Episode
140: Van Jones returns - The hard questions of Black-Jewish relations
- Podcast
- Ask Haviv Anything
- Published
- Aug 20, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4234
- Processing state
not_requested
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Summary
To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur). And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur). -- Van Jones came on the podcast a few months ago and said some things that lit up our inbox. A lot of praise, a lot of pushback. So he came back to answer your questions. Why did progressives spend twenty years building hierarchies of oppression and leave Jews off the list? Why do Black students on campus struggle to see Jewish vulnerability? What do you do with a community that hears "we're like you, we're Jewish," and thinks: do you want to trade spots? Van doesn't dodge. He also pushes back on how Jews frame the conversation. It's an honest conversation about campuses, Farrakhan and Black antisemitism, the NAACP voting to disarm Israel, and why the Jewish world "feels like David, but looks like Goliath" to outsiders. Van gives ground where he thinks the critics are right and takes it back where he thinks Jews are getting the Black community badly wrong. It’s a conversation that doesn't happen enough, and which Van is committed to advancing. That's why he founded the EXODUS Leadership Forum that brings together Jewish, Black and Jewish-Black leaders and activists. You can find out more about their work, including the 70 dinners Van discusses on the podcast, here: https://gather.exodusdinner.org . -- Today’s episode is sponsored by SAPIR, the quarterly journal edited by New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. SAPIR’s tagline is, “Ideas for a Thriving Jewish Future,” which is one reason the jour…