0:08

Hey

0:08

there, Jay Crew. we are dropping into

0:10

your feed on Black Friday or Black

0:12

Chavez, as we call it, to share a

0:14

conversation with Tablets editor in chief

0:16

a new house. Alana published a

0:18

piece in tablet this week offering a different

0:20

framework for viewing the challenges and the

0:22

divides Americans face today. She

0:25

tells us why she wrote the piece, what the piece

0:27

argues, and what we can take away from it in

0:29

our own lives. Here's our conversation

0:31

with Alana New You can read her

0:33

piece at tablet mag dot com.

0:37

Alana Newhouse, founder and editor

0:39

and chief of tablet, welcome back Unorthodox.

0:42

Thank you so much. So we have

0:44

dragged you before this tribunal of Jewish

0:46

podcasters because you this week published

0:48

a really really fascinating piece in Tablets.

0:50

And You know, it's funny. I think a lot of our

0:52

listeners know a lot about tablet and read

0:54

it regularly may have

0:55

found out about us through tablet. There

0:57

are other listeners who actually probably don't necessarily

1:00

have any window into tablet. And so I

1:02

I like the idea of bringing you on just to sort of,

1:04

you know, bring all of our listeners a little

1:06

bit more into the tablet orbit and

1:08

to to sort of get a little window into what

1:11

goes on over there. And I think this piece

1:13

called brokenism does a really, really nice

1:15

job of of sort of casting

1:17

sort of the the broader tablet world

1:20

for readers and for listeners. So

1:22

tell us about this piece.

1:24

So the piece tries

1:27

to articulate what

1:29

I see as the most compelling debate

1:32

right

1:32

now around the future

1:34

of America. a

1:35

lot of us think that the debate

1:37

is

1:38

between

1:39

the sort of the left and the right or

1:41

between Democrats and Republicans or between Liberals

1:43

and Conservatives or even if you wanna

1:46

go back to Orwell between authoritarians and Libertarians.

1:48

But what I started to feel is

1:50

that increasingly there was another

1:53

access around

1:55

which people were fighting even though they weren't

1:57

quite articulating

1:58

it, which is

2:01

around the health of our institutions.

2:03

And when I talk about our institutions, I

2:05

mean sort of what what could we be

2:07

called the establishment are

2:10

universities and public and private

2:12

education, publishing houses,

2:14

or studios, think tanks, foreign

2:16

policy establishment, sort of this

2:18

the mass of

2:21

entities

2:21

that has held

2:23

together

2:24

the the center

2:25

of American power

2:28

and influence for,

2:30

call it, seventy or eighty years.

2:32

And

2:32

that basically on the one side were

2:34

people who felt that

2:37

there was something fundamentally rotten

2:40

about all of those institutions, that

2:42

they had become corrupted or

2:44

weak in a way that had become

2:47

dangerous. And on the

2:49

other side were people who

2:51

believed that Those institutions

2:54

though they have problems and have

2:56

flaws, some flaws are very serious,

2:59

but fundamentally the institutions are

3:01

worth reforming. And that it's important

3:04

to reform these debts and that actually more

3:06

importantly, that from an

3:08

attitudinal perspective, that

3:10

reforming an

3:12

institution is much harder than

3:14

simply setting it on fire and advancing

3:17

it. And so the people on that

3:19

side argue for

3:22

a more

3:23

moderate and engaged

3:27

attitude toward American institutions.

3:29

And I saw these two sides sort of the way

3:31

that I articulated it was that

3:33

on the one side, there are people who I

3:36

call broken nests to people

3:38

who fundamentally the only

3:40

thing they believe is that those institutions are

3:42

fundamentally broken. And on the other

3:44

side, our status quoist, people

3:46

who are deeply invested in that

3:48

center or the centering institutions

3:51

in American life and want those

3:53

to stay. And then I I really know that that

3:55

more than right and left and more than democrats

3:57

and Republicans, more than liberal and Conversation,

4:00

but that's really the

4:02

that's the fight that I keep hearing

4:04

people have. Ana,

4:05

before we take this any further, I

4:07

would like to give our listeners a

4:09

taste of this piece. First of all,

4:12

because I think it's absolutely

4:14

gorgeous. And second of all, I think it would help

4:16

everyone to get a sense of what it

4:18

is you're talking about when you talk about brokenness.

4:20

Could you read a little bit from the very

4:22

top of the piece.

4:23

Sure. I read the beginning of

4:25

the piece. Two years ago,

4:27

I wrote an essay in which I tried to

4:29

explore the growing sense made

4:32

more glaring during the first year of the pandemic,

4:34

but whole parts of American society

4:36

were breaking down before our eyes.

4:39

The central idea was that we must

4:41

accept what is broken beyond repair

4:43

in

4:43

order to build our communities and

4:45

institutions anew.

4:48

Among

4:48

the many people who wrote to me in the aftermath

4:50

was a man around my age named

4:53

Ryan who introduced himself as a

4:55

West Point graduate in combat veteran.

4:57

by racial and from a multi generation

4:59

black military family.

5:01

Quote, I've

5:02

lived and traveled all over the world.

5:05

that I cherish my family's deep

5:07

roots in a small town

5:08

in rural Ohio, he wrote.

5:10

It

5:11

seems very dark some days, but

5:13

you're closing nails at. It can

5:15

almost feel easier to believe it can't be done,

5:17

but it

5:18

can unquote.

5:19

As I

5:21

did with many others who wrote me heartfelt

5:23

notes, I reached out to

5:25

Ryan and asked for Zoom.

5:27

It turned out we had more in common than

5:29

either of us had guessed, and we began

5:31

a correspondence that's endured since

5:33

then. At one point last

5:35

year, Ryan said something that struck a

5:37

nerve. Quote,

5:39

I don't

5:40

know what I identify as these days

5:42

because everything has gotten so scrambled.

5:44

I'm not a Democrat or a

5:46

Republican don't even think I could define

5:48

myself narrowly as either a liberal

5:51

or conservative anymore. The one

5:53

thing I know that I fundamentally do believe

5:55

is the premise of your peace. that

5:57

the

5:57

dominant institutions of American

5:59

life in

5:59

education and the arts and

6:02

politics are either totally

6:04

broken or so weak or

6:06

corrupt that they're becoming irrelevant. In

6:09

a way, the only thing I know

6:11

that I believe in is

6:13

broken mess.

6:15

club Alana,

6:17

as you well know, that resonates

6:19

very strongly with me. That's exactly how I feel.

6:21

I mean, I've written about this on

6:24

tablet about feeling completely not

6:26

just politically homeless in

6:28

the current kind of, you know, Republican Democrat.

6:31

structure, but also kind of really confused

6:33

by the terms of the conversation because all

6:35

of a sudden, you know, you see, for example, so

6:37

much of our conversation about

6:39

technology and social media,

6:41

And the

6:42

boundaries are so incredibly blurred,

6:44

like, could you really call yourself a

6:47

liberal or even a progressive if you

6:49

essentially believe in giving

6:51

technology companies the rights to censor

6:53

people whose opinions you don't like? No.

6:55

It's ridiculous. In in the fight,

6:58

when we were experiencing, you know,

7:01

the COVID-nineteen pandemic, could

7:03

you really call yourself pro science

7:05

if you routinely pick and choose to bits that

7:08

serve your purpose and

7:10

immediately discard any

7:12

opposing point of view as

7:14

not just, you know, illegitimate, but

7:16

dangerous to the health and well-being of

7:18

many. I I that is kind

7:20

of what boggles my mind

7:22

and I suppose that is what

7:24

led me to this idea of, you

7:26

know, being very much a brokenness because

7:28

I look at this and I said, we're actually

7:31

having the wrong debate here. Right? It's not

7:33

like, oh, Republicans like this, but

7:35

Democrats like this. If you support Trump, you must

7:37

agree with that. And if you support Biden, you agree

7:39

with the other thing, it's actually like,

7:41

does this institution still

7:43

do the thing? that we

7:45

entrusted it to do. And if

7:47

not, what do we do about it? Is that kind of

7:49

a a good way to look at at the

7:51

the essence of the brokenism

7:54

debate?

7:55

Yes, another

7:57

good example is

7:59

school closures during COVID,

8:01

which were

8:04

as has been over

8:07

and over again shown and proven

8:09

were quite

8:11

detrimental to the most

8:13

vulnerable among

8:15

us. So, kids with disabilities,

8:18

kids with special needs, kids in the poorest

8:21

and most challenged districts

8:23

were the ones that suffered the most

8:25

from school closures, which

8:28

lots of people said right

8:30

at the time was happen.

8:32

and

8:32

it felt like

8:34

all of the public figures and

8:37

many of the representatives

8:40

of those institutions

8:42

ignored that idea,

8:44

and it almost felt like there was a

8:46

fever that had captured

8:48

that. it

8:50

feels to me like

8:53

questioning those

8:55

authorities and questioning their judgment

8:57

not that they're always gonna get it wrong. It's not

8:59

that they're there's fun there's something although in

9:02

certain cases, maybe there's something fundamentally

9:04

corrupt or decayed about

9:06

it. But the the

9:08

point, the perspective of people who

9:10

are brokenists, even people who two

9:12

or three years ago found themselves

9:15

very

9:15

engaged in institutions

9:16

is what if I need

9:18

to question public

9:20

figures and institutions and

9:23

representatives because

9:25

I believe

9:26

that they may be maybe even due to

9:28

technology

9:29

vulnerable or susceptible to a

9:31

judgment that I think is

9:33

wrong.

9:33

So just to kind of clarify this, one of

9:36

your strongest internal critics at Tallo Magazine

9:38

about this point of view has been me. I think

9:40

it's safe to say, one of the things I

9:42

don't fully understand that I hope you can

9:44

help me understand even better than your peace

9:46

brokenism does is

9:48

whether it's the case that

9:49

all institutions are broken? And

9:51

if so, how

9:52

could that be? Right? Is it coincidentally?

9:56

Or did they did was there a chain reaction

9:58

where universities broke and

9:59

then the publishing broke and because

10:02

it seems to me my disposition

10:04

and it's not a it's

10:05

not a I'm not gonna make a a strong analytical

10:08

defense of it except that just my gut level,

10:10

kishka level sensibility, is

10:12

that life is messy, and that it would be highly

10:14

unlikely that a lot that

10:16

everything would be broken at once. And therefore, our job is

10:18

to say that, like, at all times,

10:20

some things are broken and some things aren't,

10:22

which is why I'm sort of suspicious of the

10:24

sweeping claim. Yeah. The

10:25

short answer to your question is no, of course not.

10:28

So it's not that all of a sudden

10:30

everything died at once.

10:32

But there is something that

10:34

did happen, which is technology. and

10:38

technology is a very distinct

10:40

change that happened, and it is a

10:42

distinct change that happened comprehensively

10:44

on our lives. So if you are looking for a

10:47

monoclonal theory

10:49

here, there is one, and it is

10:51

defensible. And

10:52

the the defense of it is

10:54

If

10:54

you think about all the institutions that you

10:57

juxtaposition,

10:59

the machine

11:00

universities, media outlets,

11:02

all

11:02

of those have been radically

11:05

changed by

11:05

technology, not

11:06

to mention every other aspect of our

11:09

lives. This is the thing that I say all the time,

11:11

you

11:11

know, we went through a very similar

11:13

moment after the industrial

11:15

revolution. Economic revolutions do

11:17

this. They remake society, and

11:19

sometimes they remake society in huge

11:21

swaths, not

11:22

just the regular

11:24

way that things kind of sloth

11:27

off or molt. There

11:28

are some moments that are more radical

11:30

in flux than others. And so

11:32

I want us to identify that I think we're

11:34

in a moment of more

11:36

flux

11:37

than usual.

11:38

the And,

11:40

you know,

11:40

I think that a lot of us or at least

11:43

some of us who grew up particularly in the

11:45

90s, when we thought about the

11:47

the

11:47

tech

11:48

revolution that was happening

11:51

around us, it was, like, we thought we were just getting

11:53

email. And, like, we're gonna be able to, like,

11:55

download songs. We can understand

11:57

that it was exactly the same in some

11:59

sense as as the

11:59

industrial revolution. It was a

12:02

massive,

12:03

multi layered in

12:05

Samsung's three sixty redistribution

12:09

of so much, not just

12:11

the the

12:13

calories of work, but

12:15

also just how we spend our daily lives

12:17

and our energy. Howard Bauchner: And also

12:19

a revolution if I may interject here

12:21

and correct me if you feel differently, but a

12:23

revolution that seems profoundly

12:26

non or even un Jewish. I

12:28

don't agree

12:29

with that. I think progress is

12:31

Jewish. And I think that there

12:33

are values

12:35

that

12:35

that

12:36

happen in movements

12:39

that can feel like their

12:41

counter to Jewish values, and it's

12:43

important for Jews to crash in and conflict

12:45

with those. like,

12:46

it is important for us to push back at

12:49

those. Okay. So there's I think there are two

12:51

two levels going on here. One is a a

12:53

descriptive journalistic analysis that you're giving

12:55

us of what has happened in the world.

12:57

And the other and you can tell me if I'm

12:59

if I'm wrong about this. The other seems to

13:01

me in your piece something

13:03

of a call to act as to how to

13:05

then engage in light of what you've described,

13:07

how to engage the world. So

13:09

is that right? And if so, what does,

13:11

you know, the person in the street who's read your

13:13

piece and thinks that sounds right to me.

13:15

What do they do differently in terms of their work

13:17

life, their education, their where

13:19

they live? You know, how to be?

13:21

So, to me, that's been the most

13:24

fun part of the reaction to

13:26

things. David Linker wrote a

13:28

sub stack post about the piece this

13:30

morning,

13:30

which was great because he was basically

13:32

like,

13:32

oh, I've been trying to figure out what I

13:34

am. I'm a status quoist, whereas other

13:37

people were like, I think I'm

13:38

a broken mist and then

13:41

a whole other spot that people wrote

13:43

particularly really great emails

13:46

saying, I'm

13:47

sitting with this for the last six or seven

13:49

hours and I can't figure out which one I am.

13:51

I know that you're right about

13:53

these categories. I'm just not sure which

13:55

side I feel

13:57

more kindred with. And that

13:59

to me, those

13:59

people are the best

14:02

readers because

14:03

the current what I'm

14:05

trying to do with the piece is

14:07

to tell people that the

14:09

camps that they've come to identify

14:12

both themselves in and others

14:14

in. And the the dichotomy

14:16

that they've become entrenched in

14:18

seemingly too little

14:22

good benefit is

14:23

the wrong dichotomy.

14:25

And

14:25

that in fact, if you take yourself out

14:28

of the

14:30

war of

14:32

partisanship and the war of

14:34

these ideas that we've all grown up with

14:36

and this notion of these the two

14:38

teams that

14:39

we all either associate with

14:41

or absolutely would never associate

14:43

with. And you realize that

14:45

instead, maybe the conversation

14:48

is about your orientation toward

14:50

the institutions that you interact

14:52

with every day,

14:54

it

14:54

will change how

14:55

you live and see the world. Okay.

14:57

But

14:58

let let me take something I care a lot about

15:00

like transit. Right? When the metro commuter

15:03

line extended up from New Haven

15:05

to Springfield. And all of a sudden, they're

15:07

hourly trips. It made it

15:09

much easier and cheaper for my children who

15:11

don't yet dry. but can get on a commuter train at

15:13

the age of ten or twelve or thirteen to see their

15:15

grandparents. It also saves carbon

15:17

footprint. It's like all sorts of good things happen, and

15:19

I could bore everyone to tears with more

15:21

about Right? That's investing in an institution

15:23

that's much maligned, which is American

15:25

Rail, which has been badly treated and badly

15:27

managed in many, many ways. There

15:29

are plenty of people who are scornful of the

15:31

kind of transit obsessives like

15:33

me. But I hope that a brokenist

15:35

would Yeah. Like, if a if a politician

15:37

is running and part of their platform is we're

15:39

gonna raise your taxes a dollar a month

15:41

to fund extending Light Rail that,

15:43

like, a brokenist could get on

15:45

board with that? Or is there like, are there are

15:47

there ways in which a brokenist is still gonna

15:49

engage policy, including policy around

15:51

some institutions they're, you know, somewhat

15:53

hobbled, but are, in my lifetime, gonna

15:55

do a better job than whatever new thing we're gonna

15:57

come up with in the next several decades.

15:59

So the

15:59

great thing about America is with three hundred and thirty

16:02

million people. Right? Even if I

16:04

say everyone exists on a brokenness

16:06

status quo as Spectrum, where

16:08

you exist will

16:10

allow you to contribute in the

16:12

way that you want to. So, for

16:14

example, in your case, I might say to

16:16

you that you would take the example

16:18

of this great new rail

16:21

line and say, why doesn't

16:23

everyone else have this? I'm

16:24

now gonna argue

16:26

that that all

16:27

these other transit systems

16:29

that

16:29

aren't as good,

16:31

don't actually have, aren't

16:33

improving in these ways, have

16:35

to. But

16:36

now they have to do this

16:39

thing that I just saw get

16:41

done that helped me and my life

16:43

in this way that was real I

16:45

now want that for everyone else.

16:47

Because if you actually want to engage

16:49

in making rail in

16:51

America better, there's plenty

16:54

of places where you can engage and

16:56

activate and plenty of places where it's

16:58

completely rotten and could

17:00

absolutely use engagement

17:02

and activism and good ideas.

17:04

and examples of good ideas. So that's what I would

17:06

say. I would say that the that coming at it from

17:08

the perspective of brokenness, you'd say,

17:10

okay, I'm taking this good example

17:12

of something that should be all

17:15

over, and I

17:16

want to force everywhere

17:18

else where it doesn't exist to

17:20

address it. So

17:21

tell us, where did the idea for

17:23

this piece come from? Actually, it comes

17:25

from you guys.

17:26

So our conversation this

17:29

summer people who are for

17:31

our listeners, over the summer,

17:33

the four of us,

17:35

L'Oreal, Stephanie, and Mark, and

17:38

then myself, started

17:40

a conversation about some of the

17:42

conflicts that we're emerging out

17:44

of tablet, Tablets coverage.

17:46

I have editorial

17:47

strategy, the way I have a parenting strategy,

17:49

which is to say, like, I don't

17:51

know it until after

17:52

it's happened. This is the only only walk

17:55

in the room when you smell smoke. Exactly.

17:58

What I really

18:00

mean is is that I,

18:02

over the past few years,

18:04

we just let people write things that

18:06

we find compelling and interesting. And

18:08

what we found is that there

18:11

are lots of different kinds of pieces in But

18:13

the kinds of pieces that crash into

18:15

each other or have come into

18:17

conflict with each other on

18:19

the one hand, pieces that

18:21

seem to take as

18:23

a

18:23

given,

18:25

trust in American institutions

18:29

including the American

18:32

federal government, including public

18:35

figures, including major corporations and

18:38

universities, and all sort of

18:40

populous and sort of assume their

18:42

value and assume their rightness.

18:44

A bunch

18:45

of our readers find those pieces

18:48

the silly

18:49

and frankly at at worst kind of

18:52

dangerously naive. On

18:53

the other hand, we have a set of writers who

18:55

write pieces that are

18:58

rooted in a

19:00

deep skepticism of what

19:02

I think a lot of us would have described

19:04

as settled wisdom,

19:06

things that we just accepted

19:09

as good

19:09

or as at least

19:12

working.

19:12

And these writers

19:15

attack

19:15

those things

19:18

sometimes

19:18

very aggressively

19:20

and sometimes in

19:23

language or posturing that

19:25

the other half of our readers

19:27

finds paranoid,

19:29

crackpot, and, you know, even dangerous.

19:32

Those are,

19:32

by the way, all great adjectives to describe me,

19:34

so thank you. You contain

19:36

multitudes, Leo. It

19:38

contains

19:38

both crackpot and paranoid.

19:40

When they sue Song

19:43

of Danger,

19:43

I find both of these

19:45

kinds of pieces compelling

19:48

personally,

19:49

which is why I like that we were

19:51

publishing both of them. But

19:53

increasingly, I found that readers were

19:56

getting confused, and

19:57

they were confused about

19:59

Which, like,

20:00

which one tablet really

20:03

believed?

20:03

And I kept trying

20:04

to explain often how

20:07

to skeletal around this or that piece and to different kinds

20:09

of readers, that I found value

20:11

when we that as an institution, as

20:13

a magazine, I believe that we found value

20:16

in publishing all of them

20:18

and all kinds of pieces and all

20:20

kinds of perspectives. And somehow, people

20:22

didn't couldn't quite understand why.

20:24

These conflicts were emerging around

20:27

different pieces in different pre syncs.

20:29

So different groups of readers

20:31

found different pieces of

20:34

tablets. quote

20:35

unquote, controversial or deeply

20:38

problematic.

20:38

And I am constantly the

20:41

recipient of everyone's

20:44

fury

20:44

and

20:45

often fury coming

20:47

from completely different directions about completely

20:50

different pieces. sometimes also bleeds

20:52

into the staff and can

20:55

the the fights that the pieces

20:57

cause externally are also fights

20:59

that they're causing internally. And one

21:01

of the challenges with COVID

21:03

is that because

21:06

we haven't been in together as much in the

21:08

last few years. We haven't been

21:10

able to have sort

21:12

of in

21:12

person interactions that I think

21:15

were a mark of our how we produced the magazine

21:17

for so many

21:17

years and a mark

21:19

of how we thought.

21:21

The staff and the writers, editors,

21:23

and tablet I see as just really

21:25

good fighters.

21:25

We fight well, but

21:27

we

21:27

fight less well on

21:30

Zoom. and

21:31

we fight less well on text. We

21:34

really fight less well

21:34

on text. Please stop texting each

21:37

other.

21:37

Anyway,

21:40

And

21:40

so as one of

21:42

the things that happened over the summer was that we

21:44

published a couple of different pieces that were

21:46

a controversial and different from different directions.

21:49

And I think

21:50

that that conflict bubbled

21:53

up. And

21:53

it bubbled up in a

21:55

lot of different parts of tablet, but one

21:57

of the parts of tablet where it bubbled up

21:59

in the

21:59

most sharp way

22:01

was a young guy in part

22:04

because

22:04

you unlike everyone else at

22:07

have to engage with each other. Everyone

22:09

else

22:09

can kind of retreat to

22:10

their own spaces, but

22:12

you guys have a mandate

22:15

to

22:15

gauge every single

22:17

week. and

22:18

that meant that the conflict was I think

22:20

gonna bubble up. Now that I look back on

22:22

it, it seems obvious that the conflict is gonna bubble up

22:24

most

22:25

overtly inside of

22:27

the podcast. And

22:28

so when

22:29

I engaged and started listing

22:31

sort of like I engaged as a

22:33

family therapist. By the way, I've sent you guys

22:35

my bill, and I still haven't I

22:38

don't know if you're with your insurance to pay You're

22:40

in the queue. But I okay. You're in the

22:43

queue of bills to be paid. It's weird because we've

22:44

invoiced you a lot since then

22:46

and have continued to.

22:50

So

22:50

we just started talking and

22:53

we had a

22:54

first conversation and I was

22:56

so

22:56

mystified because I felt like you the three

22:58

of you were talking past each other.

23:00

I couldn't quite figure out

23:02

why you like, I

23:04

couldn't follow. Actually, I couldn't follow

23:06

the fight. And then that night, I

23:08

don't know, Steph, if you remember, I sort

23:10

of woke

23:10

up at three o'clock in the morning and

23:12

texted you and I said, I think you're having

23:14

a wrong fight. I

23:16

think this fight is a fight about

23:19

another way of putting it is is a fight

23:21

about

23:21

settled wisdom or about what we

23:24

can hold

23:25

on to where we

23:27

can stand together what we what we can

23:29

at least all agree on quote

23:32

unquote. And I

23:33

think that it occurred to me

23:36

that actually the fight that you were having

23:38

was about

23:38

institutions and about a

23:41

status quo, not actually

23:43

about anything else. So then

23:45

I set out to try to articulate

23:47

it and mainly with

23:49

your with the help of YouthRay, figured

23:51

out

23:51

how to explain what I

23:53

thought the fight was and also I

23:55

thought

23:55

it was so important in why I

23:57

thought all the sides to that

23:59

conversation were really

24:01

a reflection

24:02

of the exact conversation that

24:04

the entire magazine exists

24:06

to maintain. You

24:08

know, it's so

24:09

funny there's a line in the piece that I really,

24:11

really love, which is where

24:13

you say, to those who wonder why such different kinds of stories are being

24:15

published by the same magazine, let me

24:18

explain. We aren't confused We

24:20

are having a fight, and it's one you might

24:23

benefit from joining. And I actually wanna say,

24:25

like, if I think back over the

24:27

past years of this podcast, the craziest

24:29

thing it's done is not like, oh, we're

24:31

talking about Jewish stuff. We're talking about

24:33

guest. Like, there

24:34

have been really amazing

24:36

ways we're like just forcing us

24:38

to have conversations week in and

24:40

week out is challenging.

24:43

It's

24:43

cathartic. It's generative. And

24:45

it actually has been I mean, we're talking about, like,

24:47

being thankful for stuff not to get cheesy, but,

24:50

like, I really am grateful for this

24:52

this chance to, like, have to talk to people I

24:54

disagree with about all things,

24:56

like for not even politics. Right? Like the

24:58

three of us agree on on so

25:00

many things from, like, what the

25:02

right kind of pickles are to the

25:04

bigger stuff. And I think that it's so

25:06

interesting to me and and I almost take it for

25:08

granted to work at a place where

25:10

pieces are regularly published that I

25:12

disagree with, but that's

25:13

the point. Like, I think

25:15

it's it's it's

25:16

so interesting to think about it like

25:18

that to peel back the layers. And this

25:20

all feels deeply Jewish, like

25:23

arguing for the sake of heaven. Like, that

25:25

is really freaking Jewish,

25:27

and and that's why it's so much a

25:29

part of this place's DNA

25:31

in in a really profound

25:33

way. Mark did it for me.

25:36

Mark, in an email, you know, I was

25:37

sort of arguing with Mark about, you know,

25:40

arguing from a brokenness perspective.

25:42

And Mark wrote

25:42

me back this long email and

25:45

I sat there staring at it for an hour and

25:47

I thought

25:48

he's convincing

25:49

me. Like, it

25:51

happened as I was sitting there

25:54

taking in his email, it

25:57

changed

25:57

me. I felt it. I felt it happen

25:59

as I

25:59

sat there. And

26:01

then that

26:03

is the whole point.

26:05

I don't know why there is no

26:07

glory to be had in journalism

26:09

right now. There's nothing

26:10

else for us to get out

26:13

of this. other

26:14

than to be made smarter and sharper

26:16

and more sensitive

26:18

from the exchange

26:21

of ideas. I wanna

26:22

get to America for a second because it

26:24

seems to me and this is a theme that you weave

26:26

throughout the piece that there's

26:28

kind of a like almost like an an overset layer

26:30

to this conversation in which

26:32

many people feel like, hey, where American

26:34

Jews were somehow historical

26:37

were very different. We live under

26:39

circumstances that transcend

26:41

normal kind of Jewish understanding. I I wanna

26:43

read an an amazing paragraph

26:45

from a piece chalk full of them.

26:47

We must be sensitive to the

26:50

tremors that warn of impending earthquakes

26:52

that could make our current homes dangerous.

26:54

At different points in our history,

26:56

That place was Spain, England,

26:59

France, Turkey, Cairo,

27:01

Baghdad, Beirut, Safid, Filna,

27:04

Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Berlin, Paris,

27:06

and too many others to count. In all

27:08

those places, thinks God bad at some point,

27:10

and some of them so bad that they

27:12

become irrevocably broken to us.

27:14

In others, Jewish life went on and continues

27:16

to flourish in different ways to this day. Do

27:18

you think there's something kind of uniquely

27:21

challenging about the way so

27:23

many of us Americans attached ourselves

27:25

to the notion of America as

27:27

as a Malucho Hasid to borrow

27:29

a a quote from Ralph Moshe

27:31

Finstein, a a kingdom of graciousness

27:33

and good. Sure. But

27:35

if

27:35

that is a problem, it's a problem

27:37

I also have. I'm a profound believer

27:39

in this country. bunch of emotional

27:42

reasons, but for also a couple of

27:44

pretty rational ones, I believe. One

27:46

of which is that the country has built

27:48

into its genetic material both

27:51

pricing or valuing of

27:53

liberty and freedom, personal

27:55

freedom, which to

27:57

me is

27:58

a first principle

27:59

that allows it to kind

28:02

of it has

28:02

a moral rudder that it can

28:04

come back to. But

28:06

more importantly, the country literally

28:08

runs on revolutions. We

28:11

run on

28:11

change. The other list that's

28:14

in my is a list of the

28:16

things, the eras

28:17

and the moments

28:19

that America has been through,

28:21

that

28:21

were genuine crises

28:24

I

28:24

can't imagine what it must have been like to be in

28:26

this country around and after the

28:28

civil war. And sometimes I look at us and

28:30

I think I feel

28:33

urgent about I feel an urgency about

28:35

this moment, but think about what it must

28:37

have been like to be in the country then.

28:40

The the

28:40

temperature had to have been

28:43

fifteen

28:43

degrees, twenty degrees hotter than

28:45

what we've anything we feel now.

28:47

And they got through it and they

28:49

got through it

28:50

even better

28:52

than they were much better than they were before.

28:55

Similarly, the

28:55

industrial revolution. Similarly, the

28:58

failures and attempts at

29:01

reconstruction Similarly, like,

29:03

the emergence of huge urban

29:06

centers and everything that that did, it

29:08

just feels like change

29:09

is part of

29:12

life

29:12

and it's also fundamentally part

29:14

of this country, unlike Europe,

29:16

which in many ways I could argue is

29:18

about

29:18

tradition and about history. America

29:21

is about the future in ways that are

29:23

also maddening, I would say. Like, America

29:26

likes to run over its own history

29:28

and just forget things.

29:31

But

29:31

that also allows us to just

29:33

live inside of

29:35

what's possible and

29:36

not be constrained or held

29:38

hostage by the past. So

29:40

I'm sure

29:41

there are arguments to be made. I'm sure there

29:43

are very good ones to be made that all

29:45

hope is lost and that America should

29:48

be abandoned. they're

29:50

just not and they're arguments I've read, and

29:52

I've arguments I've heard, I've heard them too many times.

29:54

I find them boring, and

29:56

they don't actually don't believe them. So

29:58

I think if

29:59

one's looking for a real America

30:02

pessimist, I'm not

30:03

so sure. your

30:05

girl. But you are

30:07

our girl for a Jewish conversation.

30:09

Right? You run a Jewish magazine. This

30:11

was published in it And in

30:13

many ways, this the economy animates a lot

30:15

of the spirit of today. So tell us,

30:17

why is this a Jewish conversation? Like, why is

30:19

this something that tablet is interested, that

30:21

you're interested in And why is this something that

30:23

Jews should

30:24

be paying attention to? I think if

30:26

you boil this

30:29

conversation down, to

30:30

one about brokenness, which is

30:32

what I tried to do. You

30:35

all of a

30:37

sudden realize why it's a Jewish conversation.

30:40

because Jews

30:41

have as part of our history an

30:45

experience of

30:46

encountering

30:47

institutions as

30:49

well as sometimes communities

30:52

and whole societies that

30:54

in one way or another in

30:56

small ways sometimes in incredibly big ways

30:59

have become broken

31:00

to us. And so we've had to

31:02

learn to hone

31:04

our perception of

31:08

the

31:08

cracks in the foundation.

31:10

And we've also had

31:11

to learn,

31:13

we

31:13

can't just

31:14

get up and leave somewhere every

31:17

time there's a little chip in a

31:19

Right? That also would not

31:21

have made Jewish history

31:23

as

31:23

vibrant and exciting as it

31:26

has been, and tragic

31:28

and challenging. But the

31:30

point is is you

31:31

can't just be a hysteric.

31:33

You're

31:34

not just gonna look at things and

31:36

be like, oh my god. Put up a little bit messed up. I

31:38

have to run away right now. On the other hand,

31:40

if things if the ceiling starts falling down on your head,

31:43

you probably need to get your kids out.

31:44

Right? And part of what Jewish

31:47

history has been about is it's

31:49

been about how do we

31:51

watch our world,

31:53

both for our own safety and

31:55

good lives, but also for the safety and good

31:57

lives of those around us.

31:59

and be able

32:01

to engage

32:02

in

32:03

ways that save what

32:05

can

32:05

be saved, fix what can be fixed,

32:07

and

32:07

abandon what needs to be abandoned. To

32:09

me,

32:10

fundamentally, that feels like

32:12

a Jewish enterprise. So

32:14

I've talked a lot in the past about what I think the

32:17

Jews owe

32:18

America.

32:19

And I think this is what we

32:22

owe America. We owe

32:24

America. our engagement

32:26

with

32:26

its own health

32:28

and with the

32:28

health of its institutions

32:31

the that that we

32:32

can maybe make it better. This was

32:34

Alana, thank you so much for coming on the show.

32:36

Thank you guys so much.