 I think that's how it sounds. Okay, you'll never guess what. We have bigotry in America. We have Peter Haffenberg. You can talk to us about it. He's a history professor. So watch out! Good morning, people. Good morning. Good to see you again, Jay. So let's talk about anti-Semitism today, because it keeps rearing its head. And we live in a time when perhaps there's more than when you and I grew up. We live in a time, you know, perhaps when the late part of the 20th century really was improving. It was better. And, you know, a Jewish person could feel that this was a welcoming country. Maybe most of the 20th century, it was always getting better. And now it's getting worse. Do you agree? Yes and no. So you told people to be warned as a history professor that this hand on the other hand or an economist with three hands would be much easier. The statistics, so let me address what you said immediately. The statistics show a spike in what would be defined as anti-Semitic attacks. And I do not mean that in a snarky way at all, but we want to look at how things are defined. So, officially, and probably still the most accurate chronicler is the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League. And their report from last year, which includes the United States. So they're not, they don't include Canada, for example, or Europe. They have different statistics for those. We need to talk about that too though. Right, right. And there have been Canadian incidents, but they generally look at the United States, I assume the District of Columbia, and they show a spike in what they consider to be anti-Semitic events or experiences. So for example, spray painting of swastika, an attack on somebody who is Jewish even though the person or person's attacking may not necessarily refer to that person as being Jewish. There could be other reasons. So that's why I'm saying, again, not in a snarky way, we want to kind of unpack. And certainly, the impression is, and is very accurate, that the most horrific attack on American soil against Jews occurred Pittsburgh last year, that's still this year, I apologize, still this year. So all of those would paint a picture that Jews are less secure in public than they were before. And that's certainly fueling a sentiment that Jews are vulnerable. My response would be, and it's not to disagree, but I put it in a complimentary mode or genre, all such attacks are more common these days, blatant attacks against people of color, blatant attacks against transsexuals. So one response is not just that Jews are attacked and that there's anti-Semitism, that the idea of a liberal open society is under attack. And that Jews are the canary in the mine for some people, that it's a sign that the notions of tolerance, we don't all have to like each other, but getting along, it's living here in Hawaii for example, there's no place to go, you better get along, you're not going to pick up your car and drive across the border. So I would agree that the impression is, and certainly the impression is, that attacks based on some kind of difference are also greater. Now if we look historically and geopolitically, I think we could agree that Jews in general in the United States are more comfortable and safer than in most of Europe. Certainly there's been a lot of press about attacks in France and comments we could talk about if you wanted to have the Labour Party in Britain. So vis-a-vis other significant Jewish communities, the community of France is large, the community in England has been there ever since, Pram will invite them back in the 17th century. So we're talking about significant Jewish communities. My other point would be, and again I don't mean this to be trite, but if we look at the entire history of Jews, particularly Jews in diaspora, so Jews have always lived in what is now Israel, they've always lived there, but a majority of course for many years lived outside of what is now Israel. These are probably still the best of times and it's probably still the best country in which to live in. And I do not mean that in a banal or superficial way, but the average Jew living here as a Jew is still far better off. What about Canada? So Canada I think is a really interesting case because Canada is a relatively open society diverse, exactly, and the diversity is different than the United States, it's actually closer to the British model. And what I mean by that is if we took say two of the most significant Supreme Court cases about diversity, place E.V. Ferguson and Brown versus Board of Education, there are societies that think separate and equal is the way to go. And it's a certain degree Canada, ever since the British in the 18th century, said French Canadians can keep their language and keep their Catholicism, they have sort of had the British model. They're communities, they should get the same public support, they should be protected by the same laws, but if there isn't the pull or push of assimilation, that is, and I hope listeners will call and correct me, that's kind of a, and we're very aware about using the term exceptionalism, even if it has failed in many cases, that has at least been part of the mythology, the powerful mythology, and good or bad, I don't mean mythology in a dismissive way, I mean ideas which could motivate us to be better, and obviously ideas which could motivate us are worse. But if you look at the history of Britain, I mean one of the reasons Britain is having difficulties is that for years communities were separate, Islamic schools had public funding, and there wasn't really an attempt to assimilate, and I think Canada is more in that condition. And so attacks on Jews in Canada historically have been, again far fewer than Europe, but there have been some interesting moments of anti-Semitism. And again I want to be very careful here because historians are always wary of over generalizing, so big G goes up, not to over generalize, but there have been some historical problems in Quebec and Montreal. I mean with the Jews or with the French? With the French and the French Catholics, Mordecai Rikler, the great Jewish novelist, wrote about this for years and years and years, and Mordecai Rikler actually opposed the referendum to separate Quebec every 10 years or so, there's talk about that. And one of the reasons he said is that Quebecois are by nature essentially anti-Semitic. So there has been, now that's Mordecai Rikler, who was never subtle about even a tsunami, so I don't think that, I would not take that as historical fact, I would take that as an impression about a kid who grew up there, was very perceptive, had a little edge to him if you ever look at Mordecai Rikler, but there were plenty of examples of that, and there still are today in Montreal. I think throughout parts of Canada there's a more traditional British anti-Semitism, which is really a quieter one, it's the comments made at the dinner table, or not being allowed to join certain clubs, but I would be very surprised if a march like Charlottesville occurred in Canada, I'd be very surprised. I don't know quite as much about out west, but certainly one here's very little about anti-Semitism in British Columbia, one here's very little. They're not a lot of Jews in that big swath of Alberta and Cowboy Canada, but you just don't hear. There's great diversity there. There seems to be a great amount of tolerance. I think in general if one stuck a thermometer, a tolerant society, thermometer in a society, I think you'd find that Canada, and one of the answers, and again I don't mean to be quipish about this, is Canada has never felt the burden to be a world power. It has never felt the burden that the eyes of the world are upon it. I think there are a lot of reasons that Canadians have kind of settled into, it's still relatively loyal to England, and there are many reasons that liberalism and tolerance there are much more the British model. It is also, of course, let's remember where the Underground Railroad ended, when American slaves, African-American slaves. Sure, in Vietnam, and this is not a racist issue, but in Vietnam you wanted to escape the U.S. right there. But he himself is a haven. Right, and I think part of that is you don't find Canada trying to police the world, you don't find Canada trying to determine other people's policies, but we see they also, because of that, can't always go it alone, so Canada has to nudge up a little bit to the U.S. Yeah, and they see themselves in the shadow of the U.S., so whatever happens in Canada, there's always a feedback kind of relationship with the U.S., but you know what, back to the U.S. for a moment, it strikes me that you say the ADL keeps the statistics on certain kinds of visible anti-semitic events. Right, also just to add a little sense, sorry to interrupt you, but also invisible in that they also track online. Sorry, so they track online anti-semitism. I'm not sure I know what that is, but what is the individual event that they track online? So one of the things they track is hate. So they track the hate sites that are explicitly about anti-semitism. Usually those that are about anti-semitism are also racist. They also tend to be extremely anti-women, extremely. So they track, it's not just activities in the streets, but they try to track hate groups, and those hate groups often communicate via online. Sorry for interrupting. No, there's two questions. They have a pretty big scope. Two questions that come out of what you say that I think we should explore, and I'll tell you what I think those two questions are. One is, is there a kind of pinnacle here where you have this kind of low-level hate, dinner table, exclusionary type things? Okay, and is that part of a pyramid that takes you to a hate website to people who have, you know, what do you call it, social problems, perhaps, or mental problems, and then finally express themselves in violence? Oh, is there a pyramid? That's my first question. And I guess my second question is, you know, how does it work? What is that social and mental problem? Because this is not just one person or even a community. This is all over the place, and it's been all over the place for a couple thousand years, at least. So I wanted to ask you about both. Let's go to the first question first. Those are two important questions. They're related, but not, I mean, not directly. So I'm gonna play the fifth a bit about that and rely more on scholars in communications and hate, etc. But I would say as a historian, what we've seen happen is, particularly with social media as part of that pinnacle, less reluctance to express what would have just been the dinner table now, publicly. The anonymity of it. Right. It allows one to, for example, I had a discussion with a group at Temple of Manuel. I mean, it sort of boggles the mind that an ISIS sympathizer, you know, in Paris can email and agree with a white supremacist in Idaho. But in general, they would not. And in general, you would not see them at the same March. If they were, you know, earlier during our time, they probably would not subscribe to the same newspaper. But you're absolutely right. The anonymity or the strength of the ideological connection transcend. Now, is there, there's not a seamless connection to sort of give a kindergarten Freud, right? The anti-Semitism and the racial hatred is somewhere in our head. It's some kind of animal response, fear, jealousy, disaffection, tribalism, something like that. But as a rudimentary Freudian, there's also the ego which allows you and tells you that's just not proper behavior. That seems to be gone, but fair. That seems to be gone. So in that pinnacle, the kind of editing, but Freud would have said it's self-editing. You got to, for example, you pull up to the stop sign and nobody's there. But you know you're supposed to stop. And that's how society stays together that you stop. Or in Conrad's hard darkness that society stays together because we agree that it's necessary to lie. It just is necessary. There's certain things. And those are all self-conscious though, right? But what's happened to me, and again, it's very rudimentary view of mine. And I'm sure many of your viewers and listeners will be able to correct me. The kind of self-checking is gone. And that's gone on a lot of things. And that's sort of the, that's where you could get from the let's have a conversation around the dinner table to I'm going to express it to my friends at school or I'm going to go join a group. There doesn't seem to be any editing. I mean, as a historian, we're not going to get rid of hate. We're not going to get rid of intolerance. The point is though, a society can't function if those things are publicly expressed or they're institutionalized or major political leaders, you know, exploit them. You can't, you can't help what happens. Everybody says it's a sign curve, right? There's some periods of time, the Enlightenment, for example, where there's less hate and more collaboration and you don't find that. And I submit to you and I'm interested in your reaction. There's two factors working. One is a cultural factor. So if I grow up in a household where I'm inclined to be, you know, a little wild and unstructured and have those primeval thoughts and, you know, and indiscretions, you're it. My mother says to me, Jay, don't do that. And she inculcates that in me as a child. I'm less likely to entertain those thoughts. You know, let's have a real problem with my mother. I am less likely to, you know, do that when I'm an adult. I'm not going to participate in that because it's built in because, you know, mammals, we get things built in in our childhood and they last with our whole life. The other factor I'd like you to address in this discussion, this particular point, is leadership. And we can talk about American leadership. We should talk about that. But if there's a leader, say Tito, Tito in Yugoslavia, who says, now, now, I don't want you guys fighting. I really mean it. And if you fight, you know, I'm putting a lid on this. If you fight, you know, the Muslims and the Christians, whatever it was, and the Serbs and Croats, particularly, and all that, if you fight, I'm going to punish you for that. I'm your leader and I mean it. So don't fight. That has a big effect because that's sort of like your mother and father come current. You are not permitted. The rules are being established and you cannot break them or else. There's a sanction involved there implicitly. Okay, so how do those two factors work, do you think? And how are they working now? Well, I think they work in a couple of different ways. It's a very important point. I mean, the easy answer is, do we have leaders of particularly democracies who are attempting to, I think unity is not a very helpful word because we're a diverse society. And we should be a diverse society and that's healthy. But public acceptance, public tolerance, public decency, those things that make for a civilization, and that's not racial, Western or non-Western. I mean, it's just simply the ability to have society function in a way which is not anarchistic and is not totalitarian. Right. And I think particularly, it sets a tone. It's a little bit like, say, the President of the United States and the economy. Really, the economy is going to function and presidents get too much blame and too much applause and credit. But they do set kind of a tone. And so certainly, in a society where there are means of communications and societies which in one way or another pay attention to what the leadership says, certainly. And I don't think we need to point any fingers because it seems to be there's a very strong revival of ethno-nationalism almost around the world, almost regardless of whether it's a republic, a dictatorship, a democracy, etc. It's not my imagination. This is happening around the world. And I think a general consensus and happening in large democracies, India, happening in very large democracies, that's an ethno-nationalist movement, which is historically violently anti-Muslim as well as others, the Hindu nationalist movement. I mean, Gandhi and Nehru would be quite surprised. Is it a coincidence, Peter, that it's happening in so many countries at the same time? Or is there some kind of connection with our global connection? I would say it here again. I want to be very careful. I want to be careful with everything, but sometimes we can be a little more loosely. The perceived causes are in common. And I mean, that may not be the precise causes, but what we perceive and talk about at least, which is important at one level. So if you look at the various countries, they all have an ambivalent relationship with globalization. People are taking our job. People particularly of another nation or another color are taking our jobs. And that's pretty, pretty consistent. Each of them has reached a point in their history where they're very self-consciously erasing and rewriting the past. In general, along some kind of ethnic line. So for example, in India, many of the, we use the word traditional, Gandhi is that kind of carefully, but the Mughals arrived in the Middle Ages, right? So there was not a Islamic India before, and the Mughals ruled really until around, you could say, oh, middle 19th century. I mean, the British used to be a company expanded, but there was still somebody who could be called a Mughal emperor. So at least until around 1800, probably, they ruled. So what's happening though in many places is the Hindus are renaming places as if the Mughal history never happened. And we see that when the Egyptians erased Moses' name, he didn't exist. And one of the most brilliant moves politically of another generation, Nelson Mandela, as the first democratically elected leader of South Africa, the Republic of South Africa, went to the single most important Afrikaner site. It's the Vortrecker Memorial, and specifically said, I'm here. This is part of our history. But it should not be used as a shrine. I mean, I understand why there's concern. I mean, there's concern in the American South and not just American South, because there are lots of statues in the north. I mean, there's concern that, essentially, is not a historical item. It's a shrine. And that may be part of the difficulty. So it's not that it exists or not, or that it was built or not. It's not necessarily what happened back when in the 19th century. It's how you look at it today. Well, you don't want to pull it down because it's part of your past. It is. But we can talk about the Confederate monuments. They're a slightly different case, because the two times in which there was a spike in their building were specifically two times in which the Klan had a spike and coincided in 1920s with very strict American immigration. So unlike in India, where the Mughals inscribed and gave a name to these places when they came, the Civil War memorials are just as much memorials to these two moments in American history as they are even really to the Civil War itself. That's yet another dimension of how you look at these things. And I think that's an important dimension if the monument is used as a shrine. If it's used as a historical marker, then you can do what some countries did, like independent India, the various statues of the British, Queen Victoria, et cetera, and put them in a park. You know what I like talking about? You know, making a museum out of it or something like that. It's like spelunking. Have you ever gone spelunking? Spelunking, you go into a cave and you have a little string that you leave behind, and then ultimately you really have to come back out of the cave. You just don't do that. Did you do that? Yes, I did. Oh my gosh. It's scary, but I'm going to feed you. So a conversation can be like spelunking. So we're going to come back out now and we're going to talk about anti-Semitism. Okay, so I agree with you, except that I would say we go to a coffee shop. Okay, we decided to go to the next coffee shop in the discussion. Okay, let's talk about Trump. You know, the statistics are not conclusive, but they do suggest, the ADL statistics, they do suggest that Trump has an effect on this whole issue. And I would like to explore with you that effect. You know, he doesn't necessarily, he says, some of my best friends are Jewish. I don't believe that when anybody says that. But, you know, then you find that in fact, he's somehow fomenting it. He's somehow fomenting hatred and racism and anti-Semitism. How does that work? And how does he do it? And does he understand what he's doing? And what kind of feedback is he getting from people who actually respond to it? That's another coffee shop. That's like the coffee plantation. I never promised you a rose. You did not. I don't really like roses that much. I prefer tulips. All right, let's, where should we start? Because that's a very common discussion. I'm going to start with almost the anti-response, is that we're focusing too much on Trump. Now, having said that, we'll now focus on Trump. Okay, what has been the impact of Trump? Well, I think, again, I'm not an expert in modern American politics. I hope some of my friends will respond. I think that Trump, whether consciously with Bannon or not, is playing the, again, ethno-nationalist part. And anybody who plays the ethno-nationalist part, regardless of where they are. I mean, the Han played in China. We've talked about India. Most Europeans are now playing it. The inevitable consequence, even if you intended or not, the inevitable consequence is a resurgence of a hatred which has been there and intolerance and excuse. So whether or not Trump believes it, I look at Trump personally, and again, this has no professional affiliation as a 12-year-old. I mean, he just kind of stopped. I might actually more matured, but that's not fair. He stopped developing. He's a narcissist. Do not continue an argument. I'm going to bomber on. No, I'm not going to bomber on. That is a contrast to Obama, who was criticized for being too thoughtful, asking too many different views. And part of the Trump response, I think, is not just a racial response, which it clearly, clearly is. It's also this idea that experts and conversations and dialogue do not really matter. I know what needs to be done. I have a gut. We're back to the end again. I have a gut idea about what needs to happen. The problem is, if it doesn't happen immediately, then maybe my gut will tell me something else. I think it's a mistake for us to spend too much time blaming Trump, other than, again, setting a tone, which allowed these things, which had been on people's minds. It's not as if suddenly these hate groups arose, but they now live in an environment where they publicly express themselves. That I would fault him. Like I'd fault any. He doesn't condemn these actions, or at least not sufficiently. And part of what's happening is the lack of condemnation is giving racists and anti-Semites. Everybody does everything with impunity these days. Nobody gets. I mean, I mean, when it is keto, that's what we need, you know, really. So you can't do that. Right. So I was going to respond to that because what's coming up against this, and Trump knows it as well, is at least one narrative of freedom, however you define freedom, right? Freedom is states right. Freedom is to send your child to whatever school you want to send your child to. Freedom is to own guns. Freedom is to say what I want on the web. You don't even have to worry about that. There's no tradition of freedom in Yugoslavia, other than freedom from Russia or freedom from the Islamic Empire, but that's a macro. The United States. And so what Trump can fall back on is I'm letting people be free. I'm letting, you know, and I'm letting fetuses be free. I'm letting all these, I'm letting religion be free. And the there's a kernel of truth. But the cob, the cob is big and cobs have lots of kernels. Of course, there's a kernel of truth. Of course, there's a kernel that religious freedom was important, of course, but societies have to measure the relative weight. And so it's religious freedom more important than somebody's safety or is religious freedom more important than the public good, which should transcend that. So whose job is it to correct this? Not only in this country, but elsewhere, not only with Trump, but, you know, with other leaders that do not condemn it. It's our job. We have a ballot box. It's our job. What do we do? What do I do? We're right after this show. Where do I go? What do I say? What do I do? You get out and vote. You get on the social media and be responsible. And instead of so many people running around social media, you know, like termites on meth. I mean, just relax, step back. Termites on. I've been following in your system. I watched a show about AOC. There's nothing. I mean, AOC cannot use underarm deodorant without Pelosi worrying about it or a Chinese daughter saying you're using Chinese underarm deodorant. People really need to just step back a bit. Just a grip. Like the problems are always going to be there. I know that. And there are some significant. There are some major issues. It's just, I feel like, you know, Yates did that. Those who really want to sit down and talk about the issues and try to resolve them are just overwhelmed by people who are loud, running around, parts like you and me. We can't manipulate the technology the way that other people can search for advice. We don't have ready advice, but we can search for advice. To know what's good advice and not. I mean, part of the issue of social media is the same issue John Stuart Mill and others had in the 19th century with an explosion of printed material. Not everything is correct. Not everything is truthful. Not all social media is good. Right. And not all newspapers in the 19th century in England were good, but they're out there. So how do you judge? And that puts an unbelievable burden and an unfair burden on our schools. That's why you and I have to have more conversations. And we need to. We have to explore this unpack it, explore it, discover it one step at a time. You know, make sure the schools are well funded. I know there's a significant interest in STEM and kids going on to the STEM path, which is fine. But send a kid off the STEM path, you know, having read some Shakespeare, having read some Chinese literature. So they get an understanding of how of the social context. I mean, when you get on your phone and you get on Facebook, it's not just a technological connection. It's a social and cultural one and historical one, too. Yeah. And the great minds study history, great minds across the world of all genders and orientations. The great minds can help us negotiate that. There are new things, of course, but almost everything new has at least some old advice towards it. Then you will come back. I will come back, of course. Thank you. Of course. But I have to wear this shirt. Of course. And me too. Please do. OK, thank you very much. Thank you, Peter. OK.