Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner was, for a moment, a Democratic golden boy—an oyster farmer and Marine veteran whose rough-hewn authenticity thrilled progressive strategists. Then came the Reddit posts, the Nazi-linked chest tattoo he claimed not to understand, and finally the rape allegation that collapsed his campaign.

But what does it say that a Nazi tattoo and edgelord posting weren't disqualifying, while an accusation of sexual misconduct was?

Arno Rosenfeld, who covers antisemitism for the Forward (but is soon joining Haaretz as its Washington correspondent), joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to unpack the strange dynamics of the Platner saga: how anti-Israel positioning became a permission slip to wave away scandal, why he became the target of two mutually exclusive antisemitic conspiracy theories at once, how "authenticity" got tangled up with a certain kind of white male gentileness, and what Platner's rise and fall reveals about antisemitism's shifting place in the Democratic Party—and whether it's still disqualifying at all.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

In May, The CJN's opinion editor, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, published her latest book, The Last Straight Woman. One of the most incisive reviews (from a Jewish writer, no less) was Virginia Karnstein, a PhD candidate whose research crosses feminism, antisemitism and vampires—and, sometimes, the middle of that unique Venn diagram.

The Last Straight Woman does not focus on vampires, but it does look at the evolution of feminism and its intersection with sexual orientation and gender identity. So we invited Karnstein onto The Jewish Angle podcast to discuss Maltz Bovy's book, the history of second- and third-wave feminism, separatism, MeToo, tradwives, femcels, the changing cultural status of heterosexual women... and a little bit of vampirism.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

For decades, Jewish women played a central role in building feminist movements, shaping ideas about equality, activism, and social justice. Yet as of the last 30 years, they find themselves cast as symbols of privilege, whiteness, and oppression within the very spaces they helped create. How did that happen?

Writer and scholar Kara Jesella joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to discuss her new book, Feminist Antisemitism: An Intellectual History. They explore the evolution of feminist theory, the rise of identity politics and queer theory, the emergence of the “as a Jew” phenomenon, and the ways Jewish women became uniquely positioned within debates over race, power, Zionism, and belonging. The conversation traces a decades-long intellectual history that helps explain some of today's fiercest conflicts over Jewish identity, feminism, and Israel.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle