Transcript [00:00] It's 7:30 p.m. on Monday, October 12th [00:02] here at Temple Israel. [00:05] You see, Seiver assured me [00:08] there are actual listeners of Call Me [00:10] Back in the audience, but [00:12] >> [applause] [00:18] >> the true test is if they react to the [00:20] timestamp. You passed the test. [00:23] Um [00:25] it's wonderful to be here. It's sort of [00:27] I I say like it's wonderful to be home [00:29] cuz I spent some of my formative years [00:31] in politics in my professional life [00:34] here, not far from here. [00:36] So, you know, I was I was squatting in [00:38] our friends the Weiners' home [00:41] uh in the mid-90s. I won't say what [00:43] exact year in the '90s cuz I will date [00:44] myself, but uh working on political [00:47] campaigns uh back in the '90s. So, and [00:49] there are so many familiar faces here. [00:51] So, like I said, it's great to be home. [00:53] Um [00:56] over the last 3 years, I have spent a [01:00] lot of time in rooms like this one. [01:03] Synagogues, day schools, JCCs, [01:06] campus Chabad's and Hillel's. [01:09] I've even davened at the JRC at the [01:11] University of Michigan. [01:16] By the way, there are there is a [01:19] contingent of students here tonight from [01:20] the University of Michigan that should [01:21] live here from Ann Arbor. [01:27] And [01:29] as I've traveled around this country and [01:31] not just this country over the past 3 [01:33] years, I've come to appreciate that just [01:37] about [01:38] every Jew in the diaspora [01:41] has over the past 3 years a before and [01:44] an after. [01:46] Folks in Bondi Beach have a before and [01:48] an after. Jews at that synagogue in [01:51] Manchester in the UK have a before and [01:53] the after. [01:55] Jews throughout places like Toronto and [01:57] Montreal and in cities across America [02:00] have a before and the after and for this [02:02] community [02:04] the after began on March 12th. [02:07] And I would be remiss if I didn't say [02:11] that it is a true miracle but not only a [02:14] miracle [02:15] that all of those children from that day [02:19] came out of this place physically [02:21] unharmed and it is a part a tribute to [02:24] the staff and security that work for [02:27] this institution and some of whom are [02:29] here tonight and I just want to [02:32] acknowledge them. [02:33] >> [applause] [02:38] [applause] [02:45] >> I have was invited tonight [02:48] to talk about the stakes for our [02:51] community in these politically [02:54] polarizing times. [02:56] I'm not going to tell anyone in this [02:58] room, don't worry Steve, I'm not going [03:00] to tell anyone in this room how to vote. [03:03] I'm not even going to discuss the [03:05] upcoming election of 2026. [03:08] I won't be talking about the characters [03:10] or the candidates or the [03:11] or the dynamics. I won't be engaging any [03:13] rank punditry. [03:15] But I do want to spend a few moments not [03:18] necessarily on 2026 but on another year. [03:22] And that year is 1144. [03:25] We can learn a lot about today by [03:28] looking back at the year 1144. [03:31] Because whether it's 2026 or 1144 [03:35] the issues that bring us together here [03:37] tonight are in a sense the same. [03:41] They are part of a three-step playbook. [03:45] And if I can leave you with anything [03:46] tonight it is that clear recognition of [03:50] this three-step playbook. [03:53] Step one [03:55] is the accusation. [03:57] A Jew is accused of a crime. [04:00] That story begins in Norwich, England in [04:05] 1144 [04:07] with a dead boy [04:08] named William. [04:10] A Jew is accused of the murder. [04:15] Step two is the expansion. [04:17] The crime doesn't belong to just one [04:20] Jew. [04:21] It belongs to all Jews. [04:24] Collective complicity. [04:27] In 1144, the crime was a ritual, a [04:29] Jewish ritual. [04:31] Therefore, all Jews were complicit. [04:35] It may have been one man accused, but [04:37] the entire community, the Jewish people [04:40] were complicit. [04:42] Step three [04:44] is the punishment. Once every Jew is [04:47] deemed guilty, [04:49] any Jew can be punished [04:52] anywhere. [04:54] That's the blood libel. It began in [04:56] England in 1144 and it traveled across [04:59] Europe for the next eight centuries. [05:03] Now, fast forward to today. [05:06] Step one. [05:08] Within days of October 7th, before [05:10] Israel had even responded to the [05:11] massacre that killed more than 1,000 [05:13] Israelis and stole more than 250 people [05:17] into Gaza, including, I should add, [05:20] dozens of American citizens, Israel is [05:24] accused of genocide. [05:26] And the image at the center of the [05:28] accusation, on every screen [05:31] and every rally [05:33] is dead Palestinian children. [05:36] Step two. [05:38] The accusation doesn't stay with the [05:41] Israeli government. It expands to every [05:44] Jewish day school in the diaspora, every [05:46] JCC, every synagogue, every kosher [05:49] restaurant, every Jewish cultural [05:51] institution, anywhere [05:54] where Jewish students or Jewish [05:55] congregants [05:57] gather and convene in a place where [05:59] there's an Israeli flag or recites the [06:01] prayer for the state of Israel or faces [06:04] Jerusalem when its congregants or [06:06] students pray. [06:09] They are all and listen for this word [06:12] because once you hear this word [06:14] you will hear it everywhere. [06:17] They are all complicit. [06:20] That word [06:22] is doing all the work. [06:24] Complicit [06:26] is step two. It's how you get expansion [06:31] to all Jews. [06:32] And step three [06:34] well, rather than describe step three, [06:37] I'll illustrate step three. [06:39] Which is the punishment. You remember [06:40] from the three-step playbook. The third [06:43] step is always the punishment. And I'll [06:45] give you a contemporary snapshot of what [06:48] that step three looks like. I'll do it [06:51] with a seven-week stretch in the spring [06:53] of 2025. [06:56] And I'll give you [06:57] one example after the other. April 13th, [07:00] 2025. [07:02] The first night of Passover. [07:04] Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania [07:06] hosts a seder at the governor's [07:08] residence. [07:09] Hours later after his family has gone to [07:12] bed, a man firebombs the residence. [07:15] Then that same terrorist calls 911 to [07:18] explain himself. The governor [07:21] this firebomber said needed to know that [07:25] the firebomber would not take part in [07:28] Governor Shapiro's plans for the [07:29] Palestinian people. [07:32] Josh Shapiro [07:33] does not run Israel's war in Gaza. He is [07:36] a Jewish governor of an American state [07:39] who had just finished his seder with his [07:41] family. [07:43] Josh Shapiro [07:45] was complicit. [07:47] May 21st, Washington, D.C., Yaron [07:49] Weishinsky and Sarah Milgram, a young [07:52] couple [07:53] who worked at the Israeli Embassy, they [07:55] were [07:56] to be engaged the following week in [07:58] Jerusalem, [07:59] walk out of an event at the Capital [08:01] Jewish Museum. [08:03] A gunman shoots them from behind [08:06] and keeps firing after they have fallen. [08:11] Within the hour, a manifesto in his name [08:13] is online. [08:15] The word at its center is genocide. [08:19] The genocide's, quote, perpetrators and [08:21] abettors, he wrote, [08:23] had forfeited their humanity. [08:26] Abettors, [08:27] that is another word for complicit. [08:31] Yaron and Sarah were complicit. [08:34] June 1st, [08:36] Boulder, Colorado, [08:38] a small group, mostly older people, is [08:40] doing what they've done every week for [08:43] more than a year and a half up to that [08:45] point, walking down Pearl Street calling [08:48] for the hostages [08:49] to be returned home. [08:51] A man disguised as a gardener throws [08:54] Molotov cocktails into the crowd. He [08:56] tells investigators he wanted to kill [08:59] all Zionist people. [09:01] Karen Diamond, [09:03] 82 years old, a member of her local [09:05] synagogue, [09:06] dies of her injuries. [09:08] Karen Diamond was complicit. [09:13] Three attacks, [09:15] three states, over the course of 7 [09:19] weeks. [09:20] Different men, [09:22] different backgrounds, [09:24] different politics, [09:26] but one logic. [09:28] A logic [09:30] that is repeatedly reinforced [09:32] by some of this country's leading [09:35] politicians. [09:36] From New York City, where live, to here [09:39] in Michigan, [09:40] where you live. [09:42] And then this this past March here, [09:45] the man who attacked this building [09:48] didn't go to a military base to protest [09:51] the war. [09:52] He didn't go to an embassy. [09:54] He came to a reform synagogue in West [09:56] Bloomfield, Michigan, [09:58] with a children's center just down the [10:00] hall. [10:01] The over 100 children in this building [10:04] were [10:05] complicit. [10:07] Accusation, [10:09] expansion, [10:11] punishment. [10:12] Same playbook. [10:15] And then [10:16] you add that word that I mentioned [10:18] earlier, genocide. [10:20] Why genocide? [10:22] Why that word? [10:24] Because it does two things [10:27] no other word can do. [10:29] First, it encompasses all of us. [10:33] However false the charge, and to be [10:35] clear, it is false. [10:38] It makes every Jew who feels any [10:41] connection to Israel, which is the [10:43] overwhelming majority of American Jews, [10:46] an an accessory to the worst crime [10:49] humanity has a name for. [10:52] Second, [10:54] and this is the part that I hope you [10:57] will sit with. [10:59] The word genocide [11:01] settles the question [11:04] of Israel's existence. [11:06] Ask yourself, [11:08] can a decent person believe that a [11:10] genocidal state [11:12] has a right to exist? [11:15] How could a responsible member of the US [11:17] Senate support defensive aid [11:20] if it's going to a genocidal state? [11:24] Once you accept the label, [11:26] wanting Israel gone [11:29] isn't bigotry anymore. [11:32] It's virtue. [11:33] The label turns the elimination of the [11:36] Jewish state, [11:38] the place where the majority of Jews in [11:40] the world live, into a cause. And it's a [11:44] cause for good people. [11:47] And it's spreading. [11:49] Last Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize [11:51] went to Navi Pillay, who chaired the UN [11:54] commission that declared Israel guilty [11:57] of genocide. [11:59] Before that, UN rapporteurs, Amnesty [12:02] International, Human Rights Watch, an [12:05] association of genocide scholars, [12:08] then heads of government, Spain, Brazil, [12:10] Turkey, Colombia, I can go on, and now [12:12] increasingly [12:14] American politicians. [12:17] So, here's why it matters in 2026. [12:20] The genocide label has moved from the [12:23] campus to the street [12:26] to the platforms of people [12:28] asking for your vote. [12:31] When an When an elected official adopts [12:33] that word, [12:35] they aren't just making a foreign policy [12:37] argument. [12:38] Whether they intend it or not, [12:41] they are completing step two of the step [12:44] of the three-step playbook I described. [12:47] They are telling the man with the rifle [12:49] or the man with a Molotov cocktail [12:53] who is complicit and who is not. [12:56] So, I'll just close with this before [12:58] introducing my [13:01] guests for these conversations. [13:03] I believe the Jewish people [13:07] will outlast this libel [13:10] the way we outlasted everyone before it. [13:14] The question for this community, though, [13:16] in this building, [13:18] a few weeks before an election, isn't [13:21] what the world [13:22] believes about us. [13:24] It's what [13:26] It's about what we are willing to stand [13:27] up for. [13:29] Will we let this libel go mainstream on [13:32] our watch? [13:34] Or will we insist [13:36] loudly and in every party, both the [13:39] Democratic Party and the Republican [13:41] Party, that it stops here? [13:45] >> [applause] [13:50] [applause] [13:54] >> Natan Sharansky, [13:57] the famous Soviet refusenik and one of [13:59] my [14:00] heroes, [14:02] wrote powerfully this past weekend in [14:05] Tablet Magazine [14:06] about the blood libel, about the blood [14:09] libel I'm speaking about tonight. The [14:11] genocide blood bla- blood libel. And I [14:12] just want to [14:13] quote from what he said. [14:15] Na- Natan Sharansky writes, [14:18] "Our goal should not be to convince the [14:20] rest of the world that we are right. [14:23] Our existence does not depend on a vote [14:26] in the United Nations. It depends in our [14:28] own belief in the righteousness of [14:31] Jewish civilization. [14:33] Of course, [14:34] Sharansky writes, we're not above [14:36] criticism. [14:37] And we must acknowledge and correct [14:39] course when we deviate from our own [14:41] standards. [14:43] But remaining vigilant about our [14:45] shortcomings [14:46] is not the same as accepting guilt we do [14:50] not deserve. [14:52] And so, [14:54] >> [applause] [14:59] >> And so, Sharansky goes on, when our [15:01] children and grandchildren [15:04] ask us [15:05] how the whole world can believe there is [15:08] a genocide if in fact there is no [15:10] genocide, [15:11] we should stand firm in the conviction [15:13] of what we know [15:15] to be true. [15:16] That's Sharansky. So, [15:19] what will we tell our children and [15:21] grandchildren? [15:23] This [15:24] was not [15:25] a theoretical question [15:27] for Sharansky [15:29] when he was in the gulag. [15:31] And sadly [15:33] it is not a theoretical question for us [15:35] here today. [15:37] Those children and grandchildren [15:40] include the hundred plus children who [15:42] were in this building on March 12th. [15:44] I thought about them a lot as I was [15:46] coming over here tonight. [15:49] 18 years from now [15:52] God willing [15:53] they will be walking onto college quads [15:56] all over this country. [15:59] Who they become in ways that we don't [16:02] always realize [16:04] will be the result [16:06] of the example [16:08] we all set [16:09] during these times. [16:11] My prayer [16:13] is that they will walk [16:14] onto those quads as proud Jews [16:17] knowing who they are [16:19] and where they come from [16:21] and that no one [16:23] anywhere [16:24] will accuse them of being complicit. [16:28] Thank you. [16:29] >> [applause]
Recorded live at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan on October 12th.
In 1144, a blood libel in England helped fuel centuries of persecution against Jews. In 2026, Dan Senor argues, the same playbook is back: accuse Israel of an unspeakable crime, expand the accusation to Jews everywhere, and make them pay for it. From attacks on Jewish institutions to the targeting of Jews with no role in Israeli government policy, he examines how the language of collective guilt can turn antisemitism into something people believe theyโre justified in supporting.
๐๐ป ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ ๐๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ต:
- Accusation. Expansion. Punishment. The three-step playbook behind the blood libelโand why Senor believes it offers a disturbing framework for understanding antisemitism today.
- Why does the accusation of genocide carry such particular power? How can the label turn opposition to Israelโs existence into something people see as a moral cause?
- What do attacks on a Jewish governorโs home, Israeli embassy employees, and hostage demonstrators have in common? Senor traces the rhetoric of complicity through a series of attacks in the United States.
- Why are synagogues, Jewish schools, and community centers being treated as responsible for Israelโs actions? Senor argues that the accusation doesnโt stop with Israelโs governmentโit spreads to Jews everywhere.
- How should Jewish communities respond when accusations of collective guilt become mainstream political rhetoric? Drawing on Natan Sharansky, Senor argues that acknowledging Israelโs shortcomings is not the same as accepting guilt Jews do not deserve.
- What will the next generation of Jews inherit from this moment?
Senor closes with a challenge to the community: stand up for Jewish identity and Jewish civilization, and refuse to let this libel go unchallenged.
Image credit: John Hardwick.
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https://streicker.nyc/event/cmb_f2026/
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