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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. With us now, Marc Tracy who over-- Who covers arts and culture and, also, the American Jewish community for the New York Times. He previously covered contemporary Jewish life and culture for the Jewish news organization Tablet, and he co-edited the 2012 book, Jewish Jocks, a collection of 50 original essays about Jewish sports figures.

In the last few months in this post-October 7th world, Marc has been writing periodically about the dynamics within American Jewish families around how to think about the war in Gaza and how to think about Israel generally at this moment in history. Just last week, he had an article called Navigating Israel’s War When One Spouse Is Jewish and One Is Not. That's in the context of so many intermarriages involving Jewish and non-Jewish spouses for generations now in the United States, so many mixed couples.

He had one called Is Israel Part of What It Means to Be Jewish? Exploring that from various modern-day perspectives. He had one called Jewish American Families Confront a Generational Divide Over Israel. We'll talk about that one the most now and invite Jewish listeners of different generations to call in and have part of what may be a difficult conversation that you're having in your family.

In that article, Marc notes that Gen Z and young Millennial Jews often see Israel as an occupying power oppressing Palestinians, a shock to their parents, he writes, who tend to see it as an essential haven fighting for survival. These generational divides among Jews, and also among many Democrats of any background, have potential implications for the presidential election too, so they are, potentially, very consequential in that way. We'll start there with Marc Tracy who covers arts and culture and the American Jewish community for the New York Times. Marc, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Marc Tracy: Thanks for having me. I should also shout out a couple of those articles were co-authored with my colleague Emma Goldberg.

Brian Lehrer: Great. We want to invite Jewish listeners experiencing a generational or other divide within your family over Israel and the war in Gaza to call in and say how you're navigating it. Also, if your own perspective on whatever side of that is broadening as a result of what your loved ones are saying or maybe even just changing as a result of the ongoing war, or as a result of October 7th, as a result of Netanyahu, or anything else and whether your family is becoming more polarized as your own opinions, perhaps change.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Listeners, heads up. We're going to save some of our lines for Jewish listeners 40 or younger and some for those of you over 40 at 212-433-WNYC. We acknowledge, as does the article, that there are plenty of people within each age group with different opinions, so not to stereotype or overgeneralize, but there are generational patterns emerging that are stronger than in the past that Marc's article cites polling on, so that's the context of our invitation to call in.

If we get too many calls from either age group, over 40 or under 40, we may have to bump you to clear the line. Just to say if that happens, it is not to censor your views, okay? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Marc, just to frame the generational divide statistically to some degree, can you start with the results of the poll that you cite in the article by the Democratic pollster GBAO Strategies?

Marc Tracy: Yes. It is a democratic pollster but was for a non-partisan organization, so I gather it's fairly trustworthy, and it's a very respected pollster of the American Jewish community. They asked specifically about Biden's strong support for Israel. This was in November when the so-called bear hug of Biden towards the Israeli government was really in full swing. He was very much backing them.

82% of those 36 and older supported the president in the American Jewish community. Just 53% of those 18 to 35 felt that way. Which, on the one hand, is still a majority, of course, but on the other hand is much, much smaller. This comes in the context of decades of very strong support for Israel among American Jews. Even among liberal American Jews, even among Democratic American Jews.

Brian Lehrer: For example, you tell the story of the Kornblatt family. The parents had moved from Wisconsin to Tel Aviv. Their daughter is a grad student at Berkeley. How did their views contrast with each other's?

Marc Tracy: Right. It's the classic tale. You're right to say that, obviously, there's exceptions on all sides, but the parents, being of the baby boom generation, came of age at a time when Israel was often seen as an underdog. They very much are supportive of Israel. As you say, they moved to Tel Aviv. Their daughter is Jewish and asks her opposition to Israel as a Jewish state in Jewish terms, but that's, obviously, a big difference in terms of how you look at it. For her, it's much more about Israel, again, as an oppressor or an occupier and an entity preventing Palestinian self-determination.

Brian Lehrer: You refer to that daughter's position that a permanent ceasefire feels morally urgent-

Marc Tracy: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: -and you report on another student, part of a group at Brown University called BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now. Did that come up a lot in those words? A permanent ceasefire?

Marc Tracy: Definitely. Again, this was a couple months ago and, obviously, the calls for that are still quite high. The divide there is between people more supportive of Israel might say, "Well, a ceasefire effectively hands Hamas a victory." Israeli government has said that its goal is to eradicate Hamas and a ceasefire would, obviously, entail saying that that's probably not a completed task.

The flip side is that we're now at a place where thousands and thousands, I believe, currently, we're up to more than 26,000, according to Gaza officials, Palestinians have died in the last several months of the bombing and the invasions, which is an awfully high number and an awful number. Many of them are, likely, minors given that, after all, about half the Gaza population is under 18, so for some people, including some American Jews, that is the front boiler issue is just the sheer number of deaths.

Brian Lehrer: Right. On permanent ceasefire, a person more supportive of the war might say a permanent ceasefire as opposed to fighting Hamas with more attention to civilians. Permanent ceasefire is code for surrendering to Hamas, allowing Hamas' military to survive and attack Israel again ala October 7th as they say they want to do. Is it clear to you what permanent ceasefire means to those using that term as opposed to a temporary one for humanitarian aid and hostage and prisoner exchanges which is the Biden position?

Marc Tracy: I don't want to speak for them. I think the short answer is no, it's not completely clear. I think, probably, a lot of people use that term envisioning slightly different end games. As you point out, we've had a pause in the past. There have been some prisoner exchanges. There are still Israeli captives in Gaza. Whereas a permanent ceasefire would, presumably, restrict Israel's ability to continue attacking Gaza with an aim towards killing Hamas militants, killing Hamas leaders and their command structure.

Which, yes, certainly, in theory, would imply that something like October 7th, which was just a truly traumatic event for the country, a kind of unprecedented event even for a country that's had its share of attacks and attacks on civilians even, it's not clear that, with a permanent ceasefire, Israel would be guaranteeing such a thing couldn't happen again. I think that's what a supporter of Israel's continued campaign would say.

Brian Lehrer: Are you finding that either generation is influencing the thinking of the other? Like-

Marc Tracy: Yes, great question.

Brian Lehrer: -are young Jews for whom Nazi Germany or 2000 years of Jewish history may be more of an abstraction starting to see Israel in a broader context than just the occupation and blockade of their lifetimes, or are you finding parents, who's thinking about Israel may have been grounded in the immediate Holocaust period, say, coming to think more about the length of the occupation or the 20th-century act of moving in by the hundreds of thousands and taking power over an existing population?

Marc Tracy: Yes. This is certainly anecdotal rather than something I have backed up in polling, but I'm finding it's more the second. In other words, older parents being, maybe not fully converted, but certainly moving more in the direction of their more left-wing critical of Israel children. I think there's just a lot more exposure in younger generations, among American Jews, to the Palestinian narrative.

I spoke to one father who said he heard the term Nakba, which is the Palestinian word for the kind of birth pangs of the Israeli state, the founding of the Israeli state, combined with the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, that it's the Arabic word for catastrophe. He said the first time he heard about Nakba was from his child who had learned it in turn at a college class. I want to clarify, since I know there's a lot of worry about-- Maybe justified, I don't know.

There's certainly a lot of worry about college campuses right now and Jews, but this is someone who took a class at Columbia with Rashid Khalidi, who certainly is very critical of Israel and is a Palestinian intellectual, but is also a credentialed scholar of the issue who has written books on this, teaching a class about the Palestinian narrative, including the Nakba. That's how the father heard about it. The father didn't completely change his beliefs overnight, right, but certainly saw it a little more from the Palestinian perspective and is, perhaps, now a little more trepidatious in his support just for Israel.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hear what some callers of different ages are saying as we continue with Marc Tracy, who has reported on the generational divide among Jewish families in America which exists to some degree, as cited by the polling. It's not overwhelming, but it's significant since October 7th. Even before October 7th in this generation, but now it's really being put into the spotlight during this war in Gaz period. Gary in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Gary.

Gary: Hi. I'm a former director of the Reform Movement. There was a letter that was released several weeks ago by the descendants of our generation of leadership of the reform movement who took a very different tact in terms of their response to the war between Israel in Gaza with Hamas. What I found to be very interesting is, as Marc pointed out, those of us of my generation all lived in Israel. Most of us are rabbis.

If you were in that leadership position you were probably a rabbi, and therefore, you spent a requisite year of study in Israel in your first year of rabbinic school and went back many, many, many times. We raised our children with what we thought were the best ideals of Judaism. Especially tikkun olam, the idea of repairing the world and making the world a better place. We sent our kids to visit Israel, but it was like religious tourism.

That generation did not, unless they went and they went into the rabbinic, many of them did not live there and did not have the kind of attachment to Israel in their religious identity. The conversation has been a difficult and painful one. We raised our kids with agency, I did, and that meant that I really wanted to respect what my children were saying. Two of my three children were signatories to that letter.

In fact, they were very worried that it was going to be upsetting to me that they were going to be signing that letter, but they felt that they had to. It opened up a conversation. I recognized that we were looking at Israel from two very different points of view. I lived in the pre-1967 Israel years. I remember Israel, as Marc pointed out, as the underdog. In 1967, Israel rose up and became a superpower and my pride in Israel grew. My children's understanding of Israel is Israel was always a dominant force with a superior military ability, so we really needed to talk, and we spoke from two different points of view.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask. Has your attitude toward the war changed as more and more civilian casualties pile up and President Biden, who started out so supportive, is getting alienated himself in his recent comments?

Gary: I have to agree. Early on I felt Israel needed to do what it needed to do in order to rid the Palestinian people of Hamas, because Hamas was as poisonous to the Palestinian people as it was to Israel. On the other hand, now so many weeks into this, I have to-- My heart goes out to the Palestinian people who simply want to live. There is no Arab country that has reached out to give aid or succor or help to the Palestinians. Not one.

Not one has offered to say, "Come here to live as refugees until things calm down." I remember, at the end of the shoah, Jews coming out of the shoah, there was no country that wanted us, and the only thing that gave us any hope was that we had a-- We were offered a state.

Brian Lehrer: Gary, I'm going to leave it there and get some other people on. Thank you very much for your call. We're going to go next to Sally in Brooklyn. Sally, you are on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in.

Sally: Hi, how are you, Brian?

Brian Lehrer: Doing okay. Thank you very much.

Sally: Sure. I just wanted to call. I'm 26 years old. I just wanted to speak for my generation and just respond to what your guest is saying about how it's unclear what permanent ceasefire means. For those of us who support Palestine, permanent cease-fire means permanent cease-fire. It means an end to this conflict and this fighting. We cannot countenance this unjust colonial war, especially as young Jewish people and just as young people of consciousness in general.

Israel has really proved that it is not interested in waging war with Hamas. As we can see by the attacks in Rafah, Israel is purposefully targeting civilians and Palestinians. I just also want to quickly respond to what the last caller was saying which is just completely false. That Arab countries have supported Palestinians. By the way, the world supports Palestine, the world is with Palestine, New York City is with Palestine. We love Palestine. Palestine will live forever.

Brian Lehrer: Acknowledging that people will disagree with your characterization that they're purposely going after civilians, what would you say to those who argue that a permanent ceasefire by Israel would wind up being a one-way ceasefire because Hamas is not going to abide by a permanent ceasefire and there will be more attacks?

Sally: Hamas is waging an anti-colonial armed struggle which is their right under the UN charter. This is what needs to be done to ensure that Palestine is able to have self-determination in its own state. We've seen that the lie of the two-state solution is just consistently like Israel will not make any space for Palestinian self-determination. It is necessary for Hamas to wage [unintelligible 00:18:13]

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you're going to the hottest of hot-button possible places. Which is, you are explicitly saying October 7th was justified, correct me if I'm hearing you wrong, and that, as some of the protest signs have said in some context, in some of the protests, that revolutionary violence is central to decolonization. Is that your position and do you think you speak for a lot of people in your generation or who support a permanent cease-fire on the Israeli side?

Sally: Yes, absolutely. That's what I'm saying, and that's what a lot of people are saying. I think that we can look at struggles to give the land back in so many different places. South Africa was an armed revolutionary struggle, you know what I mean, against apartheid. Here in the US, Indigenous people are struggling to get land back and they would be justified to use revolutionary violence against this empire. Same thing with Palestine and Israel.

Brian Lehrer: What would you say then to Jewish people either in Israel or just sympathetic with Israel who would say, look, for 2,000 years of Jewish history, Jews were oppressed or slaughtered, more or less, wherever they were, and wanting, unlike, let's say the British Empire, that kind of colonialism to settle in Israel. Not to run colonies for power and profit, but as a safe haven, rather a little minority carve out, which could be seen as a progressive thing in those terms, in their own ancient homeland. That's the position. Are you having this conversation with your parents, by the way, or anybody in your family?

Sally: Well, my parents are on the side of the Palestinian people, but I'm having this conversation in the streets, I'm having this conversation with elders, and I would just call on all Jews that, as oppressed people, our solidarity should stand with oppressed people worldwide. Our history should teach us that nation-states will not save us, that we are allies with the dispossessed across the world and that's where we need to stand, especially in this time. I would just say like, it's actually, to me, the most offensive thing that could be possibly done is to commit genocide in the name of the Jewish people. That's so much more offensive than critiquing Israel.

Brian Lehrer: Sally, thank you very much for your call. Obviously, people will disagree with the characterization of genocide. Marc, I could just imagine a lot of people's heads are exploding right now hearing somebody call up and explicitly support Hamas, what they-- People listening might be considering terrorist attacks as justified violence. This would be the ultimate tension that you also do touch in your article, a real third rail, of actually seeing this as justifiable revolutionary violence.

Marc Tracy: Sure. Well, a lot of American Jews feel solidarity with the Israeli state and, also, a lot of American Jews feel solidarity with other Jews, which Israel is the country in the world with the most Jews in it. Another thing is that they, the American Jewish establishment, for decades has, and I don't want to make this sound more cynical than it was, but has certainly used Israel as a means of helping perpetuate Jewish peoplehood, including in America.

In other words, the point wasn't just to get people to the point of putting coins in your Jewish national fund box or in going on Birthright, the program that sends you on free trips to Israel, was not only, or even necessarily primarily, about inculcating support for Israel among American Jews. It was about inculcating a kind of pride in one's own Jewishness for American Jews. That's a very big part of the community. Yes, your caller there also represents a smaller faction to be sure, but a faction of the American Jewish community, and one can see how, clearly, they would find a lot of pushback in the American Jewish community when they say things like that.

Brian Lehrer: Let's see, we heard from a 67-year-old and a 26-year-old in this multi-generational call in. Here's Diana in Bay Ridge, age 38 she told our screener. Hi, Diana, you're on WNYC.

Diana: Hi. Thanks for having me. I feel, definitely, generationally and politically in between the two callers that you had. I remember growing up with Yitzhak Rabin trying for a ceasefire. Not a ceasefire, sorry, trying for peace. I grew up going to Hebrew school. It was very much the pro-Israel story. We weren't taught at all, I think, the true facts of what happened, what led to the Israeli Jewish state.

Then as an adult, I've learned more, and it's been very emotionally hard to really come to terms with the true facts for how the Jewish state was founded and all the amount of Palestinians that were displaced and continued to be displaced, and so I feel very emotionally torn, but politically, I feel very much on the side of wanting a ceasefire and knowing that whatever it is right now can't stand. I'm not an international relations expert. I can't give you the answers, shockingly, can't give you the answers to what's happening right now, but I know that what-- The status quo can hold.

Brian Lehrer: As somebody who says you've seen this from both sides, has your opinion of what needs to happen changed as this war has gone on? Maybe you just answered that by saying you're leaning towards ceasefire, but you're steep in the complexity of it like, maybe, more than the previous caller.

Diana: Yes. I think my evolution has been over the last 10 years I've learned more. I've gotten somewhat involved in IfNotNow, which is a group that calls for-- I don't know the exact language, I don't want to use you wrong, but I would say the end of apartheid. Also acknowledging the Jewish trauma and pain, which I think those things live together. Yes, I think in the last few weeks since the war has gone on, I've only been further hardened in this, but it is difficult because I see my grandparents were Holocaust survivors. I see, particularly, older relatives, the trauma that they feel and how, really, the Jewish state feels so important to the Jewish identity.

I understand that because, during the Holocaust, there really was nowhere for a lot of people to go. Politically I'm, I think, more aligned with your younger caller you just had. I also don't think it's-- Can be as black and white knowing that there wasn't a home for Jewish people in the aftermath of the war, and really, throughout history. Right? It's diasporic people. I think there's complexity for what happens to Israel. Right?

Like what does it mean if you're a state that, if they end the apartheid, what happens? What are the answers? I think a lot of people who-- Jews who live in Israel don't want to be treated the way the Palestinians are treated now. I think that's a real fear, so I don't know the answers. I don't think you displace people. On both sides, but I also think what's happening now is, as a Jew, I don't like seeing this in our name.

Brian Lehrer: Diana, thank you very much. Marc Tracy from the New York Times who has reported on intergenerational arguments and dialogues within Jewish American families, we got in our three callers, almost the perfect representation of your article.

Marc Tracy: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: The older one in a certain place, the youngest one in a certain place, and the cusper, the one who's a sort of older millennial, right in the middle. It's just all so fraught.

Marc Tracy: Great job by your screeners. My colleague in the opinion pages of the times, Ezra Klein, has referred to that middle generation as the straddle generation because they kind of, yes, I can assimilate both of the views. Spoiler alert, your caller in that generation was 38, I'm 39, it's very much my generation. I remember the second Intifada, that was very much a part of my life. Israel being victimized by bombings targeting civilians. I remember Yitzhak Rabin, I remember him being killed, but I also remember the last 15, 20 years of Benjamin Netanyahu's governments.

I do think one thing that is important to considering how younger Jews feel about Israel is the Israeli government under Netanyahu for, basically, all of the years since 2009, has become increasingly allied with the Republican party, including Donald Trump. As with everything else in American politics, I think Donald Trump is a big polarizing figure and Donald Trump is not, according to polling, is not popular among American Jews, certainly among younger American Jews. I sometimes wonder whether the alliance between Netanyahu governments and the Republican party and Trump has harmed Israel's image with American Jews, especially my age and younger.

Brian Lehrer: Well, as I often say at the end of segments on this topic, we won't settle the Middle East today, but we continue to try to have thoughtful conversations that respect different points of view and recognize the aspirations and grievances of different groups of people, and also the urgency of urgent situations. Thank you listeners for your calls. Marc Tracy, a New York Times reporter who covers arts and culture and the American Jewish community, thank you very much for helping lead this conversation.

Marc Tracy: Thank you so much.

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