The Courage to Name It: Andrew Pessin's Journey Confronting Antizionism

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht sits down with philosopher, professor, and author Andrew Pessin, one of the earliest Jewish academics to warn about the rise of antizionism within higher education. Pessin reflects on his own “Herzl moment,” the point at which he recognized that antizionism is not a political critique but a modern guise of Jew-hatred. Drawing from personal experience, including being targeted by students and colleagues for his Zionist identity, he reveals what it means to be a Jewish professor navigating academia’s moral inversions.Dr. Lekht brings her own history to the discussion, recalling her early encounters with campus antizionism and her shock at how many Jewish academics refused to name it for what it was. The conversation unfolds as both a diagnosis and a reckoning: how did higher education, once a bastion of free inquiry, become a breeding ground for ideological intolerance? And what hope remains for reclaiming intellectual honesty in the wake of October 7?tcClarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.