Latest / The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show / The Karol Markowicz Show: Alyssa Rosenheck Exposes Antisemitism in Publishing and the Fight for Jewish Voices

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The Karol Markowicz Show: Alyssa Rosenheck Exposes Antisemitism in Publishing and the Fight for Jewish Voices · The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

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  Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to The Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 1: My guest today is Alyssa Rosenheck. Alyssa is a best-selling author, advocate,
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  Speaker 1: and most recently the author of the book White Blonde Jew,
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  Speaker 1: out now anywhere you buy your books.
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  Speaker 2: Hi, Alyssa.
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  Speaker 1: So nice to have you on.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. It's great to be here
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  Speaker 2: with you.
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  Speaker 1: So I met you at a party and we got
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  Speaker 1: to talking and you told me that you are an
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  Speaker 1: architectural photographer. Was that right?
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  Speaker 2: I'm an interiors and architectural photographer.
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  Speaker 1: Interior and architectural photographer. You were one of Architectural Digest's
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  Speaker 1: top 50 interior and architectural photographers in the United States.
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  Speaker 1: Your debut book was called The New Southern Style. How
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  Speaker 1: do we get from that to white blonde Jew?
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  Speaker 2: That's a good question. I started concepting the idea around
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  Speaker 2: the New Southern Style really based off of Jewish values
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  Speaker 2: of having a social responsibility to one another. And it
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  Speaker 2: was also a bucket list item for me to be
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  Speaker 2: able to write and photograph my first book. I didn't
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  Speaker 2: think I could do it. So I always try to
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  Speaker 2: pursue the things that scare me the most. And that
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  Speaker 2: first book was a really big eye opener for me.
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  Speaker 2: The book published in 2020 on the heels of George Floyd,
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  Speaker 2: And I essentially wrote the first inclusive design coffee table book.
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  Speaker 2: And I was silenced in mainstream media outlets for immutable
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  Speaker 2: characteristics that I cannot change. And I heard that I
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  Speaker 2: was either too white or too blonde or too much
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  Speaker 2: of a Jew during this very racially tense time in
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  Speaker 2: our country. And so my light bulb moment for me
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  Speaker 2: was in 2021 when Israel was being barraged with over
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  Speaker 2: 3,000 rockets from Gaza targeting densely populated civilian areas in Israel.
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  Speaker 2: And I saw a few things that didn't register before
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  Speaker 2: but really made sense when mainstream media and my peers
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  Speaker 2: online with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of followers,
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  Speaker 2: were conflating race with geopolitical issues that had nothing to
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  Speaker 2: do with race. And so... I always say the opposite
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  Speaker 2: of fear and hate is curiosity. And I really wanted
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  Speaker 2: to connect the dots in terms of what was happening
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  Speaker 2: to me with that first project. And it connected me
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  Speaker 2: to the BDS movement. It connected me to the Women's March.
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  Speaker 2: It connected me to a lot of the bad actors
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  Speaker 2: in this field. So at this, you know, we'll fast
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  Speaker 2: forward a few years. In 2023, I was writing my
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  Speaker 2: second book about creativity. It had nothing to do with
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  Speaker 2: my Jewish identity. It had nothing to do with the
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  Speaker 2: sovereign nation of Israel. And then soon after, I'd been
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  Speaker 2: working with a publisher on a proposal for nine months.
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  Speaker 2: And my literary agent and I turned it in a
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  Speaker 2: few weeks before October 7th happened. And I immediately went
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  Speaker 2: into education against extremism, against anti-Semitism.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Advocacy for the Safety and Security of Israel. And soon
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  Speaker 2: after that, that book deal disappeared. And I was part
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  Speaker 2: of the first wave of distancing and literary boycotts against
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  Speaker 2: Jewish authors after the war. And so I wrote this
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  Speaker 2: next book, a book that I never thought I would
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  Speaker 2: write ever. I wrote it in response to the literary
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  Speaker 2: boycotts against Jewish authors and Israeli publishers. And I also
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  Speaker 2: wrote it to be a timestamp and historical insurance for
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  Speaker 2: what we were all living through and also silenced. And
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  Speaker 2: so I just think there's so much power in using
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  Speaker 2: your voice and using what you have. So that's how
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  Speaker 2: I went from really documenting our physical home to really
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  Speaker 2: focusing on our collective one.
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  Speaker 1: Do you feel like the boycott against Jewish authors has
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  Speaker 1: gotten any press? Like, I think it's such an underreported story.
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  Speaker 1: Do people know that Jews are starting their own publishing
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  Speaker 1: companies because it's so hard for a Jewish author to
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  Speaker 1: get published right now?
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  Speaker 2: It's not a lot of mainstream. The Wall Street Journal
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  Speaker 2: came out with a piece pretty recently about there hasn't
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  Speaker 2: been much mainstream coverage. I'm curious, why do you think
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  Speaker 2: that is?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. Is it just fatigue? I feel like
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  Speaker 1: even allies of Jews are like, all right already. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I understand. I feel like that. I've been writing
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  Speaker 1: about anti-Semitism for decades, and it's tiring.
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  Speaker 2: It's just exhausting.
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  Speaker 1: And this is like, well, you're doing something about it,
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  Speaker 1: so it'll be fine. You started your own hospitals, and
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  Speaker 1: you started your own beach clubs, and you've done all
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  Speaker 1: of that in the past, and you're doing it again,
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  Speaker 1: and it'll be okay. So maybe that's why. I....
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  Speaker 2: I've been talking a lot about literary antisemitism for the
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  Speaker 2: past three years. And literary antisemitism, it's not historically new. Historically,
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  Speaker 2: it would be targeting the characters in literature. And in
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  Speaker 2: its contemporary, more modern form that we're seeing today, it's
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  Speaker 2: traveled from the characters within novels to then attacks against
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  Speaker 2: the one telling the story. And I look at it
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  Speaker 2: in terms of two pathways it travels. It travels through
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  Speaker 2: covert and overt pathways. Covert in the form of shifting
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  Speaker 2: the goalposts for projects. For instance, me coming out as
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  Speaker 2: a public Zionist in this world. You know, I don't
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  Speaker 2: know the decisions that were made, but I also know,
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  Speaker 2: you know, they came up with an excuse that was
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  Speaker 2: never presented to my literary agent or myself in month three, six,
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  Speaker 2: or nine. It comes in the form in 2022 when
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  Speaker 2: I was hosting a book event around my first book,
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  Speaker 2: and I shared with a independent bookstore buyer that I
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  Speaker 2: was going to be sharing conversations around what it was
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  Speaker 2: like being Jewish in the South. And after that event, they,
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  Speaker 2: they took my book off the shelf of the independent bookstore. Um, it,
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  Speaker 2: it's this slippery slope and it's just this shape shifting
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  Speaker 2: more covert over is, um, publicly review bombing us. It's, um, pressure, public,
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  Speaker 2: very public pressure campaigns that are used to humiliate the
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  Speaker 2: authors and then the institutions hosting us. Um, it's, it's,
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  Speaker 2: weaponizing Google Drive toolkits and spreadsheets, publicly identifying Jewish authors
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  Speaker 2: and color coding them with their affinity to Israel and
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  Speaker 2: calling it, you know, is your favorite author a Zionist?
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  Speaker 2: And it's getting, you know, it got over a million views. It's,
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  Speaker 2: you know, overt is, when people are signing their names
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  Speaker 2: in the publishing industry to boycott Zionist authors in the space,
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  Speaker 2: over a thousand, you know, authors and publishing professionals. And
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  Speaker 2: then most recently, the cancellation of a book event, a
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  Speaker 2: book launch event for me in Nashville, Tennessee. So, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and then too, I think our knee jerk response, this
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  Speaker 2: may be an unpopular opinion, but our knee jerk response
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  Speaker 2: is to develop our own publishing houses. I don't know
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  Speaker 2: if that's the solution. I think it's vital and critical
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  Speaker 2: for us to be in mainstream spaces, the mainstream spaces
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  Speaker 2: that we help build and contribute to. And for us
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  Speaker 2: to continue to be marginalized out of those, that is
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  Speaker 2: a really problematic pattern that our darkest chapters of history
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  Speaker 2: have revealed.
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  Speaker 1: It's so tough. You know, In the conservative world, we
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  Speaker 1: just kind of expect, in my world, that we just
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  Speaker 1: have to have other things. We have to have other
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  Speaker 1: publishing companies. We have to have other media outlets. We're
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  Speaker 1: not in the cool kid club. I think the Jewish
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  Speaker 1: people who are realizing that they're not either, there's definitely
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  Speaker 1: some affinity there, and I wish that they would kind
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  Speaker 1: of join forces, but I kind of don't see that happening.
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  Speaker 1: What I wanted to point out is that your book,
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  Speaker 1: White Blonde Jew, The subhead on it is a call
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  Speaker 1: to end extremism, speak up and reclaim center. There's something
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  Speaker 1: to that, right? There's no actual center right now. Is
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  Speaker 1: that what you meant here?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that we have, as a culture, as
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  Speaker 2: a society, the loudest voices both on the extreme progressive
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  Speaker 2: left and the extreme right are the ones taking up
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  Speaker 2: the most space and creating the most noise. And I
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  Speaker 2: think that there's this 80% that vacillates between, you know,
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  Speaker 2: center left and center right. And I think we, you know,
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  Speaker 2: there's more moderate voices. And I think it's almost viewed
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  Speaker 2: as like the radical center because it doesn't even exist anymore.
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  Speaker 2: Like we need, and, you know, I think that, I
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  Speaker 2: think it's also what we're being fed online. I think
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  Speaker 2: that there's a lot of like political heroin and, You know,
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  Speaker 2: to really capture subscriber bases. And I think it's, you know,
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  Speaker 2: people are really into feeding rage bait and, you know,
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  Speaker 2: to really get people addicted to, you know, to their screens.
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  Speaker 2: And I think it's really doing us a disservice and
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  Speaker 2: it's creating so much tension and friction within our society.
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  Speaker 1: So I fully agree with you that online, there's, you know,
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  Speaker 1: just the most intensely extreme voices get rewarded. But it
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  Speaker 1: does feel like in real life, That's not maybe the case.
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  Speaker 1: But then you have the situation where Jews can't get published.
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  Speaker 1: And that is real life. And that's where, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the argument of all this is all just happening on
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  Speaker 1: the Internet really starts to get lost.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know what the solution is. I mean, what
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  Speaker 2: do you think? What do you what do you foresee happening?
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  Speaker 2: You know, how do we how do we wait?
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  Speaker 1: You succeed and your book does amazing and they have
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  Speaker 1: to publish you. That's what I hope. I hope that
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  Speaker 1: they have no they're left with no choice but to continue.
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  Speaker 1: do something that they don't want to do because that
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  Speaker 1: is the successful thing to do. But I don't know
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  Speaker 1: that that's really how it works out. The last few
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  Speaker 1: years have shown me that's not how it always works out.
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  Speaker 2: I'm a big believer of our First Amendment. I love
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  Speaker 2: free speech. And I really think it's so important to
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  Speaker 2: have intellectual diversity and also to teach critical thinking. I
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  Speaker 2: hope that we can start really focusing on a younger generation.
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  Speaker 2: And I have hope there. I see incredible young individuals
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  Speaker 2: who are really taking responsibility for their own agency, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and creating really great groups on campuses. And, you know,
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  Speaker 2: they have a voice. And I hope that we continue
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  Speaker 2: to instill those values in a younger generation. They're the
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  Speaker 2: future of our... Yeah, go ahead.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think readers of White Blonde Jew would
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  Speaker 1: be surprised to discover about you?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, um.
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  Speaker 1: Are there surprises in there for people who maybe have
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  Speaker 1: followed you?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there are. I can't be in the mind of
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  Speaker 2: the reader, but I can share what's been surprising to me.
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  Speaker 2: Those who have read the book, because it's been out
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  Speaker 2: now for almost six weeks. The thing that's been most
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  Speaker 2: surprising is the range of generational support of the project.
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  Speaker 2: For instance, I had somebody in their mid-70s email me
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  Speaker 2: privately saying, And he was a retired reservist in the IDF.
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  Speaker 2: His mother survived the Holocaust. And he shared how deeply
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  Speaker 2: seen he felt by the body of work, which made
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  Speaker 2: me feel like it's doing it justice. And then also
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  Speaker 2: young women are reading it. Students are reading it. Parents
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  Speaker 2: are buying it for their kids. It's really important. And
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: then two, women in our age range and demographic. I
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  Speaker 2: think it's a good combination of war on the West
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  Speaker 2: meets legally blonde. You know, it's approachable. And I really wanted,
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  Speaker 2: you know, people to understand what happens when conversations around
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  Speaker 2: identity and DEI and race are weaponized. I really wanted
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  Speaker 2: to bring back a level of femininity and tact with
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: this project. But I also share really deeply personal stories.
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  Speaker 2: I also wanted to expose the reader that may not
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  Speaker 2: have been exposed otherwise, the dangers of the BDS movement
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  Speaker 2: and how it's really the ideological intifada happening in this country.
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  Speaker 2: And it's growing through our education system. in sleepy elections.
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  Speaker 2: And it's something that we all need to be really
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  Speaker 2: careful about and, and observant of and fighting back on. So,
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  Speaker 2: you know, this is a book that it's deeply personal
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  Speaker 2: to me because I share deeply personal stories, but I
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  Speaker 2: also zoom out with research and history. So.
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  Speaker 1: Do you hear from a lot of Southern Jews? I'm
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  Speaker 1: always fascinated when I come across, I grew up in Brooklyn.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I couldn't, you know, couldn't grow up anywhere
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  Speaker 1: Jewier maybe than other than Israel.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So to me, when I meet a Southern Jew, I'm
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  Speaker 1: so interested in like, how was that? You know, how
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  Speaker 1: was it? Where did you grow up?
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  Speaker 2: I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yeah, my parents are
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  Speaker 2: from the back east. So my dad's from upstate New
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  Speaker 2: York and my mom's from New Jersey. And they chose
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  Speaker 2: to rear family in Oklahoma, but I've spent most of
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  Speaker 2: my adult life in the South. So in Nashville and beyond. But,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I think people feel non-Jews are feeling deeply
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  Speaker 2: seen by this work. White women are feeling deeply seen
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  Speaker 2: by this work. People who are really tired of the
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  Speaker 2: like intellectually lazy binary that people categorize individuals in feel
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  Speaker 2: deeply seen by this work.
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  Speaker 1: A question I ask all of my guests this season
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  Speaker 1: is what have you changed your mind on? And it
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  Speaker 1: could relate to the book or it could be just
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  Speaker 1: in general. Hmm.
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  Speaker 2: Um, a few things. Um, I, I'll relate it to
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  Speaker 2: the book. There's, there's a chapter in the middle section, chapter,
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  Speaker 2: chapter five. And I talk about, um, the power of
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  Speaker 2: being underestimated. Uh, I used to think that was something
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  Speaker 2: that I needed to fight against and instead, um, I
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  Speaker 2: think it's your superpower. I think it's where we quietly
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  Speaker 2: grow and build and fight back and use our voice.
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  Speaker 2: And I've learned that being underestimated gives you something. Being
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  Speaker 2: overestimated does not. And that is, you know, room to
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  Speaker 2: surprise people. And I share some history about a group
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  Speaker 2: of young women throughout the resistance called the Kesherote. And
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  Speaker 2: they were young and they were blonde and they were underestimated.
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  Speaker 2: that they were the veins of the resistance and they
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  Speaker 2: carried notes in their hemline and baked knives into bread
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  Speaker 2: and saved so many lives through their courage and strength and,
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  Speaker 2: you know, those who underestimated them.
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  Speaker 1: I love that. I play poker and women are very
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  Speaker 1: frequently underestimated at the table. I think that it is
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  Speaker 1: a superpower to not be expected to be good at
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  Speaker 1: something and then to be good at it. And I
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  Speaker 1: love the, The version that you tell about the resistance,
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  Speaker 1: that's really.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Give us something that you've experienced recently that you've considered
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  Speaker 1: the best, the best idea, the best food, the best
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: whatever you want it to be.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I want to hear what you think is the best.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: What is your best lately?
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I'm super into Italian pastina, the Italian penicillin recipes. I mean,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I come across them on like Instagram and I just
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: bought a bowl right before we sat down for this
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: because I was feeling a little under the weather.
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  Speaker 2: Pastina is the best.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, it made me feel so much better. Italian penicillin.
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  Speaker 1: I use the recipe I found on kitchen. It's with
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: no e.com. So good.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We're getting into soup season. So that's a good,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: that's a good.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I'm in Florida.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: So I know you're in Florida, but like, I'll give it,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: it's a cold day in Nashville today. So I'll send that,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: I'll send the temperature through the screen. Mine's a little
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: less tangible. I love it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: I am such, I mean, I, I'm a, I'm a
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: creative at heart and, you know, I'm an interiors and
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: architectural photographer and I, Something that my fiance and I
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: recently experienced was one of the Amman properties. The Amman
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: is a hotel group. It's like just the best, the
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: best of the best in the world. We experienced the
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: one in Venice and it was just magical. Their level
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: of service and detail and catering to needs, not even needs. Like,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: I just think they do so much research on the
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: people staying there before they arrive that they know everything
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: that we already love and make sure that it's, you know,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: in the room. And I just, I love that. I
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: love that level of service. It was really extraordinary.
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  Speaker 1: Definitely check that out someday. I have it on my,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: you know, dream list to go stay at an Amman property.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe the one in Venice.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: I love Venice. Venice was amazing.
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  Speaker 1: I have a real soft spot for it. People always
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: say kind of negative things about it, that it's overcrowded,
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  Speaker 1: which of course it is. But you go a little
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  Speaker 1: bit off the beaten path.
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  Speaker 2: In Venice, and it's just this magical place.
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  Speaker 1: Magical. Well, I've loved this conversation, Alyssa. I thought you
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  Speaker 1: were super interesting the second I met you and loved
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: that conversation that we had. White Blonde Jew is the book.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Pick it up wherever you buy your books. Leave us
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: here with your best tip from my listeners on how
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: they can improve their lives.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: This is, there's so many, there's so much unsolicited advice
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: out there.
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  Speaker 1: This is very solicited. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I'll leave us with one of my favorite quotes from
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Luminary Rabbi Jonathan Sachs. And he says that if leadership
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: is the solution, then what is the problem? And it's
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  Speaker 2: a failure of responsibility. And I think something that improves
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  Speaker 2: all of our lives is having leadership responsibility, agency, being
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: of service, not of service to receive, but service to give.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: And I think also having a gratitude practice that's daily
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: and making sure that we are utilizing and being grateful
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  Speaker 2: for everything that we have and making that work for
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: us as much as we can. I think that that is...
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: So hard. How do you do it? Daily steps. Daily
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: agency and responsibility to ourselves, to one another and our communities.
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  Speaker 1: Love it. Gratefulness is what it's all about. She is
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  Speaker 1: Alyssa Rosenheck. Check out her book, White Blonde Jew. Thank
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  Speaker 1: you so much for coming on, Alyssa.
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  Speaker 2: Carol, thank you for having me.