Judaism Unbound Episode 511: Antisemitism Beyond Eternalism - Daniel May
Daniel May, publisher of Jewish Currents, joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about anti-semitism. May is the author of a recent piece in Harper's Magazine entitled "An Outrage to Common Sense: On the Meanings of Anti-Semitism," a piece that serves as a great launching point into a discussion of antisemitism's history, its contemporary manifestations, along with debates about when it manifests and when it doesn't. If you've noticed that some parts of this description use a hyphen in "anti-semitism," and others use "antisemitism" with no hyphen, you're a sharp reader! That punctuation choice and its ramifications are part of this episode as well.
[1] Learn more about Daniel May here, and check out Jewish Currents here.
[2] To read “An Outrage to Common Sense: On the Meanings of Anti-Semitism” — May’s article that this episode explores — click here.
[3] Learn more about Mark Mazower’s book On Antisemitism: A Word in History via this link.
[4] For the incident with Kyrie Irving and the Anti-Defamation League, mentioned by May, read this article.
[5] Both Daniels (Libenson and May) reference David Nirenberg’s book Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. Learn more about it here.
[6] Lex references conversations many years ago about the organization J Street applying for acceptance to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations (they were not admitted). Read more here.
[7] May mentions an article that both he and Lex are quoted in. See “What the Jewish Left Is Building for Itself,” an October 2025 piece written by Emma Goldberg in the New York Times, here.
[8] For Arielle Angell’s piece in Jewish Currents, where Lex questions the usage of terms like “alternative” when constructing new Jewish institutions, see “We Need New Jewish Institutions.”
[9] May credits Jonathan Judaken for his argument around why there may be reasons to reclaim the hyphen of “Anti-Semitism.” For more from Judaken, see Critical Theories of Anti-Semitism.