MAY 28 2021 ♦ 17 SIVAN, 5781

THE WEEKLY PRINT The timely arrival of HBO’s ‘Oslo’; In a Dallas council race, police politics are dividing the Jewish community; Bob Dylan at 80; Inside the new New Orleans museum telling the stories of Southern Jews; Jonathan Chait on the Israel debate and left-wing ; and Edward-Isaac Dovere chronicles the ‘craziest election’ in American history

MAY 27, 2021 The timely arrival of HBO’s ‘Oslo’ Director Bartlett Sher reflects on the lessons of history, why the Middle East matters to so many people and what the Oslo peace process could teach Washington

By Gabby Deutch

he opening scene of the film Saturday on HBO and was produced by a room to actually see each other as human “Oslo” begins not in Norway Marc Platt and Steven Spielberg. Playwright beings,” Sher told Jewish Insider in a recent T but in an unusually snow- J.T. Rogers adapted the script, and his interview in Washington, D.C. “Oslo” tells the covered Middle East. A dream sequence collaborator, Tony Award-winning director story of a nearly three-decade-old event, but intersperses videos of violence in Israel, Bartlett Sher, directed the film. it does not attempt to offer a comprehensive Gaza and the West Bank with footage of The movie depicts how this unlikely history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; a European woman, headscarf pulled Norwegian couple convinced Israelis and instead, it seeks to offer lessons on courage, down around her neck, wandering Palestinians to come together at a historic leadership and humanity from an era that through Gaza. An ominous soundtrack mansion in a Scandinavian forest to now feels quite distant. crescendos as the violence grows more hash out their differences while enjoying The recent 11-day war between Israel and intense, until viewers see the woman in traditional fish dishes and drinking copious Hamas might be compelling marketing for a a United Nations car that takes a direct amounts of liquor. movie about Israelis and Palestinians who hit from a projectile — a bullet or a rock, The characters at the heart of the story were committed to coming together to end it isn’t clear which. are not the expected leaders — no one plays decades of fighting. “I would give anything The woman is Mona Juul, an official Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman for it not to be like this at this moment. in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry who is Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Let’s just make that clear,” Sher said. But, haunted by her time in Gaza, including a Yitzhak Rabin or U.S. President Bill Clinton, he added, he recognized that it could “stir memory of seeing a Palestinian boy with although Shimon Peres, then Israel’s foreign up a huge amount of interest in the subject, a stone in his hand get shot by an Israeli minister, makes a brief appearance. Instead, and therefore someone [who] goes to see soldier. After returning from the region, she it features the lower-level politicians and ‘Oslo’ will learn something good, about the and her husband Terje Rød-Larsen, a social intellectuals who participated in the early positive, about the history of where we are.” scientist, undertake the defining mission rounds of talks, before they became official. While the movie is coming out at a time of their career: orchestrating the 1993 back- The Israeli side includes, first, a professor in which increased attention has been given channel negotiations that kicked off what from Haifa, and later Deputy Foreign to the conflict, it is also being released into ultimately became the Oslo Accords. Minister Yossi Beilin and Uri Savir, director- a cultural moment where one-sidedness The story of Mona and Terje — and general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The is very much in fashion, at least on social the Israelis and Palestinians they brought Palestinian side features Ahmed Qurei, the media. Many people who have recently together — was first told in the 2016 PLO’s finance minister who is living in exile begun to speak out about the conflict Broadway play “Oslo.” That show has now in Tunisia, and Hassan Asfour, his associate. seemingly shun the complexity that is an been adapted into a movie, which premieres “The premise was getting enemies into inherent feature of the film.

1 “Great theater is always not between a The play came about from a personal play clocks in at two hours and 45 minutes. wrong and right, but between two rights. If connection: Sher and Terje’s daughters One challenge that he faced as a director both sides are right, in a way it makes for were best friends who attended the same was the fact that film is less interactive and a better story,” said Sher. “For people now elementary school in Manhattan. They less intimate than theater. At a play, with a who’ve gotten so entrenched in certain would see each other at the girls’ soccer live audience, “you get to select what you’re positions, to see that there was a time when games, where Terje recounted tales of his focusing on, and the whole thing’s going to people were willing to be helping, doesn’t largely secret role in getting the Oslo peace unfold in front of you,” Sher explained. “In hurt.” process off the ground. “He would tell me film, I’m going to select every single thing While the disputes between the Israelis the most outrageous stories about Middle you see, and I’m going to really control all of and the Palestinians remain unresolved, East peace. It occurred to me that that was that.” Sher views “Oslo” as a historical film. “It’s theatrical, the theatricality of hearing about With a play, the director can make not a story which has a conclusion, and I going up there and doing a back channel and changes before each showing. To now don’t make the conclusion that, ‘Oh, if only getting them to all sit and talk.” release “Oslo” to the entire world as a static, we could go back to Oslo,’” Sher explained. Sher and Rogers, the playwright, have unchanging creation is something new for “Learning about your own history, especially collaborated on other historical plays. The Sher. “The basic experience of releasing a in the crazy social media world, is good.” pair previously produced a play called film is so weird compared to theater, because The story of these early negotiations is “Blood and Gifts,” about the Stinger missile you’re going every day, and you’re having told through the eyes of Mona and Terje, program in Afghanistan in the 1980s. “It audiences respond every night,” said Sher. who are meant to be neutral facilitators. was the most successful counterintelligence “We’ve been working on it in this vacuum, Throughout the movie, Mona remains calm, operation in U.S. history. It helped the and we’re gonna go from 250 to 300 people interjecting only to stop an outburst from Russians be driven out of Afghanistan, and seeing it to millions.” one of the Israeli or Palestinian negotiators. it produced one thing that wasn’t so good. The now-global reach of “Oslo” helps Keeping thoughts internal is more difficult That was Osama bin Laden,” said Sher. The introduce the story to people around the for Terje, but he, too, succeeds — the pair also worked on a project on the 50th world who are unfamiliar with it. But it conversations are left to the Israelis and anniversary of the moon landing. They are also means astute and potentially critical Palestinians, who often pull the doors to the now working on a production based on The Israeli and Palestinian viewers. (The play negotiating room closed as Mona and Terje Power Broker, Robert Caro’s bestselling was staged in Israel, but “I think they cut watch from outside. book about Robert Moses, the influential a lot of it,” he noted.) Ultimately, Sher “They delivered us into a world we didn’t and controversial New York City urban isn’t concerned. “All the actors were from know, but they didn’t take credit for or try planner. Israel and Palestine, and they were so to do it from a motivation, or like they’re Sher’s CV is long, with a mix of originals extraordinary and so invested in it,” said there to save all these people,” Sher noted. plays and adaptations, including the 2019 Sher. “I didn’t feel like I was suddenly just Still, he recognizes that telling the story Broadway production of Harper Lee’s making up my version of the world there, of one of the most complicated regional, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” But Sher has but I was actually participating with people religious conflicts in the world through the also directed a number of award-winning who lived through a lot of this.” eyes of white Christian characters could musicals, including a 2008 revival of South Sher has no obvious connection to the be a minefield. “We assiduously avoided Pacific that won him a Tony and a 2015 subject matter, but he argues that “I don’t that. It would be a trap. It’s not up to us,” he production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” have to live through something to work on said. “The agency and importance of the “Like most people [in the industry], I was it.” Still, he does have Jewish roots: His father story has to live with the Israelis and the in shows in school, in high school, playing was born in a shtetl in Lithuania and fled Palestinians, and the Norwegians are simply small parts in musicals,” Sher said. After pogroms in Europe, a fact Sher only learned the facilitators.” writing plays in college, he went back to his as a teenager, after his parents had divorced. This neutrality is what makes the roles high school in California to run the drama Sher’s father rejected his faith as a way to of Mona and Terje so difficult for the actors department. He went to graduate school assimilate and stave off antisemitism he to play, said Sher. “It’s hard on the actors in England, where he studied sub-Saharan thought he might face in the business world. playing those roles, because they don’t African theater and then experimental He never spoke about it. “My mother was get to have their own emotional response. Polish theater. “I had a weird range of about to marry him and went home to meet They have to withhold, and they have to influences,” Sher noted, “and then I got his parents, and I think after a few days, she stay back,” he said. The couple is played by better teachers and mentors and went into said something like, ‘Is there something you the British actors Ruth Wilson, a Golden theater, and have been doing it for a long want to tell me?’ Because, of course, they’re Globe- and Tony-nominated actress who time since.” speaking Yiddish in the house.” recently appeared in “His Dark Materials,” In bringing “Oslo” to the big screen, Sher’s father died relatively young, and Andrew Scott, who gained international Sher had to learn an entirely new way of and he never got to ask about his Jewish acclaim two years ago when he starred in the directing. For one, the length had to change; background. But it remained a fascination hit show “Fleabag.” the movie is just under two hours, while the of Sher’s, eventually contributing to his

2 decision to direct the “Fiddler on the Roof” weeks, it affects the whole world, because away discussing the country’s enmity revival. “Often the first generation holds that region is at the heart of so many things. with its northern neighbor. Sher met with onto their beliefs. The second generation We all have a responsibility for it.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) earlier will reject everything. Then the third And while it might not be part of the this week, and he said they discussed this generation will become obsessed with the official marketing campaign, Sher insists “sublayer” of the movie. “What is it going first generation,” said Sher. “I always was that the movie has broader resonance to take — can you get Ilhan Omar and AOC kind of obsessed and fascinated myself… It beyond one small corner of the Middle East. and Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz in the room didn’t become a religious obsession. I was “Leaders and people who work in these together? And what would happen?” most attracted to the culture, the ideas.” positions make these efforts and have to do It’s an almost laughably optimistic While the topic of the film could, at least these courageous things. That’s just how it message to bring to Washington. Then in theory, be rather niche, Sher understands is. I don’t mean just about Palestine, Israel. again, no one thought anything would come that the conflict attracts outsized global I mean about everything,” said Sher. “When of Mona and Terje’s plucky peacemaking attention. “I’ve always had this thing about we first did it, we said it was basically about efforts. the Middle East. It’s at the center of a lot of Republicans and Democrats.” “I think that’s the kind of secret message,” our consciousness in general, and it’s an The play has been staged in numerous said Sher. “If it’s between two opposing unresolved thing,” he explained. “It does cities around the world. Sher said people forces, can they come to agreement? How matter to everyone, so if something happens, who saw it in London left talking about do you get that agreement to work? That’s like that has happened in the last couple of Brexit while viewers in South Korea walked really what we were always trying to do.” ♦

MAY 26, 2021 In a Dallas council race, police politics are dividing the Jewish community Two Orthodox Jewish candidates face off in a Dallas City Council run-off next week, in a race that is about much more than roads and potholes

By Gabby Deutch

aynie Schultz and Barry with the theatrics and mud-slinging his more liberal opponent as anti- Wernick belong to the same that have become commonplace in police; and partisanship has erupted in J Orthodox synagogue in Dallas, national politics in recent years. a surprisingly fierce way. Texas. Growing up, Wernick earned a “Safety and security is by far the But because both candidates are scholarship from the Schultz family that biggest issue in our neighborhood, members of the tight-knit Dallas Jewish helped fund his Jewish education. A and Barry has done a very good job of community, the campaign feels more few years ago, Schultz cheered Wernick pressing on that issue,” said Bruce Wilke, personal than most. One local rabbi on as he produced a horror film. Their the president of the Hillcrest-Forest called the race a “touchy subject in our kids go to the same Jewish day school. Neighborhood Association, where both community,” and told Jewish Insider Now, they are running against each Schultz and Wernick live. Wilke has that he was “taking a hard pass on other for Dallas City Council in an endorsed Schultz in a personal capacity, talking to the media about it.” unexpectedly contentious race that will not in his role at the nonprofit. “It is a Wernick, a lawyer, has successfully be decided in a run-off election on June pretty evenly matched and heated race, positioned himself as the ‘pro-police’ 5. In the first round of voting earlier this more so than I’ve seen in the past.” candidate, earning him the endorsement month, Wernick won 38% of the vote to While the race is exceedingly local, it of the Dallas Police Association. He told Schultz’s 36%. demonstrates how some of the national JI he got into the race after watching The race is nonpartisan, focused political dynamics that have flared in the Black Lives Matter protests devolve into on local issues like property taxes and past year can trickle down to elections riots last summer, noting that his wife zoning. But one of the most potent at other levels. Misinformation about said to him: “‘Look, you’ve either got to issues in Dallas is public safety, and the both campaigns has been spread by run, because you can win, or we’re going race has turned into a full-fledged battle surrogates, supporters and dark money to have to move to the country. Dallas over the movement to defund the police, groups; a conservative is trying to paint isn’t the same,’” he recalled. 3 Although Wernick was the last crew side,” Wernick explained. “You are school movement,” Schultz said. She contender to enter the four-candidate blocking each scene for the actual actor was an inaugural board member for race, Schultz has spent recent months who comes in later to shoot the scene Moishe House, a national organization playing catch-up and countering the because they need to get the lighting that creates communal spaces for Jews law enforcement-focused narrative right. They want to see where their in their 20s around the country. being driven by Wernick. “I think Jaynie cameras are moving.” Her connection to the Dallas Jewish probably would have been a runaway Throughout his life, Wernick has community came naturally. “My family, [victor] if Barry hadn’t entered the race dabbled in filmmaking. He produced a which has been a very prominent when he did,” said Wilke. 2007 documentary called “Kosher Chili philanthropic family here in Dallas, has But Schultz said that had their Cook-Off,” about Jewish identity in been investing in the local community, roles been reversed, she wouldn’t have Texas, and a 2012 fantasy-horror movie through the day schools, through the entered the race. “Had Barry already called “Bad Kids Go to Hell,” based on creation of programs,” she explained. filed to run months before, as I did, I a comic book he authored. (Schultz “One’s called Schultz Fellows, that takes don’t think I would have run against and her family wanted to support the local Jewish educators and religious him. I wouldn’t have done that to my project, “but it was so violent that I schools and day schools — and now this community,” Schultz claimed in an couldn’t watch it,” she said. “We tried newest cohort will be youth leaders — interview with JI. to help at the beginning, because to Israel.” here’s someone trying to do something Schultz’s involvement with the *** interesting and find a career. And once Dallas Jewish community has included I saw a little piece of it, I couldn’t watch some challenging moments. About 20 This race marks the first time either anymore.”) years ago, during her time as the board candidate has run for public office, Texas eventually called Wernick chair of the Akiba Academy, the day although both have been active in civic home. “It was bucolic. Dallas had school both she and Wernick attended, life for a long time — and for both of everything,” he said. “That’s why I “there was the split in our community them, a connection to Judaism and to moved back here 13 years ago, to find my between the Modern and ultra- Israel has guided their work. Texas girl.” He is currently producing a Orthodox, and I was the board chair,” When Wernick was growing up film about the unsolved murder of his she recalled. “I saw the pain that that in Dallas, his father was a rabbi at a wife’s sister, who was 28 when she was caused, [and] I was determined at that large Conservative synagogue, but killed 19 years ago. point that everything that I do would be he abandoned his family and his Schultz’s family has deep about bringing people together.” congregation when Wernick was young. philanthropic roots in the Dallas Around the same time, she got a call “Although my father was a rabbi when community. Her father Howard Schultz from an Ethiopian doctor who said that he left, he didn’t take our religion with — no relation to the Starbucks founder two Ethiopian boys would be coming to him. My mother always instilled strong — was a financial entrepreneur who Dallas for surgery, and asked if Schultz faith in us,” said Wernick. founded the first global audit recovery would host them. She agreed. “We had During college at the University of business, and who has been a prominent four other kids, so we ended up with six Texas at Austin, he studied in Russia, donor to Jewish causes. kids between the ages of 2 and 9. It was having learned some Russian from his Schultz inherited an interest the best thing that ever happened to grandmother as a child. Coming of age in civic life from her parents. “I’ve our family. The boys helped us see the during the Cold War, Wernick felt that been interested in and involved with world in a different way,” she said. “It “learning the language or something of municipal politics and municipal issues helped my kids really understand who our enemy was something that I thought since I was 15 years old,” Schultz said. true heroes are because those kids who would be useful,” he said. He later spent “Through [my] public high school, I got didn’t speak a word of English came to time in Israel, working with Russian an internship at City Hall.” this totally foreign country. They were and Ethiopian immigrants to help them After graduating from UT Austin living on the streets [in Ethiopia], and acclimate to Israeli society. When he (like Wernick) and then earning a they got to be part of our family.” returned to Texas, he got involved with master’s degree in urban studies at One of the boys eventually came the Zionist Organization of America. the school’s Arlington campus, she back to live with Schultz’s family when Now Wernick is a practicing attorney, worked with her mother to create a he was in high school, and he recently but earlier in his career he gave acting retreat center for small businesses to sent her a video — the now-27-year-old a try. He filmed some commercials host conferences and events. At the works at a travel company in Ethiopia in New York, and for two-and-a-half same time, “I also got very involved in — saying why people should vote for seasons he served as a stand-in for the the national — rather than the local — her in the race. “I was actually sitting Mr. Big character on Sex and the City. Jewish community; I got involved with at the polling place, and he messaged “It’s an actor who’s actually on the the early creation of the whole day me on Facebook and said, ‘Ima, are

4 you okay with me posting this?’ and I Schultz is well-known in the area for her by the way, that there’s an appetite for just started sobbing,” Schultz noted, involvement with both local and national [the politics], even within portions of the using the Hebrew word for mother. “All Jewish organizations, including area day Jewish community, which he is seeking to the other candidates are like, ‘What is schools, the American Jewish Committee represent,” said Bradley Laye, who served as wrong with you?’” and the Jewish Federations of North president and CEO of the Jewish Federation America. This race is her first time running of Greater Dallas until 2019. He is supporting *** for public office. “I am a nonpartisan Schultz in the race. centrist,” said Schultz, “which honestly With her recent stint on the City Plan The race has not been easy for the hasn’t helped my campaign in that sense, Commission, Schultz is not new to urban Jewish community. because it’s gone very partisan.” issues. Wernick, though, has focused on A self-described conservative, Some conservatives are skeptical of national politics. “I never really paid that Wernick said he views the race as pure that claim, because she has donated money much attention to the local level, but last politics, and not a knock on Schultz, to Democratic candidates in the past, summer, it hit me, like, wow, you’ve got whom he has known for most of his including $2,550 last year. “Jaynie is sort of rioters burning down cities across the life. “This is not something personal, hiding her liberalism, because she knows country. You’ve got looters destroying and it shouldn’t be,” said Wernick. “It this is a mostly Republican, conservative small businesses in my own hometown shouldn’t divide the community.” district, and she wants to win. So she’s trying here in Dallas,” Wernick said. Rather than Yet the race already has. Residents to come across as a moderate,” claimed infrastructure, property taxes, or any other of the North Dallas neighborhood at Candy Evans, a local real estate agent and issues, “the number one thing that should the heart of District 11 received mailers blogger who also ran in District 11 but was be taken care of is our public safety,” he said. last month from a dark money group eliminated after receiving the fewest votes. Both candidates agree on this. “Neither called Keep Dallas Safe that called She has endorsed Wernick in the run-off, of us is interested in cutting that public Schultz a “Radical Leftist committed while a fourth candidate who also ran for safety budget,” said Schultz. But Wernick to DEFUNDING the Police … Stands the seat — Hosanna Yemiru, a 23-year-old insists — without evidence — that she is With RIOTS, LOOTERS and GANG progressive — has endorsed Schultz. being disingenuous. “How strong is her MEMBERS.” But Evans’s claim isn’t quite true, either: conviction toward making public safety a Wernick denied any connection to The area has moved markedly left in recent number one priority issue? Or is she doing Keep Dallas Safe, but he also did not years. In 2018, Democratic Rep. Colin it simply to get the votes because she knows condemn the mailers. His campaign has Allred beat incumbent Rep. Pete Sessions that’s what she needs to do?” Wernick asked. also sent mailers criticizing Schultz, (R-TX), who had represented the area in “My [opponent] has consistently lied using similar language and imagery Congress for 22 years. (Sessions was elected about my stance on public safety,” Schultz that she says misrepresents her beliefs. to Congress again in 2020 in a different claimed. One challenge for Schultz is that “When rioters burned down cities in district, now representing Waco and College the district’s current council member, Lee America, and some looters destroyed Station.) Allred’s congressional district, Kleinman, has endorsed her. (Kleinman small businesses in Dallas, some which includes much of the council district is the brother-in-law of Betsy Kleinman.) ‘leaders’ justified the violence,” said that Schultz and Wernick want to represent, Kleinman voted not only to cut funding one Wernick campaign mailer, which narrowly voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016; for police overtime in the fall, he also voted featured an image of a convenience last year, Biden won the district in a 10-point against the overall city budget that increased store on fire. It included a screenshot of landslide. The shifting politics might work police spending. “In some way she may be a post on Schultz’s Facebook page that in Schultz’s favor if she were to declare paying the price for that endorsement,” said said “No justice, no peace.” herself a liberal, but she has avoided labels. Evans. She said the image was photoshopped to “She’s really tried to run in a nonpartisan Schultz has tried to make the case that exclude the rest of the post, which she had race that talks about the needs of the city of she and Kleinman are not the same. “I shared from Moishe House. Schultz has not Dallas, and it’s been sad to watch Barry try would not have voted to reduce overtime as yet sent any mailers mentioning Wernick to nationalize it and really talk about things my predecessor did last spring,” she said. In by name, but told JI that she plans to before that the city council doesn’t even do but fact, Schultz added, “I would support what election day. that rile up a partisan feeling,” said Betsy the new chief requests,” suggesting that she “These mailers are making people feel Kleinman, a local Democratic activist who would want to increase police spending. like they ought to be scared, and there’s no grew up with Wernick’s brother and who is Still, her detractors continue to paint reason for them to be scared,” Schultz said. supporting Schultz in the race. her as an opponent of the police. “[Wernick] Overall crime in the district remained about Wernick doesn’t deny that he has is the pro-police candidate and the other even from 2019 to 2020, according to Dallas brought partisanship into the race. “I’m candidate is not,” said Benji Gershon, Police Department data, but the category of obviously conservative. I’ve never hid from president and founder of Dallas Jewish “crimes against person” — including assault that,” said Wernick. Conservatives, a political organization that and rape — increased by 10%. “I think he figured out very astutely, is supporting Wernick.

5 started polarizing more, so I think there’s publisher and editor of the Texas Jewish *** been a realignment. People have sort of gone Press, said the Dallas Jewish community with the people they’re more like-minded is unique in its ability to overcome political Policy positions are not the only matters with politically in the Jewish community.” boundaries. subject to manipulation and falsehoods This is not unique to the Jewish community: “I’ve heard over and over from people in this campaign. Both candidates have A poll released by Pew in September 2020 that have come from outside of Dallas and accused the other’s campaign of stealing showed that about 40% of both Trump and gotten involved with the Dallas Jewish their respective yard signs. Schultz said Biden supporters had no close friends who community, who are always amazed that she heard from a rabbi that someone had supported the other candidate. people from both sides of the aisle and spread the rumor that she supported Still, both Wernick and Schultz told JI different streams of Judaism come together the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions that they don’t expect the results of this race and work collaboratively with one another movement against Israel — which both she to entrench some permanent divide in the to get things done,” said Wisch-Ray. ♦ and Wernick acknowledge is outlandish and community. untrue. These conversations have played “I would never ever hold it against out in conversations on the hyperlocal, anyone who voted against me, ever, and neighborhood-focused social media app so I hope that when this election is over, NextDoor and in Facebook groups both there won’t be any further division,” noted public and private. Schultz. “The Jewish community, I would say, Wernick echoed those sentiments. 20 years ago was really very united for the “This is a political race. Whoever wins, most part,” said Betsy Kleinman. “With the wins; whoever loses, loses. We won’t stop election of Obama, things started fracturing davening together,” he said. more. Then with the election of Trump, they Sharon Wisch-Ray, the longtime

MAY 24, 2021 Bob Dylan at 80 Among the songwriting legend’s many mysteries, a look at his relationship to Judaism and Israel

By Matthew Kassel

ob Dylan has never made it easy among countless other hits. clear parallels with the recent conflict for the legions of fans, critics, “Bob Dylan displayed the wit and between Israel and Hamas. The song, B scholars and journalists who wisdom of an 80-year-old man from the a hard-driving rock number, never analyze his music with almost Talmudic very first time we heard him at age 21 in explicitly mentions Israel, yet it is fervor. Famously unforthcoming in 1962,” Seth Rogovoy, the author of Bob widely interpreted as something of a interviews, which are rare, the protean Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet, told Jewish Zionist anthem in the form of a biting singer-songwriter and Nobel Prize Insider in a recent email exchange. satire lambasting those who would fault winner has succeeded in keeping “The point is not so much age as it is the Jewish state for defending itself in a listeners guessing over the course of his timelessness.” hostile region. nearly six-decade recording career. Even obscure works from Dylan’s Dylan, who turns 80 today, remains lesser-known albums manage, on The neighborhood bully just lives to a mystifying figure in American popular occasion, to speak to the moment survive culture, even as many of the songs from long after they have been released. He’s criticized and condemned for his 39 studio albums — the most recent “Neighborhood Bully,” from Dylan’s being alive of which, Rough and Rowdy Ways, came 1983 record Infidels, was released a He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s out last year — feel as relevant today as year after the First Lebanon War and supposed to have thick skin they did when they were first produced, two years after an airstrike in which He’s supposed to lay down and die including “Masters of War,” “The Times Israel destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor when his door is kicked in They Are A-Changin,’” and “Hurricane,” outside Baghdad. But its themes have He’s the neighborhood bully

6 “It’s so right for this moment, with the just because somebody feels a certain to the music historian and critic Ted whole discussion of Israel being totally way, you can’t come around and stick Gioia. “For me, Dylan will always be the hypocritical,” argued Barry Shrage, some political-party slogan on it. If you musician who didn’t care about having a professor in the Hornstein Jewish listen closely, it really could be about a personal logo, or attaching his name Professional Leadership Program at other things. It’s simple and easy to to a running shoe, or launching a high- Brandeis University and the former define it, so you got it pegged, and you priced fashion line,” he told JI. “If you president of the Combined Jewish can deal with it in that certain kinda believe his songs, he expected us to have Philanthropies of Greater Boston. way. However, I wouldn’t do that, ’cause higher aspirations than that. Even now, For Barry Faulk, a professor of I don’t know what the politics of Israel I’d like to think that’s what he wants his English at Florida State University who is. I just don’t know.” legacy to be after he’s gone.” specializes in 20th century popular Despite his self-proclaimed Gayle Wald, a professor of English music, “Neighborhood Bully” speaks ignorance of Israeli politics, Dylan has at The George Washington University, more broadly to what he regards as an nevertheless maintained a connection echoed that sentiment. “From a certain aspect of Dylan’s political temperament with the Jewish state throughout his perspective,” she said of Dylan, “he’s that in some ways cuts against his career. He has visited Israel a number not very satisfying because he’s not reputation as a countercultural icon. of times and played a handful of shows intelligible, always, as a Jew.” “It reminds me that Dylan has long there, most recently in 2011. In 1983, the One gets the sense, though, that worked outside, even against, the year he put out “Neighborhood Bully” Dylan wouldn’t want it any other way. ♦ secular liberalism that was the core — released in Hebrew by Ariel Zilber in value of his early audience,” Faulk told 2012 — Dylan celebrated his son’s bar JI, describing the song as one of his mitzvah at the Western Wall. favorites in Dylan’s extensive oeuvre. Still, on a personal as well as an True to form, however, Dylan has artistic level, Dylan also seems to kept his distance from “Neighborhood have demonstrated something of an Bully,” a controversial song that has ambivalent relationship with his own garnered its fair share of criticism Judaism. Born Robert Zimmerman, over the past few decades — and is, Minnesota’s Jewish son briefly flirted somewhat mysteriously, unavailable on with born-again Christianity in the late YouTube despite that other songs from 1970s and early ’80s — during which Infidels can be accessed on the site. time he produced a trio of evangelical Dylan has never performed the song albums, the first of which Slow Train live, according to Terry Gans’s 2020 Coming, is regarded as a classic of the book Surviving in a Ruthless World: Bob form. Dylan’s Voyage to ‘Infidels.’ The singer “He put poetry on the jukebox — only seems to have discussed it once, put the Bible on the jukebox!” said Liz in a 1984 interview with Rolling Stone Thomson, a London-based author and in which he denied that the song was a Dylan expert. Zionist political statement. But while Dylan’s music has always “You’d have to point that out to me, retained something of a Biblical subtext, you know, what line is in it that spells he has rarely alluded to his Jewish that out,” Dylan told the journalist Kurt roots, with the exception of some songs Loder, adding: “‘Neighborhood Bully,’ such as “Highway 61 Revisited,” “All to me, is not a political song, because Along the Watchtower,” “With God on if it were, it would fall into a certain Our Side” and the little-known novelty political party. If you’re talkin’ about “Talkin’ Hava Nagilah Blues.” it as an Israeli political song — even “For the most part he is not explicit if it is an Israeli political song — in about these themes,” said Elliot Wolfson, Israel alone, there’s maybe 20 political a professor of Jewish Studies at the parties. I don’t know where that would University of California, Santa Barbara, fall, what party.” who contributed an essay on Dylan’s But when Loder asked if it would “Jewish gnosis” to a new collection, The be “fair to call that song a heartfelt World of Bob Dylan. statement of belief,” Dylan seems to In many ways, that approach is in have let his guard down ever so slightly. keeping with Dylan’s persistent effort “Maybe it is, yeah,” he replied. “But to evade any kind of label, according

7 MAY 24, 2021 Inside the new New Orleans museum telling the stories of Southern Jews Often excluded from the narrative of American Jewish life, Southern Jews finally get their due in a museum designed to welcome visitors of all faiths

By Gabby Deutch

hen Jewish immigrants immigration, they think about Ellis from small towns across the South who first arrived in the U.S. Island. When people think about Jewish had attended Jacobs Camp would ask W from Europe, their first communities, maybe they’re thinking Macy Hart, the camp’s then-director, stop was Ellis Island — or at least about Brooklyn.” “‘I’m the last Jew, we’re selling the that’s how the narrative goes. But for The new museum makes the case building to the Baptist church. What do many, their first sighting of American that understanding the experiences I do with the Torahs?’” Hoffman, who shores was Galveston, Tex., a port city of Southern Jews is essential to interned at the museum when it was at that welcomed thousands of Jewish understanding the broader story of the summer camp, recalled. “Macy said, immigrants who would settle across — essential, even, to ‘Bring them here. We’ll keep them.’” the American South. In cities and truly understanding the history of the The museum was not able to attract towns from Dallas to Vicksburg, Miss., United States, a country of immigrants. many visitors, even as its collection grew. to Charleston, S.C., Jews created “We want to expand people’s “That’s why they closed it and decided to community and became part of the understanding of the South,” Hoffman move it to where it could be an accessible fabric of this complicated region. explained. “People think of the South in museum — not just to the summer campers Now, a new museum in New Orleans terms of black and white, racially, and and their parents dropping them off and wants to teach locals and tourists alike that’s understandable. It’s correct. That picking them up,” Hoffman explained. Any the story of America’s Southern Jews, is the blanket that covers all of Southern other would-be visitors had to call the camp’s a story that does not always make it history and really all of American office in Jackson to make an appointment to into the collective memory of American history, the racial issues. But they’re not go to the camp, in Utica, Miss. When they Jews in big cities like New York or Los the only stories.” arrived, a staff member would need to greet Angeles. The museum is on the edge of New them to open the gates. The Museum of the Southern Jewish Orleans’s central business district, down So the museum’s board of trustees Experience (MSJE), which opens on the street from the city’s acclaimed decided to relocate it, and after a search Thursday, had originally planned to open World War II Museum and less than a process scoured locations across the South, its doors last October but was delayed mile from the French Quarter. Visitors they settled on New Orleans, home to a due to the coronavirus pandemic. The enter through a small storefront across vibrant Jewish community of about 10,000 opening is now timed to coincide with the street from the streetcar line. “We’ve as well as a bustling tourism economy. Memorial Day weekend, though a larger got a very small footprint,” Hoffman Hoffman, who had attended Jacobs grand opening celebration is set to take noted. The museum’s three permanent Camp as a child and wrote his master’s place this fall. exhibitions are on the first floor, with thesis on the shrinking Jewish community On an exclusive tour previewing the a temporary exhibition space on the of Port Gibson, Miss., was tapped to serve museum last week, executive director second floor. The top three floors of the as its director after spending nearly two Kenneth Hoffman told Jewish Insider building house apartments. decades as director of education at the that the institution aims to fight a MSJE’s arrival in New Orleans is a World War II Museum. It’s his first full-time common misperception: that people long time coming. The museum itself gig at a Jewish museum: “After I graduated, “didn’t know there were Jews in the dates back to the mid-1980s, when all my museum work was not with Jewish South.” The notion mostly comes it started as an exhibit at the Henry museums or in Jewish organizations,” he from “Jews who aren’t from the South, S. Jacobs Camp, a Union for Reform said. “I did meet my wife teaching Sunday because for them, the center of their Judaism Jewish sleepaway camp school, though.” universe is their own community, New outside of Jackson, Miss. The early York or Cherry Hill, N.J., or whatever,” MSJE began as “a repository for all the *** said Hoffman, who grew up in Baton small-town congregations that were Rouge, La. “When people think about disappearing,” said Hoffman. People The museum’s first exhibit aims to “set 8 people in place [and] in time,” said Hoffman. Dumas, Ark., which today has a population they prominently displayed American flags, Panels provide information about when of just 4,600, were Jewish. “Why is it that as a photograph from a Chattanooga Zionist Jewish immigrants arrived in the South, the first two mayors were Jews? How meeting in 1918 showed. along with spotlights on a handful of notable many Jews were there? A handful. But The museum approaches the Holocaust Southern Jews from the 18th and 19th they were prominent citizens, because they by examining Southern Jews’ responses to centuries. “It’s not everything that happened were businessmen,” Hoffman observed. it; Hoffman is quick to note that it is not a in Southern Jewish history, obviously, but “Once they were comfortable in business, Holocaust museum, though as a Jewish it shows some touch points where Jewish they could join civic organizations,” and museum, it would seem irresponsible to not history intersects with American history eventually they ran for office. include the Holocaust at all. and with Southern history,” noted Hoffman. The museum takes a nuanced approach One section shows how Jewish Though based in New Orleans, the to racial issues, aiming to highlight Jews’ newspapers in the South, such as the museum’s focus is much wider, and it assimilation into whiteness while also Jewish Floridian or the Jewish Herald- includes artifacts and history from 13 states. noting instances of antisemitism. “Jews Voice in Texas, covered Hitler’s regime and When Jewish immigrants came to the owned slaves in about the same percentage policies. Another includes information South, many of them became merchants, as non-Jewish white Southerners,” said about a group of several dozen Jewish opening dry goods stores and peddling Hoffman. “Jews acclimated to the racial professors who arrived in the U.S. with goods in pushcarts that they brought to norms of the days they were living in. This is impressive credentials from top European farms. In some places, they were serving not our finest hour.” One glass display case universities, but who could not find jobs at cotton farmers; in others, like Kentucky, features Judah P. Benjamin, the first Jewish most American colleges because of quotas they served coal miners; in Texas, they U.S. senator. After serving in the Senate, he on Jewish faculty and students; instead, served cattle ranchers. “When you pull back, later held a number of cabinet positions in they found jobs at historically black colleges there’s a lot of similarities in those kinds of the Confederacy when Louisiana seceded. A in the South, such as Tougaloo College in experiences,” said Hoffman. $2 Confederate banknote with his image on Mississippi. Some Jews settled in larger cities like it was on display. Visitors can listen to oral histories from New Orleans or Atlanta, but many resided Still, Jews also faced antisemitism, Holocaust survivors from across the South in towns with few other Jews. This was including the 1915 lynching of Atlanta reflecting on acclimating to the U.S. after part of what made the Southern Jewish business owner Leo Frank, who was having survived the Holocaust. “They’re experience unique, though small towns wrongly convicted of murder and then talking about their experience moving to the certainly existed elsewhere, too. “When you killed by a violent mob. “For Jews who have South and learning to farm or trying to find a live in New York, or you live in Cleveland, or been here for generations, who were feeling job or encountering racial segregation,” said you live in Baltimore, when there’s a large comfortable that they had been accepted as Hoffman, noting that one woman discussed Jewish population, there is a kosher butcher Americans, this kind of violence was a real the moral disconnect of having “just come down the street. There are 17 temples you shock,” Hoffman said. “But I always point from a place where she was persecuted can go to,” Hoffman explained. “When you out to people, that even though this was an because of who she was, [then] she comes live in Greenville, Mississippi, there is one extreme form of violence against this Jewish to the South, and she finds that there’s an temple you can go to. There is no kosher man, the same year that Leo Frank was entire class of people who are persecuted butcher.” lynched in Georgia, 20 African Americans because of who they are.” Still, despite their relatively small — that we know of — were lynched in A section on the civil rights movement numbers in many municipalities, Jews were Georgia alone. So this was a type of activity also addresses the complexities of Jewish involved in local politics, government and of violence that Jews experienced this one racial identity, with some Jews taking the philanthropy, the museum explains. One time. But it was something that was much side of segregationists — such as a Jewish wall shows a map of the South, with stars more prevalent for African Americans.” department store that allowed police to of David designating cities that have had In the first decades of the 20th century, arrest Black students holding a sit-in — and Jewish mayors. (One of the first defining many Jews in the South opposed Zionism others fighting for integration, such as one historical accounts of Southern Jews is The and the creation of the Jewish state out of rabbi who invited a Black activist to speak Provincials, a 1973 book by Durham, N.C., fear that they would appear insufficiently at his synagogue when other venues would native Eli N. Evans. Evans’s father Emanuel American and disloyal to their communities. not host him. J. “Mutt” Evans was Durham’s first Jewish “If you’re advocating for a Jewish home, The final panel in the historical section mayor, serving during the peak of the civil are you Jewish before you’re American?” is called “Summer Camp Sweethearts,” with rights era, from 1951 to 1963.) Hoffman asked. “Up in the Northeast, where photos of couples who met at Jewish camps Many are quite unexpected: Galveston, your entire community is Jewish, that’s fine, in the South. At first glance, the wall seems Texas, which welcomed thousands of you can feel safe doing that. But when you out of place amid the historical narrative, Jewish immigrants from Europe when live in the South, and there aren’t as many until reading the explanation reveals Ellis Island grew too crowded, has had five Jews around, maybe you don’t feel as safe as that camps were actually a crucial part of Jewish mayors. The first two mayors of that.” When Zionists did meet in the South, allowing Southern Jewish life to thrive. 9 “People from smaller towns didn’t have 50 holidays and another that quizzes visitors grandparents once lived. “Small towns Jewish boys or 50 Jewish girls to date. But at on their knowledge of Yiddish. If you get the started disappearing because of young camp in the summer, they could meet other question wrong, a Yiddish-inflected voice people going away to college,” Hoffman said. Jewish kids,” said Hoffman. — spoken by a voice actor clearly meant to But that is not something uniquely Jewish: sound like your bubbe — says, “Go back to “That’s not just the Jewish story of small *** yiddishe school!” towns. It’s been all over the place,” he noted. To source artifacts for the museum, “More often than not, small-town The museum takes care to make its Hoffman and the museum’s curator, Anna Southern Jews, who left their small towns history relevant to a diverse array of visitors, Tucker, contacted Jewish federations stayed in the South, but moved to urban aware that many will not be Jewish. “This across the South and the more than 400 areas,” Hoffman said. This is reflected is a human story, and it’s an American synagogues in the 13 states covered by the in the museum’s donors, the majority of story. Everybody can find something of museum. Some of the artifacts came from whom are Jews who still live in cities like themselves in these experiences,” said archives, while others were donated by Atlanta, Dallas and New Orleans. Other Hoffman. individuals. But Hoffman said that writing funding has come from Jews in places like Part of making the museum a the script — the text that appears around New York, though most of them also have universally welcoming experience involved the museum — was the hardest part. “We’re Southern roots, too, or perhaps they went creating an exhibition teaching the basics talking about 13 states and over 350 years of to New Orleans’s Tulane University (or their of Judaism. Titled “What is Judaism?”, the history. You’ve got to pick and choose what children or grandchildren did). exhibit displays a 19th-century Torah from you’re going to put up,” he said. But the story of Southern Jewish life a Southern synagogue, and recreations of One important aspect of recent history does not remain in the past. “There are more stained-glass synagogue windows hang that the museum wants to convey is that Jews in the South today,” said Hoffman, from the ceiling. An interactive, touch- Jews remain in the South, and in large “than there ever have been before.” ♦ screen module offers games to visitors, numbers, too; they just might not be in including one that teaches about Jewish the same places where their parents or

MAY 24, 2021 Jonathan Chait on the Israel debate and left- wing antisemitism The ‘New York Magazine’ columnist suggests that both Jeremy Corbyn and pursue a ‘no enemies to the left’ strategy

By Matthew Kassel

n a recent column for New York hit on a point that is not often made, which Israel, because sometimes you find Magazine, Jonathan Chait examines is that the left and right seem to change that kind of bigotry on the left and I how antisemitism, particularly places on the racism debate when Jews sometimes you find people using the on the left, intersects with the Israeli- are involved. Do you have any thoughts on existence of bigotry on the left as a Palestinian conflict. “The existence why the left might be more skeptical about pretext to dismiss legitimate criticisms of antisemitism makes it easier for claims of antisemitism? that aren’t antisemitic at all. So I just Israel supporters to depict criticism of think it’s the contours of the political Israel as antisemitic,” he writes. “The Jonathan Chait: I think people arguments that allow both sides to existence of Israel hawks using inflated on the left are very eager to call out follow their opportunistic impulses to charges of antisemitism as a cudgel antisemitism by conservatives, but I use accusations of bigotry as a sword makes it easier for antisemites to pose think they’re very skeptical to call out when necessary. as victims being silenced.” antisemitism by anyone on the left. In Chait discussed that dynamic and that sense, it’s a pretty close parallel JI: You mention Jeremy Corbyn, the more in an interview with Jewish Insider to the right, which is happy to call former British Labor Party leader who on Friday. The conversation has been out bigotry on the left and not on the has been accused of antisemitism, in edited for length and clarity. right. It’s easier for them to do that your piece. It seemed as if lot of British Jewish Insider: In your column, you on the subject of Jews, and especially Jews associated with Labor felt gaslit 10 by the experience of being told Corbyn’s a little — or even a lot — less careful could just say, “Well, they’re just waiting statements weren’t antisemitic or that he about recognizing the humanity of for the right moment to negotiate wasn’t an antisemite. What do you make both sides and drawing a line against the two-state settlement.” I just don’t of that? antisemitic discourse. So I think, on the think their interests should be taken edges of this coalition of people who seriously, and if you accept that their Chait: I would argue that the kind of were supporting him or were welcomed plan is just to hold on to Palestinian radical politics that Corbyn was trying as his supporters, you have some people land without giving Palestinians equal to advance as a Labour Party model not who really pushed the rhetoric in edgy rights forever, that’s pretty close to an only allowed but maybe even required and sometimes dangerous ways, even apartheid system. Now, the objection is defending the antisemites. I think though he himself, I think, doesn’t that it’s not an apartheid system within Corbyn’s strategy really was, and always engage in that at all. Israel, which is fair enough, but it is in has been, “no enemies to the left.” He Gaza and the West Bank. was just going to open his door to as JI: Do you think there’s any deeper far left as you wanted to be. He was not reason, beyond partisanship, why the JI: Does the recent uptick in antisemitic going to shut you out. And on the far left, left can be dismissive of charges of vandalism and violence we’ve seen over you have some real antisemites. What’s antisemitism? the past few days change the debate at all more, you have a mode of discussing the when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian Middle East that just lends itself very, Chait: What people said about conflict? very easily to antisemitism, and the Corbyn is that, because he’s such a farther out you get on the extreme the doctrinaire Marxist in his thinking, Chait: I think the way to think harder it is to distinguish the policies he really can’t think of Jews as being about that is just the simplistic, banal, from antisemitism. It doesn’t become a category of people who would be on but true precept that hatred breeds impossible, but once you get out into the receiving end of discrimination, hatred, and radicalism and extremism “Zionism is racism” territory — it’s because he thinks of them as being breed radical and extremism. I think just, so many people who believe that wealthy and therefore privileged and you can easily look at those events, if are antisemites, and it’s harder and therefore in the oppressor category and you’re a critic of Israeli policy, and say, harder at some point to conceptually not the oppressed category. I think it’s a “It’s awful that Israeli policy has helped distinguish that from antisemitism, bad idea to divide people into oppressed breed radicalism among Palestinians maybe not impossible. So I think and oppressor classes, but given that’s and radicalism among Palestinians has Corbyn’s political model was, ipso facto, what you’re doing, the Jews can wind led to this antisemitism, which is itself a decision to bring antisemites into the up on the wrong end of that formula if helping to reinforce perversely hawkish coalition and to defend them. you’re kind of on the doctrinal left. So I policies among Jews in Israel.” It all just think that is a little bit of a mental block seems to feed on itself. ♦ JI: Does that carry over to American some people on the far left have with politics? recognizing antisemitism. But that said, I do think that most leftists recognize Chait: In a weaker and paler way. I that antisemitism is a thing. I don’t think the thing that really excited a lot of think they really are going to just say, radicals about Bernie Sanders, number “Well, you’re Jews, you’re rich, therefore, one, was the fact that he used socialistic you can’t be a victim of any prejudice.” language and concepts in his rhetoric, That’s really not a left-wing view. even though he often just meant it metaphorically, not literally — but also JI: What are your thoughts on that he had this “no enemies to the left” accusations that Israel is an apartheid strategy. Bernie himself has always state? been, I think, pretty mainstream on a lot of these issues. Certainly, he’s a political Chait: I think calling Israel an liberal, he’s a free speech liberal, he’s not apartheid state is a controversial a illiberal leftist on matters of speech. position. I don’t think it’s an antisemitic And on Israel, he’s certainly much more one, and I don’t think it’s an indefensible pro-Palestinian than most Democrats. one at this stage. When the Israeli But he always recognizes the humanity government has made it pretty clear that of both sides. However, he does bring they’re just not willing to take any steps in to that coalition a lot of people who toward a two-state solution, I think are further to the left, and I think maybe we’re kind of past the point where you

11 MAY 28, 2021 Edward-Isaac Dovere chronicles the ‘craziest election’ in American history The new book explores the 2020 election season through the Jan. 6 Capitol riot

By Gabby Deutch

he day before Donald Trump’s to Beat Trump, which was released on book. “I had an email from my editor inauguration in 2017, Edward- Tuesday. that said, ‘We’re going to push the book T Isaac Dovere published a He pitched the book in 2018 by back three weeks, because we’re going Magazine article with a grim explaining that “this was going to need you to write on all this,’” he noted. conclusion for Democrats. He called be the craziest election, and one of The book contains lots of juicy them a “decimated party,” working probably the most important elections, campaign gossip — recent excerpts on a “not-so-certain revival strategy” in American history,” Dovere explained. have reported on Bernie Sanders’s after having “their brains scrambled by “I, of course, had no concept that the travel demands (including king-size Trump’s win.” No one in the party could COVID pandemic was going to hit, beds and a particular temperature) and believe what was happening. that there was going to be an economic Biden’s response to then-Sen. Kamala The article prompted a book crisis, that there was going to be the Harris skewering him at an early contract, with Dovere pledging to racial reckoning that started a year ago primary debate — but it also provides write a reported account of the 2020 with George Floyd, and that there would an inside look into the hectic infighting campaign. His project could have gone be quite this crisis of democracy that that marked the intensely crowded in dramatically different directions — we were in with the [January 6] riot and Democratic primary battle ahead of the would the Democrats, after a divisive continue to be in. But it was clear that 2020 election. primary with a historic 26 candidates, there would be a lot of this on the line.” Dovere did not set out to write a be able to eke out a victory? Or would There were several instances in the post-mortem; instead, he reported they lose again to the historically nearly three years that Dovere spent contemporaneously, documenting key unpopular Trump? on the book when he felt things could campaign events as they happened. The result was both predictable and, not possibly get any crazier. In the late He had declined an earlier offer asking somehow, entirely unexpected: Joe summer and fall of 2019, when news him to write a book assessing where Biden, a Washington fixture for more broke about Trump’s call to Ukrainian Democrats went wrong in 2016, having than four decades, ascended to the Oval Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky and found that political operatives have a Office by running on what he described raised questions about his solicitation habit of revising history when reflecting to Dovere as the most progressive of foreign involvement in U.S. elections, on events that are in the past. “What platform in history. Perhaps the Dovere thought this was as wild as it I’ve learned over doing that is that biggest surprise? “The Biden brand was would get. “We knew that it was gonna really, you see how people’s accounts stronger than the Democrats’,” Dovere be intense, that it was shaking things up of what happened change when they’re told Jewish Insider in a recent interview. for Biden and for others,” he recalled, trying to fit things in after the fact,” Biden won states like Maine, where “and I was like, ‘How am I possibly he said. “After the fact that people are Democrats lost what were considered going to cover this?’” He had that same like, ‘It must have been that that was competitive Senate races by a landslide. thought countless more times in the the turning point moment.’ So I try to Dovere was a fixture on the campaign year that followed. meld that sense together and have the trail, bringing two voice recorders with On Jan. 4, 2021, Dovere spoke with book reflect on what it felt like as it was him to every interview: One that would his book editor, and said he would be happening.” be used for stories he could publish ready to turn in his final chapter after For instance, in hindsight, it’s easy in real time, for his day job at The the Georgia Senate runoff elections for observers to say that former New Atlantic, and another that would store the next day. On Jan. 6, he was sitting York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s conversations that would not appear in writing that final chapter decision to enter the race was doomed or be reported publicly until his book when the riot happened at the U.S. from the beginning. But that’s not at came out. The result is Battle for the Capitol — and changed everything for all the case. “On the night of Super Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns Democrats, and for the ending of his Tuesday, about an hour before the 12 polls close, I was in West Palm Beach surge. Dovere got a tip that then-Rep. run,’” said Dovere. at what was conceived of as this Mike Eliot Engel (D-NY) was spending the Many other candidates talked about Bloomberg party that was going to quarantine period in the Maryland the deadly rally in binary racial language: be his big step into the race,” Dovere suburbs of Washington, D.C., rather “It quickly got turned into, in most recalled. Bloomberg never got to take than in his district covering the Bronx people’s minds as just generally racist, his victory lap; two weeks later, he and parts of Westchester County. or a Black/white issue. But those were earned only 8% of the vote in Florida. “There were events that Engel and his neo-Nazis waving Nazi flags, chanting, The only place where he earned more office were promoting as him attending ‘You will not replace us,’ which is about than 15% was American Samoa, where in his district,” Dovere recalled. “There Jews,” said Dovere. “Every time that Joe he got 49% of the vote and just four was a Friday when there was one event Biden has talked about Charlottesville delegates. “There’s a whole chapter on in particular, that was handing out publicly, he uses the same phrase, and Bloomberg in the book, and what went supplies for COVID, and Eliot Engel’s he talks about that they were ‘spewing wrong with his campaign. And part going to be there. I checked in and the same antisemitic bile.’” of it is this sense that the money was was told he was not actually there, In Dovere’s view, Biden’s going to be just all-consuming and all- from somebody else who attended.” understanding of antisemitism is powerful.” So Dovere masked up — it was early central to the way he views racism The book includes a heavy focus enough that he did not yet have real and hatred in America. “As someone on the competing factions within the masks, and instead tied a scarf around who has been in Democratic politics a Democratic Party, but reporting on the his face — and drove out to Maryland. long time, he’s worked on a lot of these events as they happened — and taking Dovere got out of his car, voice issues,” noted Dovere. “It’s important notes in a long-running Google doc to recorder in hand, and knocked on the to him to talk about Jews, and seeing help him remember what each moment door. Engel answered; Dovere explained that antisemitism is a gateway into all felt like — was a way to use a narrative why he was there, and Engel tried sorts of other hate, to not let that just be to make his point, rather than offering to pretend he had been both in the swept aside.” ♦ boring analysis. “It became a way of district and Maryland. Eventually, he not just telling a dry story of well, admitted he had not been home during progressives need to figure out what the pandemic. “It was important when they are,” Dovere said. an elected official was representing Dovere’s path to covering the himself as doing something important Democrats’ 2020 campaign started around the pandemic — he was saying in New York City, where he began his that he was in the district helping reporting career covering City Hall in with the coronavirus, and he wasn’t.” Democrat-heavy Manhattan. “When His story, titled “Why This Democrat I left New York, there were three Won’t Go Home,” gave Engel’s primary Republicans of the 51 members of the challenger Jamaal Bowman some City Council,” Dovere explained. “In much-needed momentum, leading to New York, it’s kind of, ‘What flavor his defeat of Engel, one of the most of Democrat are you?’ That goes for prominent Jewish members of Congress the Republicans for the most part too. who served for more than 30 years. It’s like, ‘Oh, you guys are just like Dovere’s book did not touch on the conservative Democrats anyplace else thorny politics around Israel and the in the country.’” Middle East that have highlighted Many of the people he covered in divisions among Democrats in recent New York City later rose to national weeks. “Israel did not come up,” he prominence, and as he kept in touch, said. But Dovere pointed out that from the scoops he got — first at Politico, and the beginning, Biden’s campaign took now at The Atlantic — often involved a unique stand against antisemitism, Democrats. “People in New York end up rooted in what happened at the 2017 being a feeder in that way,” he said. Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Last spring, Dovere wrote a story that Va. “Charlottesville is the seminal left a major impact on New York politics. moment for him. It’s the moment that It was relatively early in the pandemic, changes everything for him, when he with people still quarantining at home, goes from thinking, ‘Trump is bad, but and New York City was slowly emerging we’ll get through this,’ to, ‘He really from a devastating coronavirus needs to go, and I probably need to

13