It's possible to navigate our politics and culture in a strategic sort of way, where we don't hunker down and just kind of sit with our arms above our head and pretend like we can't persuade the rest of the world.

This to me is a fundamental failure.

I think it's a failure of Israeli public diplomacy. I think it's a failure of American Jewish internal politicking. Persuasion is still possible. And that's the thing that gives me reason to be optimistic, that there are a lot of people who could kind of go either way here. And just to assume that they're all going to become Hamasniks is a type of fatalism that I think is itself dangerous.

I'm Jonathan Friedland in London.

And I'm Unholy. Two Jews on the news. The latest of our Tuesday conversations.

And we bring you a dialogue with really one of the most interesting observers and thinkers about the Jewish world, particularly the Jewish world in America. Franklin Four is a staff

writer for The Atlantic Magazine. He is a biographer of Joe Biden, the author of the acclaimed

book, How Soccer Explains the World, and currently at work on a history of the Golden Age of Jewish America,

prompted in part by a landmark essay. He wrote for the Atlantic, arguing that the golden age

was ending. Frank Ford, welcome to Unholy. Such an honor to be here. Thank you.

I was going to say, finally, but I didn't want to be too Jewish just to start. I know. I said a Chechiani before I came on. I was going to get into a little Talmudic disquisition on whether it should be how football explains the world, how Sock explains the world. Frank and I have both been saying multiple Chechianniz for the victory of Arsenal, it's our share team, but we're not going

to do that. We are going to come on to talk about Jewish America and all the ideas you have on

that. And the excuse is that May is Jewish American Heritage Month. It's drawing to a close,

but I thought it would be useful if we go back to that landmark

essay of yours, because I don't want to do an injustice to that essay of two years ago, can you

for people who are coming to this new, or, you know, it's been a couple of years, can you

refresh their memories with what you are essentially meaning when

you talked about the golden age and why you argued it was now coming to an end? So after World War

two, there was this incredible moment where Jews had been on the outs, American Jews had been

systematically excluded from many of the institutions of the American leads. And then after World War II, there was this magical confluence of events where Jews went

from being the outs to being on the ins.

And we were suddenly admitted into the inner sanctums of academia, of American culture,

...