Don't Know Much About with Naya Lekht

Dr. Judea Pearl is a Turing Award-winning computer scientist, UCLA professor, and father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. He joins Naya for a sweeping conversation that moves from his 1936 childhood in B'nei Brak to the word he coined to fight back against the moral inversion on today's college campuses.Pearl was raised to be what early Zionists called "the New Jew", a child born free in the land of Israel, shielded from the weight of diaspora persecution. He remembers playing with Arab children from the neighboring village, screaming slogans against the British White Paper on the school bus, dancing in the streets the night the UN partition vote passed, and a moment of reckoning with his father when he realized, at eleven years old, that he had grown up without ever understanding what antisemitism actually meant.Decades later, as a professor at UCLA, he watched that same word, Zionism, become contaminated on the very campuses that had been built, in part, by the sacrifices of his generation. So he coined a new one: "Zionophobia". In this conversation, he explains why the old vocabulary failed, why administrators kept reaching for "antisemitism" as a way to avoid dealing with the real problem, and why he believes the only effective response is to put antizionists in the accusatory chair.The conversation closes with something unexpected: a reflection from one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence on whether AI will take us over ("Yes, we will be taken over"), and why the very traits that make AI useful, curiosity and autonomy, are the traits that make it dangerous.This episode is a rare portrait of a man who has spent his life in the pursuit of inquiry, across computer science, Jewish identity, and what it means to be a free people in our own land.Guest Bio**Dr. Judea Pearl** is Chancellor's Professor of Computer Science and Statistics at UCLA and Director of the UCLA Cognitive Systems Laboratory. He is internationally recognized for his foundational contributions to artificial intelligence, human reasoning, and the philosophy of science. He is the recipient of the **Turing Award** — widely regarded as the Nobel Prize of Computing — for work that transformed how machines handle probability and causal inference.He is also the father of **Daniel Pearl**, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. In Daniel's memory, he and his wife Ruth co-founded the **Daniel Pearl Foundation**, which works to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music, and dialogue.Pearl has written and lectured prolifically on Jewish identity, Zionism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and campus antisemitism. Forty-five of his essays on these subjects are collected in his recent book, ***Coexistence and Other Fighting Words: Selected Writings of Judea Pearl, 2002–2023***.Resources & Further Reading- **Book:** *Coexistence and Other Fighting Words: Selected Writings of Judea Pearl* — available on Amazon- **The Daniel Pearl Foundation** — danielpearl.org- **Pearl's original essay on Zionophobia** — Ha'Am (UCLA's Jewish Newsmagazine)- **Martha Pollack's 2019 BDS statement** — Cornell University (March 1, 2019)- **Azzam Pasha's 1947 interview** — *Akhbar al-Yom*, October 11, 1947 (the "war of extermination" quote referenced in the episode)Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

What happened to Canada? Once known as one of the most peaceful, multicultural countries in the world, Canada has become the epicenter of a disturbing wave of anti-Jewish violence: weekly synagogue shootings, a Jewish girls' school in Toronto shot at three separate times, a Jewish grandmother stabbed in an Ottawa kosher supermarket, and 14 shots fired at a Jewish-owned restaurant on the second night of Passover.In this episode, Naya Lekht sits down with Jesse Brown — founder and publisher of CanadaLand, Canada's largest podcast network, winner of the Hillman Prize for Investigative Reporting, and author of the viral Atlantic piece "Canada's Polite Pogrom" — to investigate how this happened, why it's still happening, and what the rest of the world needs to understand before it's too late.Jesse doesn't offer easy answers. He traces the roots of the anti-Zionist hate movement from Nazi Germany through the Soviet Union into today's post-colonial academy, explains why Canada's multicultural identity left its institutions uniquely unprepared to recognize anti-Jewish hatred disguised as political activism, and argues that pleas for sympathy are a dead end. Instead, he makes the case for naming what we're actually up against: a radicalized ideology that believes what it says.This is one of the most honest conversations about Jewish life in the diaspora you'll hear this year.About the GuestJesse Brown is the founder and publisher of CanadaLand, the first and largest podcast network in Canada. He is the winner of the Hillman Prize for Investigative Reporting and the National Magazine Award for Humor. CanadaLand's podcasts have won gold awards from the Signal Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. As a journalist, Jesse focuses on Canadian media — reporting and analysis of what the press gets right and what it gets wrong. Since October 7th, he has devoted his work to documenting anti-Jewish discrimination and the anti-Zionist hate movement in Canada, a focus that led to his recent limited audio series What Is Happening Here? and his viral Atlantic essay Canada's Polite Pogrom.Jesse will be joining Naya on stage May 17th at the first-ever World Symposium Against Anti-Zionism in Toronto.Listen & Follow🎙️ Jesse's limited series: What Is Happening Here? — available wherever you get your podcasts 📰 Read: "Canada's Polite Pogrom" in The Atlantic 🎟️ World Symposium Against Anti-Zionism — Toronto, May 17, 2026Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht shifts the conversation from law to culture, arguing that while legal frameworks may lag behind, culture is where meaning is made, narratives are shaped, and ultimately, where battles over truth are won or lost.She is joined by journalist and columnist David C. Kaufman, whose work has appeared in Tablet, The New York Times, Commentary, The Wall Street Journal, and Telegraph. Together, they confront the alarming normalization of anti-Jewish rhetoric in public discourse—from the use of “Zionist” as a slur to the growing acceptance of October 7 denialism and justification.They explore why antizionism is increasingly functioning as a socially acceptable form of Jew-hatred, the difficulties of Jewish leadership to clearly name and confront ideological threats, the role identity politics may play in distorting reality, and how the embrace of Palestinianism within parts of the African American community has had serious consequences for its well-being.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don't Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht sits down with Professor Rona Kaufman, co-founder of the Center for Jewish Legal Studies.Naya opens with a case study: a campus speaker who deploys libels against Israel. Is that legal? “Oof,” says Professor Kaufman, “you started with a tough case.” From there, the conversation moves into the basics of anti-discrimination law and free speech protections.To explain the difficulty of securing Jewish civil rights, Rona takes listeners and viewers on a historical journey, showing how women fought to define and expose discrimination in the workplace—and how naming what discrimination looks like was itself a crucial step in gaining legal protection.Throughout the episode, Naya presents a series of real-world scenarios for Rona to analyze, leading to a deeper question: what ultimately drives change—law or culture? Many behaviors we now recognize as unacceptable were once entirely legal. Did the law lead cultural change, or did culture push the law to evolve?This and more in a thought-provoking episode of Don't Know Much About.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht examines a troubling paradox: why is antizionism in the West more dangerous than in the Soviet Union, the regime that invented it? Beginning with a personal observation from her mother, the episode traces how Soviet antizionist propaganda, once widely recognized as cynical state messaging, was transformed in Western universities into a moral cause. While the Soviet Union imposed antizionism from above through state propaganda, in the West, the same framework was repackaged through postcolonial theory, anti-imperialism, and academic scholarship, eventually embedding itself within university departments and activist culture.The episode explores how this transformation, from propaganda no one believed to an ideology many now embrace as virtue, creates a far more dangerous dynamic. When antizionism becomes framed as a moral duty rather than a political claim, dissent is treated as immorality and violence can appear justified in the name of justice. The result, Dr. Lekht argues, is a disturbing irony: ideas that required authoritarian enforcement in the Soviet Union now thrive organically within free societies.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht traces how antizionism took root on American campuses, beginning with student activism in the early 2000s and becoming institutionalized through recurring campaigns such as Israel Apartheid Week and the BDS movement. By the time the campus encampments of 2023–2024 emerged, the movement had matured into something far more aggressive, raising urgent questions about how this ideological framework spread so widely across universities.The episode then turns to a deeper question: how did Jewish institutions respond as this movement developed? For years, antizionism was largely treated as political criticism rather than as an organized ideological campaign targeting Jewish collective legitimacy. Campus organizations often encouraged avoidance rather than confrontation, while major institutions framed the issue cautiously, focusing on when criticism of Israel might “cross the line” into antisemitism. Dr. Lekht argues that this conceptual hesitation limited the communal response and left antizionism largely unchallenged for years—raising the strategic question of whether confronting the movement will ultimately require grassroots mobilization before institutions fully recognize the scale of the challenge.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

Antizionism has been described as a hate movement, as a form of anti-Jewish bigotry, and, as I argue, the third era of Jew-hatred. But it can also be understood as one of the most powerful social movements of our time. Powerful not only in its reach, but in its ability to unify—cutting across political parties, generations, and national borders.So who better to explore antizionism as a social movement than my guest today, Professor Shaul Kelner of Vanderbilt University, a scholar of Jewish Studies and Sociology who specializes in contemporary Jewish life. His latest book, A Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized to Free Soviet Jews, won a National Jewish Book Award and examines how American Jews organized across ideological divides for a shared cause.I invited Professor Kelner because he recently authored what I consider one of the most important papers on the subject: American Antizionism. The title itself is telling. While many scholars trace antizionism’s Soviet genealogy, Shaul pushes us to examine how it has taken root and evolved in the United States. What does antizionism look like in the American context? How has it embedded itself in civic, academic, and Jewish institutional spaces? And why has there been so little education or clarity about it within American Jewish institutions themselves?We begin with Shaul’s research on the Soviet Jewry movement and then turn to a striking contrast: how antizionism, once engineered as state propaganda in the Soviet Union, has become more socially powerful and more normalized here in the United States than in the very system that produced it. Find out why. Listen. Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

Journalist Kevin Deutch and founder of the Jewish watchdog Substack AFTER OCTOBER 7, joins Naya Lekht for a conversation about what happened to journalism, and why it matters now more than ever.As antizionism exploded across American streets, college campuses, and even K–12 schools, Kevin began documenting the shift in real time. In this episode, he reflects on his career in the newsroom and identifies a critical turning point: 2020. Between the social upheaval of the BLM movement and the COVID-19 pandemic, journalism fundamentally changed.An award-winning reporter and digital creator, Kevin covers general assignment news and Jewish communities for Talk Media in South Florida. He also writes for the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle and the St. Louis Jewish Light, and previously served as a senior staff writer at The Miami Times, a historic Black newspaper in Miami.In this candid discussion, Kevin shares stories that reveal what he describes as an anti-Israel shift, not only in media coverage, but in cultural institutions and the arts. One striking example: longtime quilter AJ Grossman’s work commemorating the October 7 hostages was rejected by QuiltCon 2026. Kevin digs into that story and many others, exposing the fault lines shaping today’s media landscape.Follow Kevin's work: https://www.bing.com/search?FORM=U523DF&PC=U523&q=Substack%2C+AFTER+OCTOBER+7&PC=U316&FORM=CHROMNClarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

What does it mean to live with conviction when the cost is prison, isolation, and the full weight of a totalitarian regime? On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, I have the profound honor of speaking with Natan Sharansky, former Soviet dissident, Prisoner of Zion, Israeli statesman, and one of the great moral voices of our time.Born in Donetsk in the former Soviet Union, Sharansky became a leading spokesman for the human rights movement and the struggle of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel. After applying to make aliyah, he was arrested on fabricated charges of treason and espionage and sentenced to years in the Gulag, including long stretches in brutal punishment cells. His eventual release in 1986, following international pressure from Israel, world Jewry, and leaders of the free world,  became a defining moment in the history of the Cold War and the Jewish freedom movement.But Sharansky’s story did not end with freedom. In Israel, he went on to found political movements to help Soviet olim integrate into Israeli society, served in multiple Israeli governments, and became a global advocate for democracy, Jewish identity, and the fight against antisemitism.In our conversation, we go back to the beginning: What drew a young mathematician into the underground Zionist movement? What did it mean to organize Jews under a regime that criminalized Jewish nationalism? How did Soviet Jews, and even many non-Jews, understand with clarity that antizionism was simply another word for hostility to Jews, and why do Jews in America lack this clarity? We conclude by finding out who Natan Sharansky's heroes are. You don't want to miss this candid conversation.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

With thousands of Iranian civilians killed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in recent weeks, the will of the Iranian people is unmistakable: a nation seeking to liberate itself from an Islamic regime that devalues human life and has set Iran back decades.On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Naya sits down with Ali Siadatan, an Iranian who fled the country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Drawing on both his personal experience and deep regional expertise, Ali helps make sense of this pivotal moment—and explains why earlier episodes of unrest in Iran, including the Green Movement of 2009, may not have constituted a true revolution at all.One of Ali’s most compelling arguments is that both Western observers and many Iranians lack literacy in Islamic religious doctrine. As a result, they often misread the intentions of Islamic clerics, projecting secular assumptions onto a fundamentally theological system of power. This and more on this episode.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Naya Lekht sits down with Professor of Jewish Literature Marat Grinberg to discuss his book The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines. The conversation explores Grinberg’s original study of Soviet Jewish life and how books, especially those on Jewish history, became a crucial vehicle for Jewish identity and self-awareness.Central to the discussion is Grinberg’s effort to reclaim Soviet Jewish life from a rigid binary that has long dominated how it is remembered: Jews who remained quiet and hidden versus those who were loud, defiant, and ultimately became refuseniks. Grinberg argues that this framework misses a vast middle ground, a different, often overlooked way of being Jewish in the Soviet Union, one rooted not in overt resistance or assimilation, but in cultural transmission, private study, and shared texts.Sharing her own perspective on how Soviet Jewish life can be remembered, Naya joins Marat in a deeper exploration of how Jews lived and expressed Jewish identity under a totalitarian regime. In a state where access to Jewish religious sources was severely restricted, a striking and consistent phenomenon emerged: Jews across the Soviet Union, regardless of where they lived, often owned the same books. Why did this happen? And which specific texts did Russian-speaking Jews turn to in order to learn about their heritage?Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht sits down with Michael. His story is gripping, urgent, and, quite frankly, one that must be told. Michael was born in the United States to a Coptic Christian family, but he struggled deeply with questions of identity and belonging. Feeling isolated, he found himself drawn to the Palestinian antizionist movement, where he remained for nearly twenty years. Over time, that involvement came at an immense personal cost. Michael describes reaching a point where he felt he had nearly sacrificed his humanity, and arrived at what he calls a point of no return.After years of research, self-examination, and reflection, Michael ultimately left the anti-Israel movement. Today, he identifies as a proud Zionist, committed to confronting disinformation and advocating for the victims of a cause he once supported.In our conversation, I explore how Michael came to embrace the anti-Israel cause, not only through what the movement appeared to offer, but through what he himself felt he lacked. This distinction matters, as many young people drawn into this destructive hate movement are searching for something deeper: a sense of belonging, purpose, and collective story.We also discuss Michael’s journey into Islam, what he learned along the way, and how those experiences shaped his worldview. Michael has only recently stepped away from the anti-Israel cause, and his reflections are raw, honest, and often uncomfortable.My hope in sharing Michael’s story is precisely that, to illuminate what is uncomfortable. Avoiding difficult truths is a form of complacency, and complacency serves no one.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht leads a critical conversation on how public condemnation of antisemitism often functions as cover for antizionism, the latest mutation of Jew-hatred.Drawing on her framework of the three eras of anti-Jewish movements, anti-Judaism, antisemitism, and antizionism, Naya argues that antizionism must be understood not as a break from the past, but as its continuation. Each era, she explains, developed its own language, tropes, and libels to construct Jews as villains standing in opposition to what society defined as moral. In this way, antizionism carries forward the same civilizational project: transforming the Jew, now refracted through Israel, into a demon opposed to redemption itself.But this episode goes beyond diagnosing the latest mutation. More urgently, it exposes how politicians and public figures strategically condemn antisemitism in order to legitimize and traffic in today’s dominant form of Jew-hatred: antizionism. This cover is further amplified by the rhetorical pairing of antisemitism and Islamophobia in a single breath, a move that appears morally balanced while quietly granting antizionist rhetoric free passage. Because these statements condemn Islamophobia, they often function as a permission slip for antizionism to go unnamed, unchallenged, and unchecked, even as its most active producers today are Islamist movements themselves.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

At the crossroads of expanding teachers’ unions, the infiltration of anti-American curricula, and the silencing of dissenting scientists and doctors lies a story that now feels distant but urgent: the closure of schools during COVID. On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Naya Lekht is joined by filmmaker Natalya Murakhver, whose recent film, 15 DAYS: The Real Story of the Pandemic School Closures, was viewed more than one million times during an exclusive month-long run on X and is now screening across the country.The film has galvanized parents to reclaim agency over their children’s education and health. Driven to expose how governments used the pandemic to consolidate power, Natalya sits down with Naya to discuss not only the making of the film, but a deeper and more urgent question: why parents must never outsource their children’s emotional and academic safety to the state.Although schools have reopened, Naya and Natalya argue that the story of pandemic school closures is far from over. At its core, it is a cautionary tale about state control, the erosion of individual rights, and what happens when families surrender authority over their children to institutions that do not bear the consequences.About our guest: Natalya Murakhver is a co-founder of Restore Childhood, a national nonprofit dedicated to empowering parents to guide their children's upbringing, education, and health. A longtime advocate for children's welfare, she spearheaded efforts against pandemic-era school closures, co-organizing #KeepNYCSchoolsOpen in 2020 and filing a lawsuit to reopen New York City schools for in-person learning. She launched the #MaskLikeAKid campaign in 2021 and collaborated with global experts in 2022 to establish the Urgency of Normal, advocating for a return to pre-COVID childhood norms. Her directorial debut, "15 DAYS: The Real Story of the Pandemic School Closures," has been viewed more than 1 million times in an exclusive month-long run on X and is now screening around the country, galvanizing parents to reclaim their agency in their children's education and health. Parents can host their own screenings and learn more at 15daysfilm.com.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

As anti-Jewish violence continues to rise, Jews are increasingly forced to confront a troubling question: how effective are existing laws at protecting them when the community seeks protection and finds few willing to provide it? Against this backdrop, Dr. Naya Lekht is joined by Sarah Ettedgui, a senior corporate mergers and acquisitions lawyer based in Montréal, Québec. Their conversation took place just one day after the terrorist attack targeting Jews at a Chanukah celebration in Sydney, thus lending this episode unmistakable urgency. Drawing on her expertise at the intersection of law and hate speech, Sarah explains how Canada’s anti-hate speech laws are designed to function, and why they are increasingly failing to be enforced amid growing civil antizionist unrest. From there, Naya and Sarah turn to the United States, where the First Amendment sharply constrains the criminalization of hate speech, exposing a legal and moral fault line between the ideals of free expression and the real-world vulnerability of targeted communities.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

In this episode, I sit down with Eylon Levy, former spokesman for the State of Israel, to ask, what is the role of a government spokesman, and does every country have one? We begin by examining the function of state advocacy, public diplomacy, and crisis communication, separating myth from reality in how nations speak for themselves on the world stage.From there, the conversation widens to the deeper challenge facing Israel today. We argue that advocacy cannot remain reactive or limited to fact-checking and image repair. Instead, it must pivot toward confronting the ideological forces that fuel anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hostility, particularly the belief systems that distort moral language, weaponize grievance, and normalize demonization. I conclude with a reflective note: Who are our heroes today? Eylon names Abba Eban, who spoke ten languages fluently! Eylon recounts the legend that when Eban expressed interest in becoming Israel’s prime minister, Golda Meir quipped, “Of which country?”—a remark that captured Eban’s legendary diplomacy and global stature. His mastery of moral clarity, eloquence, and restraint offers a model of leadership and courage that feels both historic and urgently relevant today, laying bare that Israel was and continues to be the solution, not the problem, facing our world. About the guest: Eylon Levy is a former Spokesman for the State of Israel, who became one of the most globally recognized voices for Israel in the October 7 War. During the war, he gave over 600 interviews to international media outlets, earning him praise from President Trump for his “words of wisdom.” His press conferences from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office were broadcast live globally. He now heads the Spokesoffice, a civil society initiative that advocates for Israel and the Jewish People in international media. He is a regular panelist on Israeli primetime news, and continues to use his major social media presence to advocate for Israel.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht is joined by Samuel J. Hyde, a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) and a columnist for The Jerusalem Post. Born in South Africa, Sam recounts his firsthand encounters with what he calls institutional antizionism. It may sound unbelievable, but in South Africa, Hamas maintains official representation: an actual brick-and-mortar office in Cape Town.Sam explains how Hamas, along with other Third World “liberation” terrorist groups, became embedded within the ANC, South Africa’s dominant political party. As Naya and Sam peel back the layers of how South Africa adopted pro-terrorist and anti-Western attitudes, they trace a significant part of the story to the Soviet Union, which exported anti-Western ideology throughout Africa and the Global South.One of the episode’s most striking insights comes when Sam identifies who is truly driving today’s anti-Western, pro-terrorist movements. “These anti-Western movements,” he tells Naya, “were born in the West!” But why? Tune in as Sam shares his research and original analysis on the ideological takeover of Western institutions and whether they can still be saved. Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

Top-down history often fails to capture the lived experience of individuals, and Naya has long been committed to telling history through personal stories. On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht sits down with Leyb Ejdelman, who shares his powerful story of growing up in post-Holocaust Poland. Leyb’s life offers a rare window into how two eras of Jew-hatred—antisemitism and antizionism—intersect within a single individual’s experience. Jews who remained in Poland after the Holocaust made up a tiny minority, yet continued to participate fully in Polish political life. Reflecting on the antisemitism he encountered as a child and the antizionism he experienced in college, Leyb recounts a seldom-told chapter of history: in 1967, Poland’s communist leadership gave Jews just fifteen days to gather their belongings and leave the country, even as antisemitism was officially illegal under Polish law. This is a story you don’t want to miss.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, award-winning journalist and storyteller Monica Osborne joins Naya to discuss the difficult decision she’s had to make: leaving Italy amid the alarming rise of antizionism. This conversation was inspired by Monica’s recent piece in the Times of Israel, "Italy's Jews are in Danger," in which she chronicles how quickly Italy has changed and how the normalization of antizionism has placed its Jewish community at risk.On this episode, Monica recounts what she’s seen firsthand: the sweeping spread of antizionist ideology across Italy and, more distressingly, its impact on Jewish children in schools. Drawing parallels to developments in the United States, Monica and Naya explore how the Jewish community can respond, not by retreating, but by exposing antizionism for what it truly is.History leaves no ambiguity: wherever antizionism takes root, Jewish life deteriorates. From the mass exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union and MENA countries to the growing unease among Jews in Western democracies today, the pattern is tragically familiar and urgently demands our attention.Read Monica's piece here. Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Naya speaks with Israeli-American writer and award-winning journalist Benjamin Kerstein about his new book, Self Defense: A Jewish Manifesto. The thesis of the book can be summed up in a single declaration: “This far, no further.” It is a call for Jews to stop accepting abuse, to draw firm boundaries, and to look evil directly in the eye, without shame in naming it.This message is especially urgent because, for decades, Jews have been forced into the position of explaining themselves. And it’s no surprise because we are not merely a religious community, nor simply an ethnicity. The world struggles to categorize us. But those who wish to vilify Jews? They are not confused at all. Abusers always know exactly what they are doing.Meanwhile, Jews continue to assume good intentions and show up to the accusation armed with facts and reason. Alfred Dreyfus arrived at his trial with proof of his innocence; yet the verdict was predetermined. The trial was never about truth.Kerstein’s book confronts this dynamic head-on. By diagnosing the American Jewish community’s historically lackadaisical response to Jew-hatred, he gives voice to a shift already unfolding: a refusal to remain passive, a rejection of the old instinct to explain, apologize, or justify. Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

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. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht asks, Why have so many Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy groups failed to counter the antizionist narrative? While antizionism evolved into a sophisticated campaign of disinformation, Jewish advocacy often treated it as mere misinformation, a problem of mistaken facts rather than deliberate deception.Naya breaks down how this misunderstanding gave rise to “inward advocacy,”  three self-defeating modes of response: “looking at the self” (“This is what a Zionist looks like”), “innovation nation” (branding Israel through progress or diversity), and “setting the record straight” (countering libels with data). Each keeps Jews trapped in a cycle of self-defense, playing right into the abuser’s hands.Instead, Naya calls for “outward advocacy,” a strategy that names and exposes the structure of hate itself. Through historical parallels from the Doctor’s Plot libel to today’s genocide and apartheid libels, Naya shows how antizionism revives ancient tropes in modern form.This episode challenges listeners to rethink what it means to “advocate,” to recognize libels for what they are, and to stop debating a movement whose end goal is not peace, but the erasure of Israel itself.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht sits down with Adam L. Fuller, Professor of Political Science at Youngstown State University, to discuss his new book, "The Armed Jew: The Case for Jewish Gun Ownership." While the title might sound like a call for Jews to take up arms, the book is, in fact, a compelling exploration of how a people long defined as “the people of the book” may also need to see themselves as “the people of the sword.”Naya opens the conversation with a challenge: “How exactly will Jews 'shoot' their way out of the problem of antizionism that now dominates the Ivy Leagues, the United Nations, and the media? Surely gun ownership alone won’t solve the problem of a narrative war, one fueled by a masterful disinformation campaign designed to push Jews out of spaces that matter.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht is joined by James Lindsay, a leading voice on the rise of the “woke right.” Together, they unpack the origins of this movement, examine who may be driving it, and, most alarmingly, discuss why young American patriots are embracing Marxist frameworks rooted in grievance narratives, leaving them vulnerable to dangerous antisemitic and antizionist ideas.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this special episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht is joined by two of her former students, Shaya and Misha Keyvanfar. Shaya is a junior at UC Berkeley, majoring in Global Studies, while Misha is a senior in high school. Naya sits down with them to get a sense of how college and high school students today think about power, capitalism, Israel, and why traditional Jewish advocacy strategies, known as Hasbara, have largely failed.Why doesn’t “rah-rah” Zionism work? Why does focusing on proving Israel’s legitimacy fall flat? Could it be that knowing all the facts about Israel’s history actually traps us in a kind of perpetual trial? These are just some of the questions explored as Naya takes the pulse of Generation Z on all things Jewish.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht speaks with Daniel Levine, Rabbi of Orange County Hillel, Lecturer in Jewish Studies at UC Irvine, and host of the Rabbi Daniel Levine YouTube podcast. Drawing on his knowledge of Jewish history, texts, and working with Jewish college students, Daniel examines the trend within the non-Orthodox Jewish community of centering Israel and Zionism as core to Jewish identity, and why this may be problematic. Moving across the arc of American Jewish history, Naya and Daniel conclude by asking whether Jews, in advocating for themselves, should hold themselves to a higher standard, and if doing so inadvertently gives the non-Jewish world permission to expect that same standard from them.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don't Know Much About, blogger, marketer, and journalist Hillel Fuld joins Dr. Naya Lekht to reflect on the unique moment facing the Jewish people in the aftermath of the greatest tragedy since the Holocaust: October 7. Fuld offers a fresh perspective on Jewish history that pushes us to look ahead: Where is this surge in antisemitism leading? Can America withstand the rising tide of anti-Jewish bigotry, or will Jews be forced to leave the United States? Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don't Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht speaks with Dillon Hosier, Chief Executive Officer of the Israeli-American Civic Action Network (ICAN), about how California lawmakers, legislators, and advocacy groups have been unprepared to address the challenges of Ethnic Studies. Their conversation explores how activist groups have weaponized “diversity” to advance hidden agendas, while also shedding light on the strategies advocacy organizations are using to respond.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode, Dr. Naya Lekht sits down with Freedom Foundation litigator, Shella Alcabes, to discuss the case for being a proud, unapologetic neoconservative in an era where ‘America First’ too often turns into Jews last. We unpack the rise of antisemitism on the right, the dangers of retreating from global leadership, and why confronting Jew-hatred requires moral clarity, not isolationism.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

What if everything you thought you knew about history, education, and Israel was built on a lie? On this episode of Don't Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht sits down with Natasha H. Pein, a Soviet-born survivor of state-sponsored antizionism. Natasha recounts how Soviet antisemitism shaped her fierce commitment to truth, education, and Jewish advocacy. In 2025, she launched PIE4ALL.org, an initiative exposing hate in education from kindergarten to the workplace. Her upcoming book, The Antizionist Playbook: The New Face of an Old Hate, unpacks how modern antizionism masks old Jew-hatred in the language of social justice. Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

In this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht sits down with Sharon Nik for a timely conversation about the rise of antisemitism on the political right. Together, they trace the emergence of the "woke right" and explore how cultural cues—including fashion trends—can serve as surprising predictors of political shifts. Sharon also shares her powerful personal journey: fleeing Iran, going to Israel, and eventually immigrating to the United States. Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

What does Theodor Herzl have to do with dodgeball, and why does it matter for Jewish advocacy today?In this thought-provoking episode, Dr. Naya Lekht sits down with Nicole Bernstein, co-founder of PeerK12, to explore the state of Jewish grassroots leadership in the U.S. From the playground to the political arena, Naya and Nicole examine how Jewish identity, Zionism, and antisemitism intersect in education, activism, and community building.While the two find much common ground—especially in their commitment to Jewish continuity and empowerment—they diverge on key questions of strategy, language, and the future of Jewish advocacy. Can we unify without uniformity? Is the model of “big tent” Judaism still viable? What does effective grassroots leadership look like in a time of rising antisemitism and ideological division?Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

In this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht explores how modern antisemitism on the "woke right" resembles left-wing conspiracy frameworks—despite often being cloaked in patriotism and Judeo‑Christian rhetoric—and challenges the assumption that love of country shields against blame-driven ideologies. With historical perspective and cultural clarity, Naya highlights how grievance politics, whether left or right, can converge in dangerous ways when Jews are cast as scapegoats Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

In this powerful and deeply personal episode of Don’t Know Much About, award-winning journalist, writer, and speaker Tabby Refael joins host Dr. Naya Lekht to explore how stories shaped her identity as a Jewish Iranian refugee and columnist. From bedtime tales in post-revolutionary Iran to columns in the Jewish Journal, Tabby shares how storytelling saved lives, preserved culture, and built resilience. The conversation dives into the emotional complexities of exile, nostalgia for Iran, and what it means to belong. Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don't Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht tackles a difficult but necessary topic: the failure of Jewish leadership. She explores what it truly means for a Jewish organization to fail—and, just as importantly, what it means to succeed. Identifying recurring patterns in Jewish behavior in the diaspora, Naya offers a sobering analysis of why Jewish organizations often fail to represent the Jewish people effectively. She goes beyond these patterns to examine the shortcomings of mandated antisemitism training, the creation of Jewish affinity groups, and the adoption of the IHRA definition. Be sure to listen to the end for alternative approaches to how Jews can succeed today.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.