Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, NY Times Op-Ed: "Misogyny and Antisemitism Are a Toxic Brew"

[1:33]Zibby Owens: Welcome to moms don't have time to read books hosted by me, Zibby Owens. It's an award winning podcast with over 1,900 episodes all featuring authors of books you love and those you have yet to discover. Listen daily five times a week. Then go to zibbymedia.com and learn more about what the LA Times called the Zivyverse. Zibby Media includes Zibby's Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Santa Monica, Zibby Books Publishing, Zibby Retreats, Zibby's Book Club, and more. Go check it out at zivymedia.com, and follow me on Instagram at zivieowens. It'll take you where you need to go. Thanks for listening. Natalia Melman Petzarella is the author of an article that was a New York Times op ed recently called Misogyny and Antisemitism Are a Toxic Brew. Natalia is a professor of history at The New School and the author of two books, most recently, The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession, which she discussed on this podcast, and is at work on two more, a short history of the school culture wars and a sweeping history of the Hamptons. She is currently a fellow of the Carnegie Corporation, and in twenty five to twenty six, will be a national endowment for the humanities public scholar. She contributes frequently to public media outlets from MSNBC, where she is a columnist, to the New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic, SLAIT, the History Channel, and more. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Welcome, Natalia. Thanks so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books. So excited to talk to you about your recent article. Thank you. I'm glad to be here and talk to you. So as I was just saying to you, this is a little bit different format in that I read your article,

[3:14]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: and I had met you before. And I was like, let's just talk about this article, which actually is how this podcast started was the first couple episodes were about articles. But, anyway, so we're just gonna talk about it. Let's do it. Okay. Misogyny and antisemitism

[3:28]Zibby Owens: are a toxic brew guest opinion essay in the New York Times.

[3:32]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: Go. What is it about? I'm gonna read a little bit from it. But tell me about what made you write this piece? How did you get it in the New York Times? Like, tell me the whole story. It's kind of a long story. So I wrote it together with a colleague of mine, Rachel Schreiber. We're both professors professors at at The The New New School. School. We're We're both both trained as historians, and we both have very different kind of fields of study, but we both focus on gender as, like, a core thing that we do. And one of the things that had been bothering both of us is that this fact that in a year out from October 7, like, there continued to be this, like, denial, justification, minimization specifically of the rapes of Israeli women on October 7. And we we, who exist in the world of gender studies in, like, the, you know, progressive universe of academia, were especially bothered by this because, like, we're the people who are supposed to be thinking in empathetic and complex ways or simple ways even about justice. And it seemed that Israeli women were just totally outside of that. And so that kinda got us thinking, yeah, that was sort of like the beginning of it. And then what happened? Oh, yeah. And then what happened? So then it opens with this anecdote that happened to me, which is that I was walking in the street on a year out from October 7 when there were a lot of anti Israel protests. And a group of people walking across the street, one in a BLM shirt, one in actually, this isn't in the article, but one in the holding a Queers for Palestine poster, wearing kefiyas, saw that I was wearing the yellow hostage pin, the yellow ribbon, and yelled at me, Zayo bitch. And I was, like, so taken aback that these people who clearly believe they're on the right side of justice, right, they're standing for marginalized people, We're so quick to, like, yell a slur at a woman walking in the street. And so that was sort of, like, the nugget that really got us thinking, like, this is something that we wanna write about, not just kind of swallow it. And what happened from there is so the essay in the New York Times is about a thousand words as those essays are. What happened there is we open up a Google Doc, and we're just kinda, like, putting in all of our thoughts of, like, why is this happening? Why is there this blind spot in kind of progressive culture and even specifically feminist spaces where Israeli women are outside of that. And I would say Jewish women are even outside of that. And what we did is kind of put together what at first was, like, like, a 2,500 word almost, like, rant about, you know, kind of getting our thoughts together about the ways that Jewish women, we find in a really fascinating way, are kind of othered in a lot of ways. There are a lot of kind of tropes. Like, think of, like, you know, the Jap, the Jewish American princess, the gossipy yenta, the overbearing kind of mother. They're kind of outside of normative culture, but largely because a lot of Jews in The United States, in particular, present as white are kind of seen as just white people exercising their privilege. And, therefore, we're very attuned to, like, identity based defenses as we should be, but Jewish women are kind of outside of that. So that's kind of the nugget of this article. And so we started writing, and then I'll, you know, be concise for your for your readers. But, actually, the behind the scenes, I think, is kind of interesting. Of that longer version, we shopped around to so many editors, probably, like, eight or nine places, all places you've heard of. Nobody was interested in it. And then a friend of mine was like, you've gotta just send this to the Times. And long story short, we send it to The Times. The editor who reached out to me is Sarah Wildman, who's absolutely wonderful. She writes beautifully.

[6:58]Zibby Owens: And we worked on it. It's half the length. It's actually quite different, but I think it really crystallizes our argument and gets to the point and also, like, gets this out there to a big audience. We actually didn't wanna publish in the Jewish press, not because we have any issue with it, but because we think this is an issue that is important for lots of people to think about. So it's kind of the short, long version. No. I love it. Well, I'm so happy that The Times ran this. I feel the coverage has been perhaps skewed. I'll just leave it there. But to have an article like this in there is is really great. And, actually, there was another one today or yesterday. Oh. Well, anyway, I won't go into that. But, anyway, so thrilled to have seen it there and the piece itself. And this is such a hot topic too. I mean, I did an event yesterday for the Jewish Book Festival at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and somebody in the q and a was like, talk to me about intersectionality with women and antisemitism. And I honestly did not have a good answer for that. So I should have just said go read Natalia's essay. You can still tweet it or share it. Yeah. Can still do it. Yeah. It's not too late. But this whole notion of why is it okay for anyone to be yelling slurs about anything? Like, let's start there before even women. I mean, your point that people on the street who are protesting for so called justice, why is this okay? Like, how do they go to sleep at night being like, it's okay that I yelled an insult at anybody on the street. Like, aren't we not supposed to do that?

[8:30]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: Yeah. I think that one of the reasons that it hits so hard and it feels so insidious is because, certainly, in lots of academic and activist and progressive spaces, one of the things that we have been told, which I think is not necessarily a bad thing for years, is you've gotta think about impact, not intent. So if you say something that hurts somebody, it is on you to listen to the object of that, you know, of that comment and to take their feelings seriously. And it feels that with this protest movement, that has been completely thrown out the window. Like, I have students who have told me, you know, like, it really makes me feel endangered when people are yelling death to Israel at me when I'm, like, walking down the street. And you take those, you know, reflections or complaints to the people who are theoretically in charge of making that right. And they're like, oh, free speech. I'm like, free speech? That didn't matter before. And so to me, how do we explain that, like, inconsistency? And I think it does has to do have to do a lot with the fact that Jews have largely been considered outside of these justice frameworks. And I get I'm not saying that Jews are exactly like any other marginalized group, but antisemitism is a particular thing. It is insidious. It is still with us. So we should be taking it seriously. And I think that Jews and human beings are all worthy of these same sort of, like, basic protections as humans. Like, you're to your original question, why is anybody yelling slurs at anybody? And this isn't just about, like, oh, be nice to each other. It's about we're part of a community. You know? Yeah. Crazy. Well, here, let me just, like, read a line or two, and you can Sure. I can get your your thoughts. And by the way, if you want me to, like, explain intersectionality at all, I totally can because I think sometimes people are

[10:14]Zibby Owens: twisted about that. So Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about intersectionality. Here's a a passage in the piece. You said intersectionality, the term coined in 1989 by the legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw, helpfully explains how sexism and racism overlap and can reinforce each other to create unique barriers, a collective effect that often amounts to more than the sum of its parts. Ironically, the political and intellectual movement that has most embraced intersectionality has at times been a barrier to recognizing, much less fighting, the antipathy antipathy? Antipa antipathy? No. You're right. You got it. The antipathy faced by Jewish women. Intersectionality is so often deployed to link the domestic fight for racial justice with post colonialism in general and the Palestinian freedom movement in particular, that the framework has been criticized as one that can exclude antisemitism or even perpetuate

[11:08]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: antisemitic tropes about nefarious Jewish power. Okay. So put that in, like, plain English. Layman's terms. Yeah. Was actually shocked they let us keep all of that, which is a little academic. But okay. So here's the deal. So intersectionality, if you're in academia, you've been hearing about this forever, and then all of a sudden, it's everywhere, like, in kind of pop culture. But this brilliant legal scholar, I think, Kimberly Crenshaw, basically brought to the fore this idea that, like, your identities intersect to create unique experiences. And so if you are black, that's, like, one set of concerns. If you're a black woman, that's another set of concerns. If you're a black woman who's disabled, if you're a black woman who's affluent, like, this operates in multiple ways. And, like, the most simplistic version of this, which the right loves to, like, poke fun of, is, like, a kind of oppression Olympics. Like, well, I'm not just Jewish. I'm a woman, and I'm queer, and I'm this, and therefore, I have, like, more credibility to, like, make claims on whatever. I think that it can operate like that. I've seen that. But I think that's very, very simplistic and that this is actually a really helpful, you know, theory to help us think about the way that, like, what I'm talking about, being called a Zayo bitch or being, you know or those these Israeli women being told, like, you're not perfect victims. Your rapes don't matter. We don't really care. That intersectionality is really helpful for us to understand why that happened. Why did people dismiss or even deny that these women or even glorify that these women were sexually assaulted? Well, you know, they're not just women being victimized. They're white. Most Israelis are not white, by the way. They're white, and they're also part of the more powerful nation there. Like, you know, in Israel, which is true, Israel versus Palestine. And so, therefore, they're, like, not worthy of empathy or they shouldn't be taken seriously as victims. You can't understand the way that totally toxic logic works unless you understand that theory. Do you know what I mean? And so that is that's basically, like, why we think it's valuable. But to the second part of the passage that you read, the other kind of piece of intersectionality is something I think is not great, which is that recently, in a lot of activist movements, there's been a sense to, like, link all these very diverse struggles across the world as, like, one thing. To me, that leads to great oversimplification. So I'm sure you've probably heard that chant or seen the graffiti. IDF, KKK, NYPD, they're all the same. Right? So, like, this notion yeah. I know. Like, sorry to say that. Not seen that, actually. I don't know how. On campus sometime. Like Yeah. But that's very, very common. Okay? And so that, I think, is a good, again, disturbing example of a total oversimplification that, like, these are intersecting struggles globally. So people who, like, hate the intersectionality framework, that's one of the reason this reasons this piece got rejected by some more conservative places, I think. They are like, that is inherently, like, a corrupt and, like, an unhelpful way of thinking about Jews or antisemitism. Because in linking all of these things, it they tend to say, like, oh, you know, the Palestinian struggle is exactly like racial injustice in This United States. Israel is exactly like the KKK and, like, essentially, like, white supremacists in The US. That to me, that's a colonizer mindset, taking The US black white racial framework and, like, emplacing it there and calling that in you know, an intersectional struggle, I don't think that's helpful. So there are a lot of people, you know, some Jews and some just people, who say that, like, we should just throw out intersectionality because it tends to always kind of put Jews in the position of white oppressor. I think there's a lot worth saving in that theory. So that's why we wanted to put that in there. Interesting.

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[17:38]Zibby Owens: On campus,

[17:39]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: like, aside from your one example, give me more. Tell me what it's been like. Yeah. So I will say that this year, I am on leave. But, you know, last spring was really, like, the hotbed of all of this activism. And, you know, I personally feel pretty insulated from, like, actual danger. I have tenure. I'm now a full professor. Like, that is I can write pieces like this, which I would never ever write probably if I was much more junior because there's just too much kind of blowback to this on a lot of campuses. So some examples, though, I mean, I had some both Jewish and Israeli students in my class last year. I started wearing this khai after which, for those of you listening, I'm wearing Kai necklace after October 7, and I couldn't believe it. I had students coming to me like, thank you for being visible. That means so much to me. You know, I have classes where either I'm being asked to go to the encampment or we've thrown out the syllabus, and we're just there it's being used as a kind of, like, you know, like, recruitment site, I guess, for kind of pro Palestinian activism, and it's very reassuring to know that you're not doing that. So that's, like, one example of it. You know, I'll say the positive side of this is that even though kind of the loudest voices are calling for, you know, divestment and for specific policies to make sure that any pro Palestinian activists have no consequences for any of their actions, that's literally something that people are signing on to, there has been the emergence of this wonderful community of scholars, like not just scholars, staff members, some students, like, across the university, people I never even knew. I've been there fifteen years. And we're all talking to each other and supporting each other and, like, being like, will you reply to that email? And, like, can I help you? And I'll show up at your event, and let's make this happen. And so I think the positive side of this is that new communities are forming, but it has been pretty alienating. And I think especially if you're kind of professionally insecure or for some students who, it's freshman year, and they're, like, so excited for college. And all of a sudden, because they're Israeli or because they're a Jew who does not, like, say, I'm an anti Zionist Jew because there are quite a few of those people on campus. Way more than in broader society, there are a lot of those people on campus. If you're someone like that who has, like, complicated feelings about Israel or even an attachment to Israel, it can be super alienating. So writing pieces like this and I had a piece. I write a column at MSNBC. So, like, I've been pretty public with trying to be, like, a supportive voice on these issues. And so I I have had people on campus sort of find me, so I feel happy to be able to provide that support. Wow. And you don't feel like I mean, not unsafe physically,

[20:11]Zibby Owens: but, like, do you ever get that feeling inside, like, maybe I'm not gonna be okay?

[20:17]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: Yeah. I mean, it's what's really yeah. I mean, knock on wood, I haven't really felt unsafe physically. Although, I mean, I have a colleague who, like, had her office door vandalized. Like, we support the armed resistance, like, armed struggle. She had to move her office. Like, you I don't think she thinks she's gonna be, like, beaten up, but, like, that's really unsettling, you know? So I do sometimes feel like this deep sinking sadness and kind of disappointment that, like, people who I've sat in faculty meetings with, who I respect, seem to be embracing what I see as, like, a very simplistic kind of ideological, almost cruel politics that I don't know. It seems in many ways almost like a betrayal of who we're supposed to be as professors and people who embrace various viewpoints and who support all our students. Like, the mean spiritedness of some of it and the kind of simplistic thinking, like, I just find, like, deeply, deeply disappointing. Yeah. So there's that. There is that. But I try to sort of, like, modulate that with, like, but there are all these other great people coming out of the woodwork doing amazing things. And I think one of the reasons that I've been critical of, you know, many aspects of this movement on campus, I'll only speak about my campus, but campuses, is because I don't actually see this as a peace movement. I think some a lot of the kids who are out there in the encampment probably feel like we just want peace, so I want peace too. I want a ceasefire. Like, this human toll is absolutely horrifying. But there's too much, like, celebration of Hamas, you know, total disregard of the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, a kind of waving away of, like, oh, what are you gonna do? Call me anti Semitic? Like, that's, like, some kind of, like, joke or, like you know? I mean, the the the, like, yeah, the kind of, like, callousness that I see on display to me, is really disturbing. And I think that the leaders of these movements, some of whom are, I think, people with, like, real commitments to justice, they should be distancing themselves from that. They should be, like, you know, articulating themselves in a very different way that is more inclusive, that is more pluralistic. And so that's been really disappointing and kind of unsettling when I don't see that happening. Interesting.

[22:30]Zibby Owens: And what about any blowback from this piece itself?

[22:33]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: Oh, well, I've definitely gotten some angry emails. It's funny. You kinda know if you're, like, pissing off the left and the right that you're doing something right. You know? So people on the left are like, how dare you not like, you should be mentioning the IDF's, like, horrible actions, and you should be talking about Charlottesville and, like, what about genocide? And, like, they basically think this is fake. Like, someone's like, oh, some professor has a microaggression, and now she's whining in the New York Times. And by the way, they think the New York Times is way too skewed to be pro Israel. So it's funny because they get it they get it from both sides too. But so that's, like, the critique from the left. The critique from the right is like, oh, I got all these emails from people. Like, you, first of all, take intersectionality seriously. Two, you stop short of basically saying, like, it's the fault of DEI, and, like, we should throw out all DEI efforts. Or there was a whole op ed in I forget which Israeli newspaper. It's by an American woman in an Israeli newspaper. And she was like, I wanna know the race of the people who yelled at you. Why didn't you say that the people who raped that French Jewish girl were Arab and Muslim kids? Like, that's important, and you're, like, pulling punches. And why would you even mention right right wing antisemitism? And so they I think to me, those are, like you know, I take all critiques. But, like, to me, that's a little bit like race baiting, and this isn't about a kind of race war at all. This is about articulating a particular issue and trying to generate some understanding of our blind spots and hopefully, like, cultivating a little empathy for all of us. You know? Amazing. Yeah. Did you have an issue with that TV show, We Are Not Alone? Is that what it's called? Oh, nobody wants this. Sorry, Nobody Wants This. Why can I never remember the name? Like, did you have did you have an issue with the way the women were portrayed or not? Yeah, I mentioned it in passingly in the article. Like, you know, I'm not gonna, like, die on the hill of criticizing that show, which I thought was fun to watch and was sweet. And honestly, almost at any other moment in my life, I probably wouldn't have thought twice about, like, this cute show. But I am very attuned and sensitive to these issues right now. And, if you haven't seen the show, it's like a cute show. But the idea that, like, you know, this non Jewish woman is, like, you know, so blonde and pretty and beautiful, and she stands in such contrast to, like, every Jewish woman on the show who's, like you know, just wants to get married or, like, super overprotective and judgy of anyone who's not Jewish. And, like, it's just, like, every single stereotype. And I'm like, is this, like yeah. Maybe nobody wants this, like, right now. You know? So I I I'm not gonna, like, trash that show. There's some really good stuff in it, but I did not like the representation of Jewish women. I don't know. What did you think?

[25:11]Zibby Owens: I was just so happy to see Judaism on mainstream TV and, like, be number one or whatever and know that people were watching and that it was okay. Like, that people were still, you know, partaking in the joys of culture. I mean, part of it is the fun of it. Right? A Shabbat service or, like not that that's so fun, but you know what I mean. Like Yeah. The the the joy, the the rituals, just having all that on TV made me feel, like, relieved,

[25:39]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: like, that it wasn't trying to just be erased entirely or something. I I wouldn't take as much issue. I I I think maybe I'm used to it. I don't know. I I probably would have felt exactly the same way. Like, do you remember that movie, You People, that came out, like, a couple years ago? It was, like, I think Jonah Hill was in it. A lot of people thought it was, like, very Eddie Murphy's in it. They thought it was, like, really antisemitic. And at the time, I was like, oh, like, chill out. You know? Like, these are just kind of jokes. And I would've and I think that one actually is maybe much more objectionable than nobody wants this. But, yeah, I think it's also you know, it's the context in which these things emerge, and I totally get your read of it too. How is this whole conflict

[26:18]Zibby Owens: and all of it affecting you and sort of life purpose and what you're working on? I know you had Fit Nation come out. Like, what are you working on now?

[26:27]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: Yeah. So, you know, I'm not centrally, like, a Jewish studies scholar at all, or I wasn't even, like, a public Jew until, like Right. A couple years ago. But I do feel like this is really important. And so one thing one small thing that I've done is, like, in my teaching, like, all last year, like, I taught this big lecture class about the history of fitness culture in The United States. And I'm like, let me just bring some, like, cool Jewish stories into this. Like, I think that it's important to, like, integrate into the thrust of Jew of American history, like, Jews. And also in that class, a history of fitness culture, one of the dominant stereotypes about Jews, right, is like, we are people of the mind. We're not strong. And so I would tell the story of Zeesha Breitbart, who was this strong man and this, like, hardcore Zionist in the beginning of the twentieth century who would, like, go up 5th Avenue, like, dragging, like, wagons from his teeth. Like you know? And he was he was, like, a really kind of, like, popular figure in Jewish culture. But much more formally than that, I've signed on with the New York City Department of Education. I'm the lead scholar in something called the Jewish American Hidden Voices Project. And so what we're doing there is this is this wonderful curriculum, and I have, like, probably 40 experts in Jewish studies and Jewish American history. And we're making curriculum that will be available to not only every teacher in the DOE, which is the biggest school system in the country, but also freely available on the Internet. And those are profiles of Jews in American history, lots who you've never heard of before. And they have essays which are teacher facing so they can, like, understand what's going on and learn about them. And then they have, like, primary sources and guiding questions. And so the idea is that teachers, as they're doing social studies or literature, whatever, can integrate these figures and these stories into their classrooms. And so that to me feels like a way I can bring my expertise as a historian, as a former k through 12 teacher, and my real concern about antisemitism

[28:15]Zibby Owens: together in a professional pursuit that I hope, you know, does something good for the world. That is amazing. I am so glad that you're in charge of that, that this is happening at all.

[28:26]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: Oh my gosh. Now we just have to make some of this required because I know. So much has been erased from history. Totally. Totally. And that that'll be the challenge, of course. It's gonna it's slated to come out in September, so it'll be available for the new school year. Let's knock on you. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. You. Wow.

[28:43]Zibby Owens: We were joking before when I was closing my 8,000 browser windows here to start talking to you. What browser windows are open for you right now? Either you. Recently closed?

[28:55]Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: Okay. Got it. So let's see. This is, like, kind of self promo, but I had a an essay come up in the New Republic, and it's revisiting Fat is a Feminist Issue, which is this, like, crazy 1978 book, which is so interesting. But so that's open, and you should all go read it. What do I have? I have this is kinda boring. LinkedIn, Facebook. Facebook. I was in Anaheim this weekend, so the hotel, the Marriott that I stayed at to go to this fitness race is open. I'm sorry. I'm disappointing you. You're not. Oh my god. I have let's see. The ADL is open here. Yeah. I have an ADL window open. And what else do I have? Oh, I'm doing some new I'm writing a new book about the culture wars in schools, and so I have, like, a big shared drive open with, like, all kinds of primary sources for that. And let's see. One more. Washington Post. Oh, yeah. A police chief was accused of paying a $100 to rape a teen and trying to cover it up. So Oh my gosh. Just all the beauty of the world, Zippy.

[29:51]Zibby Owens: Oh my gosh. Wow. Well, thank you for that look into your mind and your work and everything, and thank you for jumping on for this timely conversation. And I am so thrilled to know what you are doing for the world. So thank you so much. It's really awesome. Really Thank you so much, Zibby. It's such a privilege, and thank you for all that you're doing. Thank you. Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at Zibby Owens and at Zibby Readers.