Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 4hJonathan making it clear that he won't take yes for an answer until Mayor Mamdani cries uncle on Israel/Palestine and now his DSA membership. Thank goodness the Nexus Project exists or else there would be no Jewish community organization dedicated to countering antisemitism. 011
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 23hReally happy to see this coalition of liberal Jewish groups coming together, from JCPA to J Street to JFREJ. 072
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 28/09/2026When I was a liberal Zionist, I would have considered this an outrage and a scandal. Today, I can't but welcome news that Israel itself is clarifying that it is not a state of all the world's Jews.haaretz.comIsrael freezes aliyah for two Jews over activism protecting PalestiniansIn both cases, the protective-presence activists, who did not know each other, had their passports photographed by a soldier or settler. These are the first known cases in which Israeli authorities ap... 0117
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026If you're coming to AJS this year, stop by my panel on December 22 at 10:30 AM.(Will repost in December as well.) 020
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Netanyahu's seemingly alienating English-language speeches make more sense if you understand that he has basically written off the Democratic Party. The goal is to extract as much as possible out of Republican administrations while the white boomer+ demographic holds sway there. 041
Reposted by Abe SilbersteinBrad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 24/09/2026War criminals are not welcome in New York City. I stood alongside a diverse set of Jewish New Yorkers and allies — at several protests today organized by @jvp.bsky.social, by @truahrabbis.bsky.social & @jstreetdotorg.bsky.social, and by Israelis for Peace. 338871
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Let this be the last year of Benjamin Netanyahu's embarrassing "leader of the Jewish people" farce at the UN, and the first of 8 years of Zohran Mamdani overseeing the city during General Assembly weekend. 091
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 23/09/2026A more positive assessment of Benjamin Moser's "Anti-Zionism" by Shaul Magid.lareviewofbooks.orgSnow Globe Palimpsest | Los Angeles Review of BooksBenjamin Moser delivers biographical sketches of Jews who refused to abandon the Diaspora. 000
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Gilbert Achcar on why, contra the legacy of Walt and Mearsheimer, the Iran War is the responsibility of Trump and US imperialism.jacobin.comReasons of EmpireJohn Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt blamed Israel for America’s Middle Eastern fiascos. But from Iraq to Iran, Washington has had its own reasons for war in the Gulf. 000
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Broadly speaking, among liberals and progressives, it looks like we are finally beyond the notion that education reforms of any kind can transform neoliberalism into a fairer or more just economic paradigm. That is one dead-end thankfully foreclosed. 131
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 20/09/2026The typical private school in the US is a very mediocre parochial school that doesn't necessarily compare favorably on academics to local public alternatives? 010
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Herzog is part of the rot. Always has been.haaretz.comHerzog pardons IDF soldier convicted of killing wounded Palestinian assailantThe IDF has previously objected to pardoning Azaria, citing his lack of remorse over his actions. Defense Minister Katz, who requested the pardon, said it sent a message that 'we do not leave our sold... 1311043
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 18/09/2026This is true but the DC foreign policy establishment is contemptuous of academic scholars of international relations, mainstream or not. It is basically part of the professional socialization process. Few in the blob bother with Kenneth Waltz after they graduate from SIPA, SAIS, HKS, Fletcher, etc. 27114
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 17/09/20262018 "Mueller Time" vibes. This is not happening. 040
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 13/09/2026It appears from this review that Benjamin Moser's long-awaited book on anti-Zionism is a major disappointment, laden with errors of fact and citational judgment.newyorker.comIs Zionism’s Moral Crisis About Roads Not Taken—or Original Sin?Where Benjamin Moser replaces one story of Jewish exceptionalism with another, Omer Bartov shows what’s lost when polemic takes the place of history. 120
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 09/09/2026I’ve always admired the scholarship and leadership of David Myers. But I don’t think I ever expected him to write something quite like this. “The path to rebuilding a sustainable, morally tenable Judaism for the future will be paved by the embrace of Palestinian liberation as a moral necessity.”shaulmagid.substack.comGuest Essay: David Myers - “Shevirat Ha-Kelim (Rupture) and Tikun: (Fixing)”Toward a New Paradigm of Jewish Identity 030
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 09/09/2026In the long-running saga of "Are white Jews really white?", eligibility for refugee status according to the Trump administration would be quite the weight on the scale. 140
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 06/09/2026Journal article I submitted in June is "Under Review" with no indication of whether this means the editorial desk or blind reviewers. Email I wrote two weeks ago via the submission portal—does that function even work?—has not been acknowledged. Best case scenario post-PhD is decades of this. 020
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 06/09/2026Christian Zionist supersessionism at its most naked. 0227
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 01/09/2026Aaron Jakes, via a review of Angela Buchdahl's memoir, on US Reform Judaism failing to meet the moment.nplusonemag.comThe Right Reform Rabbi | Aaron JakesWhen Buchdahl professes that she can understand “how even white men in America are feeling,” she unwittingly reveals a structuring affinity between the politics of white reaction and her own anti-anti... 000
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 31/08/2026How do people on the receiving end of this "allyship" not find it incredibly weird and off-putting? I would be totally mortified if my mainline Protestant political allies (for example) started lecturing right-wing Jews about Tikkun Olam or whatnot. 2150
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 31/08/2026It's not online yet, but the Fall issue of n+1 includes a devastating takedown by Aaron Jakes of Angela Buchdahl's memoir and career. Look out for it. 010
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 28/08/2026I renewed my AHA membership on the advice of friends and colleagues who are leading the good fight from within. I'm not sure for how long I will continue to do this, though.chronicle.comOpinion | A Scholarly Association’s Secretive Washington PlaybookDid the American Historical Association ask a corporate lobbying firm for advice on how to silence its members? 011
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 28/08/2026I was very proud to vote for Shawn Fain and the United UAW list in the international officers election. Shawn has been a tremendously effective and principled progressive leader on the national stage. If you are a member, please remember to send in your ballot.jacobin.comThe United Auto Workers Are Voting for Their Top LeadershipUnited Auto Workers members are now voting by mail ballot for their top officers. The election will decide whether President Shawn Fain, who led 2023’s stand-up strike against the Big Three automakers... 0202
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 28/08/2026I can’t believe I’m about to enter year three of my PhD program and that I just finished my prospectus workshop. Time flies when you’re having fun, and in my case gaining a dozen new close friends through my cohort. No conflicts or beefs, only love and support. Literally zero complaints or regrets. 140
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Hamid Dabashi writes, "You are either on the side of the genocidal mass-murdering bombers, or on the side of those being bombed." Yes, and the Guardian letter made very clear the signatories were on the side of Iranians being bombed, not the US and Israel. No ambiguity there.middleeasteye.netWar on Iran: Left-wing luminaries behind Guardian letter have lost the plotBy equating the bombers with the bombed, the appeal signed by Angela Davis and Judith Butler lends moral cover to western imperialism - and its backers are already deserting it 030
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Hal Foster: "My wager is that ‘the people’ may have now become a force of the anti-commons, of enclosure, in whose name detention camps and data centres are being built. Hence my vote for a temporary moratorium on the word, and a search for its utopian antithesis."tribunemag.co.ukAbolish the PeopleSocialist politics in the 2020s is a search for the commons, whose utopian energies are buried in our lost histories and lurking in the ruins of our present. 010
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 23/08/2026As Jerald Podair shows, the 1968 Ocean-Hill Brownsville strike consolidated the white middle class in the outerboroughs as a conservative voting bloc. They remained Democrats for a while (after all, the reviled John Lindsay was a Republican) but they were the force behind Rudy Guiliani's narrow win. 141
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Horrible. I cross this exact street almost every day. There is really no such thing as a green light for pedestrians anymore.amny.comHit-and-run kills woman in Manhattan’s West VillageA young woman was killed in the West Village early Sunday morning when a driver struck her and fled the scene in a hit-and-run. 000
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 23/08/2026I’m told my short essay on DSA’s history is in today’s print edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer.share.inquirer.comDemocratic socialism has been rising in the U.S. for over 50 yearsA number of DSA-endorsed candidates are winning Democratic primaries, building on a strategy from the 1970s. 030
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 23/08/2026This letter is from March when Cofnas was initially awarded the postdoc. The giveaway is their praise for De Sutter, who had defended the appointment at the time but has since changed her tune. The current petition defending Cofnas doesn’t have as many “big names” on it. 130
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 23/08/2026The corrupt leadership of the Brooklyn Democratic Party is trying to change the rules on how the chair of the party is chosen before new reformist District Leaders—who were just elected by Democratic voters from across Brooklyn—take office. This should be a national story/disgrace.nysfocus.comFacing Ouster, Brooklyn Democratic Chair Tries to Rewrite RulesBrooklyn Democratic Party chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn wants to expand who votes for party leader, and a reform group is threatening to sue. 051
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 23/08/2026"What is mostly happening is that students, faculty, and staff are not being disciplined because they are antisemites — they are being designated antisemites so they can be disciplined."againstthecurrent.orgThe Paranoid Style in Pro-Israel PolemicsJewish Voice for Peace protest at Joe Biden’s State of the Union Speech, March 2024. “To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed and never the oppressors.” —Jewish Labor Bund leader Ma… 0102
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 21/08/2026"Your struggle is as global as our collective dreams of freedom and dignity. We stand with you, and we reject the false binary of imperialism and hollow anti-imperialism."theguardian.comAn open letter to Iran’s political prisoners, trapped ‘between two blades of a scissors’On one side, you face the domination of the Islamic Republic; on the other, the imperialist forces that republic claims to stand against 131
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 21/08/2026The Psychology faculty at CSU Long Beach did the lord's work for how many decades to ensure Kevin MacDonald would both not be turned into a free speech martyr nor be able to discriminate against students. Ditto for Arthur Butz's poor colleagues at Northwestern (he still hasn't retired!). 010
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Someone like Nathan Cofnas is extremely unlikely to receive a full-time appointment in any reputable academic department. It is possible he secures a postdoc here or there controlled by a sympathetic faculty member, but I am not sure that represents a dire crisis for the university. 172
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 21/08/2026There is no justification of the marketplace of ideas. This is what WSJ Opinion has always believed. 030
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Scroll to the middle for some positively unhinged quotes from an interview with the JFNA head Eric Fingerhut.jewishcurrents.orgFrom the News Desk: The Next Fight for Pro-Palestine Organizers?…Breaking news, analysis, art, and culture from a progressive Jewish perspective. Sign up for our newsletter! 010
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 20/08/2026"The bombastic hiring, research, and teaching incentives, both spiritual and institutional, of D.E.I. initiatives are child’s play compared with the corporate and financial inducements that direct universities’ decisions."newyorker.comThe Real Meaning of the Jason Arday ScandalIn a young Black professor’s academic misconduct, a “race-realist” found a “hook for a story.” 030
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 19/08/2026I violated my moratorium on additional subscriptions to add the venerable Tribune Magazine, now under the editorship of Oliver Eagleton and Barnaby Raine. A must-read if you're interested at all in the British and European Left.tribunemag.co.ukTribuneTribune is Britain’s oldest democratic socialist publication, offering leftwing perspectives on politics, economics, and culture. 020
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 18/08/2026And when it is reported, it will be credited entirely to Jessica Tisch. 020
Reposted by Abe SilbersteinS.J. Pearce @homophonous.bsky.social · 18/08/2026Academic friends: I emailed local folks this morning about a graduate student teaching gig, but this is also a possibility for students from farther-afield universities if they happen to be physically located in New York this fall. Details below. 249
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 18/08/2026"[Arday's] shortcomings were depicted not just as the usual failures of rigour in publishing or academia but as exceptional proof that ethnic diversity at Cambridge — where 0.4 per cent of academic staff are Black — has gone too far."ft.comThe difficult truth about Jason ArdayFrom the beginning, investigations were accompanied by a cloud of excessive references to his race 031
Reposted by Abe SilbersteinJoel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 16/08/2026Whatever the motivation for this attack, it is clear it was not inspired by Mayor Mamdani's criticisms of the state of Israel, and we cannot allow people to cynically make that connection. forward.com/news/845321/...forward.comMan charged in Central Synagogue attack linked to posts about Israel, Judaism, and MamdaniAunt of Larry Montes said she believed he wanted to become Jewish 516139
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 17/08/2026What are we doing here? Celeste didn't write the headline to the essay, which is her personal story and not generally applicable advice for everyone. Nor is she in any way connected to the Times's past coverage of trans people. 140
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 17/08/2026I'm admittedly much further left on Israel/Palestine than I used to be, but the invective from the Jewish Right never changed. They're not for making careful distinctions between liberal Zionists, non-Zionists, and anti-Zionists. J Street, IfNotNow, JVP—it's all the same to them. 1215
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 16/08/2026I'm sure it caused strain at the time, but in retrospect the Berkeley-based Independent Socialist Club's position on the Vietnam War is terribly amusing. The line was to support the NLF militarily but not politically. They did neither, but still expelled members who advocated doing neither. 010
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 15/08/2026The Central Synagogue intruder and assailant appears to be someone who was plugged into conservative slop targeted at the Gen X+ demographic. 2113
Abe Silberstein @abesilbe.bsky.social · 15/08/2026He was only famous because of the media attention. You don't know anyone else in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. 1112
Reposted by Abe SilbersteinFrank Amari @frankamari.bsky.social · 14/08/2026Democratic socialism has been rising in the U.S. for over 50 years A number of DSA-endorsed candidates are winning Democratic primaries, building on a strategy from the 1970s. www.inquirer.com/politics/nat...inquirer.comDemocratic socialism has been rising in the U.S. for over 50 yearsA number of DSA-endorsed candidates are winning Democratic primaries, building on a strategy from the 1970s. 0112