Welcome to the Mona Charin Show. So glad you could join me today. My special guest today is Atlantic

contributing writer David From. We are in the midst of a war with Iran in which our only ally is Israel.

And I think it's fair to say that however this turns out,

it is raising the stakes for the Jewish people around the world because of this alliance

and what it will mean we are not sure. But to probe this and other matters, I asked David to join me to discuss a number of things

that viewers seem to struggle with.

So David, first of all, thank you so much for being here.

Let's begin with distinguishing between anti-Zionism

and anti-Semitism. There are so many people who say, of course, I oppose anti-Semitism with every fiber

of my being. That's a sin and so on. But to criticize Israel

doesn't make me an anti-Semite. So you can be an anti-Zionist without being an anti-Semite.

So let's talk about that. Because I do think it's true that you can criticize Israel without being an

anti-Semite. And yet, it bleeds into anti-Semitism in so many instances, right?

Well, a way I find helpful to think about this is to think, where did the word anti-Semitism come

from and why was it invented? The term was coined in the late 19th century, in the German-speaking lands,

by secular bigots who wanted to say, you know, in the olden days, in the olden days, Christians hated

Jews for not being Christian and objected to Jews being particular and standoffish and not joining

the religion of the majority,

having their own ways and their own places. But, said the anti-Semites of the 19th century,

the problem with those Christian anti-Jewish people, those Jew haters of the old, of your,

was they didn't understand that Judaism is a biological, not a religious category.

And they left it possible. If a Jew converted to Christianity, that they could escape the hatred

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