very clearthat i am very serious about that threat . i also think that given my position, which is an elder millennial at the new york times someone who identifies as a liberal i have a special obligation to call out anti-semitism from the far left and sound the alarm early before it becomes too late in that regard. and i think that there is something that's much more emotionally difficult about seeing anti-semitism on the left and that has to do with the fact that 75 percent of american jews will vote for democrats. the overwhelming number of us identify as liberals or progressives and when we see anti-semitism from the far right it's kind of like that was already not us. that was already not of our tribe. i think that there's something muchmore psychologically and emotionally difficult when you see it coming from inside , the thing that you thought was your own tent . and i think there's a reason that many jews themselves are really hesitant to look at it because what does it mean if the anti-cemetery semi is across the road that is sitting at your kitchentable . how do you confront that and that is actually the problem when i talk to jews all over the country and certainly in europe. it is actually more pressing in their daily lives. the anti-semitism has more pressing in people's daily lives is the sense that they need to be increasingly positive about different aspects of their jewish tas identity . and you know, the white supremacist that wants to murder them ultimately, that's the job of security and law enforcementto protect us from those people . there's not that much we can do about that other than fighting bigotry and white supremacy in lots of ways that i talk about in the book of the actual anti-semites that most people that are jews are confronting in their daily lives is anti-semitism from the far left and that is certainly the kind that i confronted overwhelmingly on my own. >> and that positing that you describe is something that is taking place in this country as well as in europe. >> very much so. every place i go, like at the end of thenight after people have had aglass of wine , maybe , they come up to me and make a confession and they tell me, and this has happened with everyone, untenured professors, yoga instructors, food critics, lawyers, you name it, they tell me they're closeted and they're not closeted in their sexual orientation or gender identity, they're closeted in their zionism. there closeted in their support and i'm not talking about by the way the port for the netanyahu government. everyone i talked to like takes netanyahu, is critical of, name your israeli government policy, this is nothing to do withisraeli government policy . they have a deep and profound sense and i know it's real because i talked to the people who come out of the closet and then end up losing status and friends and sometimes jobs because of it. they're worried that in expressing their support in any way for the jewish state , that they are, therefore aligned with a white polonius settler enterprise. and aswith progressives, that is the last thing they want to be associated with . so they are increasingly hiding their support for the state of israel. when i say support for the state of israel i mean it's right to exist and it's right to protect itself and its right to protect the more than 6 million jews, more than half of whom are jews of middle eastern and north african dissents, jews of color who live there. that is what they mean, that a slide position has become thing that's increasingly unacceptable on the far left as the soviet live, the idea that zionism is racism takes increasing whole and at first, this was something that only took hold at places like where i went to college and other emphasis across the country. and i thought when i was a student maybe this is just a little bit of excessive student politics and it will fade away as i make my way into the world real-world the opposite has happened. it is now normative on campuses all over this country for people to believe theidea that zionism is a racist ideology . it israel itself was born in sin that can never be over, and the only way to fix it is for israel itself to be erased. this is now a normative position and when you are marinating in those ideas on college campuses for 4 years and you go off and become a lawyer, you become a doctor, you become a member of congress, you become an editor at a newspaper, those are the ideas that you take with you so i have seen the way they have moved very much from college campuses and from what we thought of as a radical political fringe into the mainstream so that now there are democratic members of congress who proudly support the boycott , divest and sanctions movement against israel. that movement many liberals i talked to, very well-intentioned people believe that that movement is just about ending the occupation of thepalestinians in the west bank . that is a lie, that is not what that movement is about. what that movement is about and just google what the founders of it say and what they consistently say day-to-day is that it's about erasing any jewish state to the jordan river and mediterranean sea. and what does that mean ?ea what does that look like? what that actually looks like is another genocide, frankly against the jewish people and i don't see how that is not anti-semitism. you can be maybe an anti-zionist if you're an anarchist that lives in berkeley or brooklyn and you think that no nationstates at all have a right to exist, that's kind of a really nice loophole for about 3000 people that live in this country and yet somehow those people are never talking about erasing the border between india and pakistan or lebanon or iraq or syria or all the other nationstates across the middle east that were drawn by imperial europe powers. somehow they're only talking about erasing one of those states and they dress it up in really lovely language about nationalism and liberal democracy that is great in theory. but if you just look at the reality of the middle east , if you look at what is happening right now to the kurds without our support, if you look at what this has happened to the sore africans, frankly the christians who are experiencing a total exile from the middle east , there's not going to be christians in the middle east 10 years from now. that is a reality of minorities in the middle east because what happened to jamarcus so he and that saudi embassy at all of us were so disgusted and horrified by, it is unfortunate, but it is true that inorder for minorities to be protected in that region , they need an army to survive and thank god the jewish people in the state of israel have one of them. and i will just say one last thing on this, i think that there is a lot of revisionist history happening on the far left including inside the jewish community which a sickly imagines a path in europe in which we were powerless and also protected. that never existed. ever. ever in jewish history. and i will always take the bargain of what power means even with its worst and even with the horrible decisions that come with that power to jewish powerlessness because we see very clearly what that leads to. [applause] >> what you said about the middle east is striking, in some of the specifics that you share in the book. they really need a person to stop and say is this really so. >> is it so bad you can't ieven confront it. >> you say that for you to point out in history muslim lands were traditionally friendly to jews. in christian countries were. and then you say that the muslim world is almost jew free. and it is on the verge of becoming christian three. and the examples that you give less than 20 jews in egypt, five in iraq , and one who you name in afghanistan, >> there's been a lot of profiles written about this one guy . >> so you didn't have to go and track him down. then on the other hand in talking about europe , the numbers are staggering too because your report that there are now 26 million muslims in europe, a number that is rolling dramatically. and 1.4 million jews. and you do talk about the jewish experience in europe and compare it to the jewish experience in america today. maybe you could say something about that. >> sure, huge topic. what i'll say from the start is that i had hoped to avoid writing a chapter in this book about radical islam . the reason for that is that muslim communities for sure in this country but also in europe face themselves incredible discrimination. and i am low to be in any way contributing to the kind of xena phobia and discrimination that they experience. when i think about muslim immigration toeurope , i think about the boy in the red t-shirt from syria who was fleeing with his family at allen purdy, we all knew his name for a minute and all of the rest of the sadness happened and we forgot but for a moment we all knew that boys name and he, he was fleeing genocide with his family and his lifeless body washed up on that beach so when i think about muslim refugees fleeing the middle east into europe, that is who i think of. and i think deeply about the jewish obligation to protect the stranger and to embrace the stranger because we ourselves were strangers in the land of egypt, one of the most repeated lines in the whole bible so that's why aaron coming from morally and ethically, but politics is something that's a little morecomplicated and one of the problems right , is that if we are honest, and we look at the numbers, the uncomfortable reality is that a lot of these physical violence taking place against jews in cities like berlin and paris are being carried out by young muslim men on these countries. if we look at what happened in pittsburgh, there was an attack started by a 20-year-old refugee dara syria against the church, and thank god he wasn't able to come to fruition so i think we need to be honest about the fact that when people cross borders, they don't check the ideas that they were raised with at the border of a country. people are streaming in two a lot of these countries with very dangerous ideas, not just about the jews about the place of women, about the place of gay people in society and all the rest and i just, it's a very complicated problem but i think because it's so uncomfortable to look at it c, again, just to go back to the light supremacist thing, it's easier. that's a cleaner case. it's a cleaner case because the person that is a white supremacist is not someone that has also been victimized in their life. so what does it mean when someone who is themselves the victim becomes a victim victimizer? it's a complicated case in this sense , not to go back to trump but i think it's a useful example. my colleague maureen dowd the column a few years ago called trump shows the way and it was a brilliant column and the purpose of the column was trump shows the way in the reverse. when trump iscruel, we need to be kind . when trump is in decent we need to be decent. when trump divides, we need to unite and i think the same is true when it comes to the waytrump attacks and criticizes his political enemies . trump criticizes on omar and rashida claim based on their gender, based on their religion, based on their color. that is appalling. and we should never participate in that kind of behavior but that doesn't mean that i can't criticize her for her embrace of the bds movement and is my job to do that and i will never stop doing that but it's a problem because. [applause] it's difficult and it has to be done very sensitively because this person is herself the victim of bigotry, not least from the president of the united states so i think we need to be very conscious about criticizing people not based on their identity and criticizing people on their ideas. and the president showsthe way in that regard . >> i think i know the answer to this question but since you have brought up the president , he takes the position that because of his support for israel, jews who vote for democrats are traitors. i'm guessing you don't subscribe to that position? >> i don't but as thedaughter of a trump curious individual who is sitting in the front right now , like bi curious. all of you know this, but my mother was held to make sure she would not vote for the president last time . [applause] god for amy weiss. that's how seriously we took the election. hewrote about it in the post-gazette, his liz estrada moment . >> i think berry forgot this is going on c-span. >> i didn't. but i talk about the president and i have the best possible argument for some tacit embrace of him, from someone who is in my own family and i think that's important to keep me honest. i'm really proud to be from a family where my parents can flout each other's votes most of the time . i think it's become impossible for people to talk to each other across the political divide in one of the blessings i grew up with was the fact that we debated ideas every night, that was normal and it armed me in a positive way at this very tribal and polarized moment that we're living in so for everyone that's watching who's in a relationship across the political divide, i praise you. as for the president, i lost track but it was about his israel policy and why people are supportinghim . i answered it to this is straightforward and might not be satisfying to people in this room wholike the president . i also, trump likes mcdonald's, i also like mcdonald's. trump moved theembassy to jerusalem, i supported the embassy moved to jerusalem . he can be wrong about many things and write about others . i supported the fact that the president and this administration acknowledged that the golan heights is an official part of israel, ensuring it will never fall into the hands of the genocide of assad, i'm happy about that but as i said in other situations i just don't think any policy is worth the price of what this president is doing to this country and doing frankly to america's reputation in the world. [applause] i'm only smiling because my mom is applauding very loudly. look, as we know too well from just look at the iran deal, policies can be undone. whatcannot be undone, george will put it the best . trump isringing bells that cannot be on the wrong . he is stoking a kind of civil war in this country and the legally doing so. turning americans againsteach other . trying to tell us that some of us are more american than others. that some of us have a kind of provisional citizenship. these are deeply un-american, deeply on jewish ideas and i just cannot be a part of any check that participates in that kind of politics. the other thing i'll say on israel front, i don't know how anyone can look at what this president did to the kurds in the past few weeks and have any doubt about the fact that it wasnot convenient for him, to be supporting the jewish state, he would bail in a heartbeat. this is someone who does not have a moral compass . everything for this president is transactional. everything. it's the art of the deal on a global scale, alliances do not matter to him, he doesn't understand it. i really believe that. so where can lead? what kind of chaos can lead to riyadh i am, i mean, that to me is the thing that just happened with the kurds, i really think should be clarifying moments for anyone that was thinking about possibly supporting this president because of the good policy he's had vis-c-vis israel because that is how little alliance and loyalty means to this person. he has no sense of what those things mean and i just really hope that it was a wake-up call. >> the last chapter of your book is entitled how to fight. and i think we should get to the last chapter and as i told you when we were talking before the program, i thought that that chapter was a little bit duplicitous lee structured, because there were all of these subsections and they were numbered. but being a math major, i went and counted them. and there were close to 30 different suggestions for how to fight effectively. obviously we can't deal with all of them tonight, but i thought one of the most interesting things about that chapter was your discussion of this short paper that had been written by a graduate of columbia. and how reading that really cause you to reevaluate your own strategies. you want to talk a littlebit about that ? >> it was an essay by the name of my book, it wascalled how to fight anti-semitism . it was written by i think is a philosopher, maybe he identifies as a political scientist. his name is zach again and i recommend you all look up his work. he's a professor in israel, moved to israel after graduate school at columbia and he wrote on the occasion of a very well-known anti-semi named leonard jeffries who had come to speak on campus and he wrote in a sort of fit of incredible passion and frustration about the sort of bureaucratic institutional response he sought to the fact of this man coming to campus and the bureaucratic institutional response was we need to put out an op-ed. we need to have a protest. he said, he wrote these words which rang in my ears from the moment i read them which is if someone calls youa pig , do you stand on the street corner with a sign saying you're not a pig? he felt and i agree that the right response ultimately to anti-semitism is not to become an anti- anti-semite. it is not to identify ourselves based on those who hate us. that makes us into objects honestly rather than human beings. the right response to anti-semitism is to dig in to the wellspring of who we are and he talks and he quoted a lot of people in that essay. one of the ones he quoted was novelist walker percy and he has this sign where he talks about where are the moabites? where are the hittites? we, the israelites who became the jewish people, sometimes somehow we fit. if you lookat it it's one of the most unlikely stories in human history that we still exist .at the most week, reviled people that suffered so many centuries of persecution, of oppression and discrimination and genocide not only have we survived but we have thrived and we have renewed ourselves and we've honestly renewed ourselves often in times of our weakest moments. remember the talmud, the most important book other than the jewish bible was written in the babylonian exile. in our moments of greatest weakness, our sense of renewal so i just fundamentally resonated with his posture. it shifted me from a mentality i would say when i was an activist in college from a mentality of defensiveness to a mentality of affirmation. from crouching to pride, from a sense that i am unbelievably proud to be a part of jewish history and be a tiny link in the jewish story. that is what that essay did for me and it honestly did another thing which is it was a very short essay, it's like 1500 words but what it did was remind me how much an essay, even a short one can totally change your mind. and in a way, not the essay itself. things i read in college shifted my mind and helped me realize that words matter. words change people's lives, and when people often ask me, what are you doing, that's what i'm trying to do.if i can do in a column or a few columns over the course of my careerwhat that one essay did for me , it's amazing, it's a huge success. so i quote that essay at length in the book and his name is then againand you should look them up .>> and the one recommendation that you make in the last chapter that we should return to even though you've touchedon it a bit . was basically to follow the lead of casper, do you want to say something more about that? >> also, are we collecting questions ? >> i never got any questions. >> bring them up if you have them, my sister casey can neglect them. sorry, this is a family affair, what can i tell you. >> follow the lead of pittsburgh. i was so moved, i was flying in and i watched the video later and i was here for the whole week following the attacks. the fact that the mortars punish was recited at soldiers and sailors with all the leaders that were like 30 or 40 or 50 religious leaders on stage, the fact that the prayer that was recited was our prayer in our language, that to me is solidarity and what i mean by that is that it's allowing us to be our full self. which i think allows other communities to be there. as well. the other thing, the other example that i'll never forget is one data-driven was the editor of the post-gazette printed the words in aromatic of the mourners cottage on the front page of the paper. danny shift, one of the rabbis wrote an amazing column, i know you're a fan of his twoabout what that meant . and he in a moment of tragedy i think he had a way of framing that in such an elevated optimistic way which is to say and these, this is just paraphrasing him. at first glance, what happened at three of life was an earlier in jewish history area it was another from, and our community has suffered so many pogroms we don't even remember the names of them anymore. but if you took one step further and you looked a little bit closer,it was actually a radical departure from jewish history . because the fact of thematter , and this is still the truth into many other places in europe specifically is that when the jewish are set upon, the surrounding community either looks away or participates in the attack. in pittsburgh theopposite happened . all these other people stood up with them. this really understanding that an attack on us was an attack on them and their values to. and that to me, the fact that that was such a visceral reaction to me is such a good sign of the health of this community and this city and i think that can be a model or other places. and i'll just say, maybe we can get other questions. i want people to get their chance. >> i got a bundle of questions that are related. first, there is the astute observation looking around this room that it is an older audience. and how is it that we reach young people and educate them do the things that we are discussing tonight and then the counterpoint is this question, i'm going to college next year. how can i fight anti-semitism on campus and support israel on campus? >> thank you for that question whoever asked it. i will say the first thing and it's not pleasing is i don't want young people to be thinking about this. i do not. i want young people to be thinking about getting fluent in hebrew . i want young people in our community to think about watching ethel and watching shrugim, think about going to the jcc and playing basketball or taking a class and making hebrew school more interesting and better andnot turning young people off . that is the job of young people in our community. it's not to think about the people that want to dothem harm . that would be a tragedy if that's what young people had to focus on. it's our job to think about that area it's our job to think about how to keep them safe to make the world for them where this isn't a thing that they focus on the question of the young person going to campus next year, well, not to plug it but you should read my book because i do talk directly to you. and i will say that one of the things that's been most moving for me about promoting this book and going on the road is the young people that i meet you people in the millennial generation and the generation younger than us, i think it's jen z but i can't keep track anymore. they get a bad rap for being apathetic, for not caring. i find it to be justthe opposite . they are my heroes and when i hear about the kind of ways that they are standing up for jewish values, and israel fundamentally on college campuses, i'm absolutely blown away area and i think it's very important for young people going to college to have a sense of who you are. in a profound pride in your inheritance. i do and i think new people often ask me how to apply withstand the really pretty vicious things that people say about me on the internet and the truth is that that noise really falls away from me when i'm focused on who i am, who i speak for , where i'm coming from, what my ancestors did to allow for me to have thislife. and what i'm fighting for . and i would say that if you're clear on those things, and hopefully you are but if not, i can recommend books for you that are about anti-semitism that are about jewish history and jewish ideas and jewish culture and jewish literature, you will be in agood place . you will be able to withstand absolutelyanything that's thrown your way . >> you mentioned the internet and there is a topic you address in the book that we did not get to tonight. and that is what is the role of the internet as you see it ? in the spreading of white nationalist hate. >> i think it's hugely significant. i don't actually think we talk about the internet and not in the fact that we are living through a total revolution . a total revolution in the amount of information are expected to assimilate. and the way that we are all now connected to each other and in the fact that viral, is viral for a reason area it's a disease in a way that gets spread. i think that we've just begun to sort of appreciate it and the fact of the matter is that to find other white supremacists, you use to have to go out of your house. you had to go find a kkk meeting. you have to find other like-minded bias. nowadaysyou don't have to do that . you can sit in your basement about any kind of shame because no one's watching you . and you can find other people who validate your bigotry online and i think it's a question of what we're supposed to do about it. i think it's one of the most huge and pressing questions facing us. but i think the internet is enormously important and i'll recommend another book on this score, this writer from the new yorker andrew marist has a book calledantisocial and it's all about the far right , all the right web and those characters that people are more interested inarea . >> had gone to any college campuses where you have been protested? >> i'm not yet, i'm waiting. i was hoping there would be something tonight but i guess not area know, but it's interesting, i recently spoke to a very prominent person at an important university but admitted they hadn't yet invited me because they were scared about exactly that. i have my lines prepared if that happens and i think that some of you to protest outside of an event makes sense to me. one of the things that is worrying is the fact that now anyone who is not a progressive down the line can't seem to get through an event on a college campus without getting shouted down. that trend is really worrying to me. colleges and universities should be in the business of challenging people . and debate and the practice of liberal arts and what is that about? that is about being able to hear other opinions, that is the ability to be able to check to see if your mind works by changing it in one of the things that worries me is when i see not even conservatives, although obviously it's conservatives andright-wingers should have the right to speak on college campuses but even just normal liberals who are getting shouted down by people who deem them to be liberal enough , that's something that's concerning to me and it's part of the topic of my next book. >> we're all waiting. it is election day here tomorrow. there are no questions about the local elections for you. what is the centerleft zionist to do it sanders or warren it's the democratic nomination? >> you asked great questions, thank you . no relation to me. that's a question i get in every community i go to area i don't have a great answer for you. and i think that that is what is so worrying is that it's evidence to me that the political center has really fallen away. i'll say here, i could never vote for bernie sanders . i can also never vote for donald trump. i don't know enough yet to be honest with you about elizabeth warren, i'm looking into a lot of her, her policies and a lot of the people that advisor but i think that that question really captures where a lot of people in our community find themselves which is sort of in a center that has fallen away and wondering what is a more palatable choice. and i imagine that a lot of other people in this room could have answered that question. i think more long-term what we can do is help support democrats that are trying to hold on to the political center. there are lots of them and right now they still have, thank god they still have the majority of the votes, the majority of the votes, the bds contingent of the democratic party doesn't read what worries me and perhaps what worries you is when i see with the trendlines are going and where the base is and where young people are, being an anti-zionist is now sort of like a normal plank of political progressivism area that you support raising the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana and you support a rape in one state that exists in the world and many people signing on to that worldview are doing it not because they are anti-semites at all but just because that is sort of becoming a normative plank of that worldview. and i think we need to fight that. at a root level. and really be throwing on our support behind people that are making the case, there's a great guy in staten island at doing that. i can point to lots of other examples but our job is to support moderate democrats that do fundamentally support israel and thank god there are still a lot of them. >> you make a distinction to anti-jewish discrimination and anti-semitism. isn't this termination the first step towards full-blown anti-semitism, since ideas that dehumanize the jewish people lead to violent actions? >> yes, but i'm drawing a distinction between the boy that told me to pick up pennies and between an organized politics aligned against the jewish people which is different. one, yes, they are connected and one leads to the other . but i think that the second is something that i'm just more focused on but yes, of course there connected and of course the person that walked into the tree of life and not start off as a violent white supremacist. he started off as a bigot who used only his words on the internet and he morphed into that. so take the point. >> near the end of the first chapter of your book, you say this is a book for everyone. june or gentile who loves freedom and seeks to protect it. it is for anyone, jew or gentile who cannot look away from what is brewing in this country and in the world. and wants to do something about it . as you know because i shared it with you a few weeks ago, i received a message from a prominent leader of the jewish community here who was communicating with a group that is involved in anti-hate initiatives, but he began by saying before getting into the heart of this message, i want to give a shout out bari weiss. her book titled how to fight anti-semitism is easily the most importantbook i have read in a long time . [applause] i don't claim leadership in any community. but i can say that i read bari's three times. >> you know it better than me, i know you do. >> i've got the paperclips and highlighting to prove it and i learned something every time i read the book. that though really does take us back to where we started. with your parents saying, your number seven on the rest but you should have been higher. so when your dad who's really turning into a costar in this program learned that i had read your book 3 times, he sent me a message and said well, do you really think thatreading my daughter three times is enough ? i don't know whether it was enough were not, but what is clear from tonight is that pittsburgh can't get enough of you though the topic was a serious one, i hope that it was a successful homecoming for you. and as you can tell from the reactions of the people in the room, we really do applaud all of your great accomplishments and your many important contributions of impact, and we look forward to continuing to read what you write in columns or in books and i'm glad you're a proud daughter of this room. >> thank you, you don't need to stand up. i just want to thank all of you so much for coming. i've been in a lot of fancy places in the past year. there is nowhere i would rather be that in this room with all of you. and i am just so touched to see many of you here and i hope you know that this message of following the lead of what our community here has mold is when i take everywhere i go. everywhere. and i am so proud to be from this community and i'm really grateful for coming. >> over the years, book tv has covered several authors discussing presidential impeachment. here's a portion of one of them. >> for us the question was never impeachment or nothing, it was impeached or what else ? and when is impeachmentthe right move ? as we saw it there are six questions you have to ask and answer to make that decision it was those six questions that structured our book and we asked them at a high level of generality although we