Haaretz Podcast12 Des 2025

U.S. Jews and Israel 'are no longer exceptional': Dahlia Lithwick and Joshua Leifer on being 'Trump's chess pieces'

When it comes to liberal American Jews and President Donald Trump, the “cognitive dissonance is real,” said award-winning journalist Dahlia Lithwick on the Haaretz Podcast.

While Lithwick “doesn’t dispute for a minute" the fact that the U.S. president and his envoys “did yeoman’s work” negotiating a cease-fire deal, it is not enough for her to soften her perception of the level of danger that Trump represents.

With democracy and rule of law being challenged, “You have to ask yourself, am I transactional enough to say that I will subordinate all of that to parochial interests?” she said in her conversation with Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer and podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer.

“If you say you can pick and choose which authoritarian you want to align yourself with, cross your fingers and hope you know this time, being a court Jew is going to work out – history suggests otherwise.”

In their in-depth discussion, Lithwick and Leifer also consider the trends in U.S. politics on the right and left, which are upending the long-held assumptions of American Jewish life and the urgent need to confront the new “transactional” reality and abandon “magical thinking.”

“American Jewish organizations sold the idea to American Jews that they were more powerful than they were. And I think Israel sold to American Jews – and also Israelis – that Israel is more powerful than it is,” Leifer said.

For U.S. Jews to effectively fight for their interests, including the battle against antisemitism, he said, they must leave behind “the old rhetoric and strategies – because no one cares anymore.”

Read more from Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer:

In Blood-soaked Israel-Palestine, the Dangerous Status Quo of Before October 7 Has Returned

It's Clear What Defendant Netanyahu Gets Out of a Pardon. But What's in It for Trump?

The Ultra-hawkish Right and anti-Zionist Left Have Drowned the American Jewish Majority

Why Netanyahu Is Sharing Leftist Conspiracy Theories About a Mossad Sex Cabal

Israel's Right Wing Bet the Country's Future on American Christian Nationalists. That Has Backfired

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