Calev Ben-Dor

@fathomjournal published over 130 pieces in 2024. There was hopefully something for everyone (we used to promise that there would be one essay in every issue that someone wouldnt like!). Here are 13 of my favorites - a thread

Dotan Rousso maps how following the Hamas attacks of Oct 7, Diaspora Jews experienced considerable pressure within their personal, professional, and social spaces to distance themselves from Israel. "In these settings, nuance did not soften the accusation; it merely complicated its delivery.” fathomjournal.org/the-moral-pres…

In his essay, Conflation! Conflation! David Seymour contends that a frequent means of avoiding the antisemitism that hides under apparent criticism of Israel is to claim that hostility to Israel is legitimate and accusations that it could be antisemitic are an unfair conflation. fathomjournal.org/conflation-con…

Published three new pieces in today's Fathom Highlight

Joanne Strasser examines why discussions about antisemitism are so fraught. She argues 3 factors prevent an actual exchange of views about facts: people confuse what is the case, what social conventions allow them to say, and what appears to be the moral urgency. fathomjournal.org/restoring-the-…

Andrew Apostolou argues that the Green Party has allowed antisemitism in its ranks and fails to grasp the seriousness of recent violence against synagogues and Jewish institutions. “Polanski is certain there was a genocide in Gaza,” Apostolou notes, “but unsure that firebombing synagogues is a real form of unsafety.” fathomjournal.org/britains-sewer…

New @fathomjournal published this week with 3 great pieces

TO DANCE WAS FORBIDDEN. TO SING WAS FORBIDDEN. TO LOVE WAS FORBIDDEN سی صد گل سرخ و یک گل نصرانی –ما را ز سر بریده میترسانی؟ Three hundred red roses and one wild rose – and you think a severed head frightens me? fathomjournal.org/the-architectu… @AlirezaNader @omid9

@Fathom_Editor reflects on living in historic times while dealing with prosaic challenges of daily life with missiles and safe rooms. For Yehuda Amichai, the real miracles happen at the next table of a restaurant in Albuquerque, where two women are sitting and the other said, I kept it together and didn’t cry. For us, they happen when Israelis run with children to shelters at 4.10 am, or sleep in metro stations. fathomjournal.org/diary-from-jer…

Samuel Hyde maps the merging of the radical Left’s ideology with Islamism and its lionisation of Iran’s Islamic revolution arguing that the demonstrations after Khamenei’s death and the pledges of allegiance to the Iranian regime represent the continuation of this intellectual inheritance fathomjournal.org/the-radical-le…

New @fathomjournal highlight dropping today with 3 pieces related to the Israel-US-Islamic Republic of Iran war

Jonathan Myers argues that the manner in which Jews have been cast as insiders and outsiders, victims and oppressors, moral exemplars and moral failures represents ‘bipolar antisemitism’ fathomjournal.org/bipolar-antise…

Alexander Yakobson discusses national and civic identity in Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. He suggests distinguishing between: Jews in Israel & Diaspora as a ‘people’, Jews in Israel as a ‘nationality’, & an Israeli ‘civic nation’ that includes all the citizens of the state – Jews, Arabs and others fathomjournal.org/fostering-a-se…

Proud to publish today's @fathomjournal highlight with 3 excellent pieces

Adam Slonim critiques the Jewish Council of Australia following its response to the attack at Bondi and President Herzog’s visit. It describes Jewish fear as exaggeration, treats Jewish testimony as suspect, portrays Jewish political agency as morally tainted and rushes to insist that the real danger to antisemitism is ‘conflation’, ‘weaponisation’, or ‘politicisation’. fathomjournal.org/the-jewish-cou…

@JewishPolicy’s Dov Maïmon believes that Jews in Europe find themselves caught between liberal democracies that promise protection but that can fail to deliver it, and authoritarian regimes that deliver security but are capricious. fathomjournal.org/the-crisis-of-…

Happy to share this week's Fathom Highlight