Shows / On the Nose

On the Nose

Jewish Currents · en · 164 episodes

On the Nose is a biweekly podcast by Jewish Currents, a magazine of the Jewish left founded in 1946. The editorial staff discusses the politics, culture, and questions that animate today’s Jewish left.

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Episodes

On the Nose
Fighting Anti-Trans Legislation in Missouri
Trans youth are under severe attack around the country. Sixteen states have enacted laws restricting access to gender-affirming care for young people. At least…
Apr 27, 2023·38m
On the Nose
The Politics of "The Last of Us"
Despite the progressive politics of early zombie films like George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, modern narratives about zombies are often strikingly…
Apr 13, 2023·37m
On the Nose
Unpacking Israel’s Political Crisis
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed his defense minister for calling for a halt to government plans to gut the power of Israel’s…
Mar 30, 2023·46m
On the Nose
Two Paths for the Jewish Bachelor Contestant
On episode 8, season 27 of The Bachelor, contestant Ariel Frenkel, who hails from a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant family in New York, is seen leading all-American…
Mar 23, 2023·32m
On the Nose
The Trouble with Germany, Part II
In recent years, German state officials and media outlets have cracked down on Palestinian speech and activism. In 2019, the German parliament passed a…
Mar 9, 2023·40m
On the Nose
Representation and Exclusion at Israel’s Anti-Government Protests
Since early January, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have participated in weekly protests against the right-wing Israeli government’s proposals to weaken the…
Feb 23, 2023·33m
On the Nose
You People
A new Netflix-produced romcom by Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris tells the story of Ezra, a white Jew, and Amira, a Black Muslim, whose love affair is challenged…
Feb 9, 2023·33m
On the Nose
Fables and Lies
Last month saw the release of two autobiographical films, now both Oscar nominees, about young artists growing up in complicated, 20th-century American Jewish…
Jan 26, 2023·43m
On the Nose
Chevruta: Debt
Chevruta is a new column named for the traditional method of Jewish study, in which a pair of students analyzes a religious text together. In each installment…
Jan 11, 2023·41m
On the Nose
Who Is Tom Stoppard’s “Jewish Play” For?
Tom Stoppard, perhaps the most famous living British playwright, learned only in his fifties that his mother’s family was Jewish and that nearly all her…
Dec 21, 2022·44m
On the Nose
The Meaning of Apartheid
In the last two years, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have begun using the word “apartheid” to describe Israeli rule over Palestinians, marking a…
Dec 8, 2022·33m
On the Nose
“The Jews”
Dave Chappelle’s controversial monologue on the November 12th episode of Saturday Night Live, which found much to laugh at in Kanye West’s and Kyrie Irving’s…
Nov 23, 2022·53m
On the Nose
Victory for Netanyahu’s Far-Right Alliance
In last Tuesday’s Knesset elections, the Israeli electorate delivered a big win to Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition in the fifth Israeli…
Nov 8, 2022·26m
On the Nose
Ye
In the last week and a half, Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, has appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, been photographed with far-right…
Oct 20, 2022·35m
On the Nose
Gaza Under Blockade
For 15 years, Israel has imposed an air, land, and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, barring most Palestinians in the coastal enclave from leaving the area under…
Oct 13, 2022·55m
On the Nose
Yeshiva Education
In the wake of the recent extensive New York Times investigation into Hasidic yeshivas, a fierce and often acrimonious debate has emerged about the ethics of…
Sep 29, 2022·38m
On the Nose
Mom Save America
On this episode, Jewish Currents Editor-in-Chief Arielle Angel talks with her mother, Jeri Cohen, co-founder of the Women’s Emergency Network, the first…
Sep 15, 2022·33m
On the Nose
Documenting the Struggle
On this episode, Jewish Currents Contributing Editor Joshua Leifer talks with Oren Ziv—co-founder of the award-winning photojournalist collective Activestills…
Aug 25, 2022·41m
On the Nose
The Scream Clarifies an Elsewhere
Last week, Graywolf Press released Civil Service, the debut poetry collection by Jewish Currents Culture Editor Claire Schwartz. The book is a daring study of…
Aug 11, 2022·1h 3m
On the Nose
The Trouble with Germany, Part 1
On this episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with two Germany-based writers and organizers, Emily Dische-Becker and Michael Sappir…
Jul 28, 2022·1h 6m
On the Nose
¡Inquilinos Unidos, Jamás Serán Vencidos!
Late last month, the Autonomous Tenants Union Network—a collaboration of tenant unions from cities across North America—held its first-ever in-person…
Jul 14, 2022·51m
On the Nose
The Mapping Project
In early June, an anonymous collective of Boston-area activists published “The Mapping Project,” an interactive map listing various institutions in…
Jun 30, 2022·53m
On the Nose
The Age of No Revolutions
A broad spectrum of the American left agrees that the existing political system is not working—that it is dysfunctional, corrupt, anti-majoritarian, and…
Jun 16, 2022·49m
On the Nose
The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh
The killing of the beloved Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot by Israeli forces while covering an IDF raid of occupied Jenin on May 11th…
May 26, 2022·51m
On the Nose
Campus Wars
Since the launch of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and the collapse of the Oslo Peace Process in the early aughts…
May 5, 2022·54m
On the Nose
A Surge of Violence in Israel/Palestine
Life in Israel/Palestine is always characterized by a high level of violence; for instance, Israel’s control of millions of stateless Palestinians in the West…
Apr 20, 2022·36m
On the Nose
Volodymyr Zelensky and Post-Soviet Jewishness
In the month since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has become a global icon. Zelensky, who was elected in 2019 and chose…
Apr 1, 2022·56m
On the Nose
The Assault on Trans and Reproductive Rights
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a new wave of executive and legislative attacks on trans people and abortion rights across the country. In Texas, Governor…
Mar 17, 2022·58m
On the Nose
I Want to Believe
In January, n+1 Books released Missing Time, the debut essay collection by Senior Editor Ari M. Brostoff, which includes pieces originally published in Jewish…
Mar 3, 2022·54m
On the Nose
The Black-Jewish Relations Industrial Complex
A number of recent incidents—from a fracas over Whoopi Goldberg’s comments about the role of race in the Holocaust to a smear campaign launched against Tema…
Feb 17, 2022·59m
On the Nose
Whose West Side Story?
Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner’s recent remake of West Side Story sought to bring the musical into the 21st century by updating its flat, stereotypical…
Feb 3, 2022·1h 2m
On the Nose
After Colleyville
On Saturday, January 15th, a British national named Malik Faisal Akram entered Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, and held…
Jan 20, 2022·43m
On the Nose
Jamaal Bowman and DSA
On December 2nd, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)’s National Political Committee declined to expel New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman from the…
Dec 16, 2021·43m
On the Nose
What Does the Record Show?
In May, writer and activist Sarah Schulman published Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993, to widespread acclaim. In a review…
Dec 2, 2021·57m
On the Nose
Israel's Attack on Palestinian Civil Society
In October, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz declared six Palestinian human rights organizations to be “terrorist” groups. The targeted groups form the…
Nov 18, 2021·23m
On the Nose
Sunrise, Sunset
Two weeks ago, Sunrise DC—a chapter of the climate action group Sunrise Movement—announced it would not participate in a voting rights rally because of the…
Nov 4, 2021·1h
On the Nose
West Bank Politics
The past months have been tumultuous in the occupied West Bank. In April, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas cancelled parliamentary and…
Oct 22, 2021·51m
On the Nose
The Use and Abuse of “Jewish Peoplehood”
We recently published two pieces—”On Loving Jews” by editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and “Reclaiming the Covenant of Fate” by editor-at-large Peter…
Oct 8, 2021·1h 10m
On the Nose
Political Depression
As climate change-induced flooding and wildfires wreak havoc across the globe, and the Delta variant brings us into another perilous phase of the pandemic, the…
Aug 10, 2021·1h 6m
On the Nose
Rallies, Surveys, and Ice Cream
It’s been a rough few weeks for the “pro-Israel” establishment, from a pitiful showing at the “No Fear” rally against antisemitism (whose “big tent” excluded…
Jul 27, 2021·1h 29m
On the Nose
Couples Therapy
The recent Jewish Currents staff roundtable on “intermarriage,” “Jewish continuity,” and the fraught institutional discourse on these topics occasioned a wide…
Jul 13, 2021·1h 25m
On the Nose
Jewish Feelings
Welcome to the first official episode of the Jewish Currents podcast, On the Nose. After a brief conversation about the show’s title, editor-in-chief Arielle…
Jun 29, 2021·54m
On the Nose
In This Moment & Tough Conversations
Is it worthwhile to focus our organizing on moving Jewish American public opinion on Israel/Palestine? How effective is it really in shifting the dynamics on…
May 20, 2021·1h 17m
On the Nose
On the Nose
The cover of the Spring 2021 issue of Jewish Currents features a photograph that has proven controversial, eliciting a wide array of reactions, from disgust to…
Apr 9, 2021·41m