Kraft Blue It

welcome to the commentary magazine daily podcast today is monday february 9th 2026 i am john Podhortz, the editor of Commentary Magazine. With me as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe. Hi, John. Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth. Hi, John. Washington Freebeacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana. Hi, John. And social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine. Hi, John. So, you know, there's a lot of controversy in the last four or five days in the Jewish community about the stand-up to hate ad or Blue Square Initiative ad or stand-up to anti-Semitism ad that ran on the Super Bowl. And I just want to give you the pithiest version of response that I heard last night from an Orthodox rabbi on Long Island who texted a friend of mine and said i guess god didn't like robert craft's ad because of course the patriots owned by robert craft and this blue square initiative which is essentially funded was started by robert craft um uh the owner of the patriots uh the patriots were were humiliated last night and one of the in an absolutely dominating performance by the seattle seahawks so the you might say they were bullied huh they were bullied you might say this they were you might say the seahawks took their lunch money yes that's exactly the point that that that my that my friend's uh rabbi friend was making that god um god was sending a message to robert craft to maybe make a better commercial next year so if you didn't watch the commercial very briefly a kid walks down the hallway in a school uh very um unprepossessive dirty nebushy nebushy right a nebushy kid walks down a hallway in school but you know someone tries to hip check him into the locker he opens his locker and there he sees the words dirty jew on on his book and then a hand comes and puts a blue sticky on top of the sticky that said dirty Jew. And he said, don't believe that. And then he looks over and there's this nice black kid and they, he says, thanks man. And then it says, you know, the blue square initiative, because what you're supposed to do, not that the ad explains this by the way, which is another really wonderful quality ad is you're supposed to go on Instagram and put up a blue square. Because remember when after Black Lives Matter, everybody was told to put up a black square on a certain Tuesday to show that you were in solidarity with Black Lives Matter? Well, now you're supposed to put up a blue square to show you're in solidarity with, I don't even know what. Is it don't call a kid a dirty Jew? Fine. Okay, great. Mazel tov to you. Yeah, that's really great. Okay, so there are 10,000 ways in which we can interpret this ad. I don't know anybody. That's the weird part is I don't know. It's hardly anybody that I know that was not puzzled, offended, or grossed out or made angry by this ad. So anybody want to go with why? Can we start with the why? The ad hit people viscerally as exactly the wrong message at this moment. there's so many reasons i'll just go with one like did they screen it to a group of people yes i'm gonna talk about that i'm gonna and who approved this i'm gonna talk about that okay okay so i want to just have the reaction then i'll tell you what the reaction of the blue square people has been to the criticism because it's very interesting but abe what's wrong with it i'll i'll just go with one and we can go around okay i'm sorry if i'm yelling my dog is going crazy So I'm trying to hear him. Can't hear him. She didn't like the ad either. Yeah, exactly. Because it shows the kid with no ability to defend himself at all. That's merely one aspect of the horror. Relying on someone else or not even having someone else come in to sort of, you know, just console him. um uh the the other is that this is not really how anti-semitism functions uh out there uh among uh american students and on campuses today it's it's not about that so it struck me as being really boomerish because if if you really wanted to show what would happen to a a nebushy jewish high school boy he would be getting attacked on social media platforms by people who he knew and everybody would walk down the hallway like nothing had happened. But I'm with Abe. No, no agency, as they say, for the victim. It was just I have to go to my locker and wait for someone to rescue me. And that is not that's not an appropriate message. I'm going to tread in a more sensitive area. I'm not sure I haven't followed the online discourse about this. But the kid who comes in and puts the blue square over the, you know, dirty Jew sticker is a black kid. And that struck me as a poor reflection of the reality that we've seen play out since 2023, when we, I think a lot of Jews, including the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, realized that most of the Jews, 85, 90% of the Jews had been for DEI for the past 15 years, but that after October 7th, DEI was not actually for the Jews. DEI was against the Jews and part of the complex promoting anti-Semitism. And so that struck me as a pretty poor choice for this ad. I also think the ad hit the wrong notes because there's a real debate among Jews right now about whether we should actually be continuing the fight against anti-Semitism in these ways. And, you know, Brett Stevens just gave these remarks about the state of world Jewry. Which will be Commentary's cover story in the March issue, which we will be closing tomorrow. And we'll be online on Wednesday. OK, go ahead. I thought, like, we should – should we print a transcript of these remarks? And we are. OK. And the upshot is we should not be trying to fight anti-Semitism because the best way to fight anti-Semitism is to recommit ourselves to Judaism, to practice Judaism, and to be more Jewish. And that is the agency that this kid would have had. put on a yarmulke, practice Judaism, marry somebody Jewish, raise Jewish children, and the end. Seth? There's an AI, somebody made an AI version of the commercial where the story continues. Instead of somebody coming up and saying, don't listen to them, he tears the dirty Jew sticky note off his bag. And then you see him go through life as he grows up and he goes to college and then he has a family and you see him, you know, at Friday night, Shabbat dinner, and then you see him in grad school and then you see him become this like kind of incredible brain surgeon or, or, you know, something. Um, and, uh, at the end of the commercial, he saves the guy, the life of the guy who way back in high school, put the dirty juice sticky on him. And the guy, the patient writes, thank you on a sticky note and hands it to him. Um, very, uh, very much like the plot of you know uh israel and yaya sinwar i guess um but but the but like you know you could you could do all these different things with it but you know the the basic problem is that nobody i mean i agree with abe on this in the in the sense that the biggest problem is that who see nobody sees this in their daily lives and so it's kind of like sure it's like people it got people's attention and focus groups and stuff like that because it's weird and unusual not because it's really moving that's my feeling about it which is like people watch this and said is that what happens or the kids get a dirty jew sticky note you know put on their backpack what he could have done is shown you uh you know a columbia encampment on the quad and that would have shown that would have taken some real guts. And that was something that included what the ADL as well agreed was anti-Semitism. Like there's a, there's a consensus that these pro Hamas, you know, somebody on campus wearing an Abu Obeda hoodie and chanting for the next attack to be in Tel Aviv is not something that could be misinterpreted by anybody and there were all these scenes of absolute you know just insanity that weren't like well we can argue over whether uh from the river to the sea is a call for this or a call for that there were all these explicit uh scenes of like genocidal psychotic anti-semitism that he could have shown real people and maybe he doesn't want to do that for legal liability but it's like that's what we encountered okay that's what kids in high school but in high school what should have shown is a bunch of young friends, men, hanging around talking, and them showing each other, you know, something they see on TikTok or Instagram reels, that's a very anti-Semitic bit of information, and the kid having to decide whether to say something, or to just accept that kind of ambient anti-Semitism that is seeped into culture for young men at the high school level. It's the jokes, it's the references, it's the Carl, it's, you know, it's the Tucker Carlson Fuente stuff. Do you sit by and just kind of smile and nod and don't rock the boat? Or do you stand up and, as Eliana said, say, no, that's not right. Because that's actually where I think the young men in high school, they're not getting sticky notes put on their backpacks. They are having to tolerate a certain level of anti-Semitism that is accepted among their peers as normal when it shouldn't be. Okay, here's my problem. The problem is not that somebody goes and there's a message, an anonymous message in their, you know, private, in their drawer, in their locker, or like in the mail or on their front door with a sticky note that says dirty Jew. The thing that made the response to October 7th different is that it was full frontal and everybody who was doing it, we know their names. They're not hiding. They're not like, oh, you're a dirty Jew. I'm not even going to say who I am because I don't want to get into trouble. They're like, my name is Phil Smith and you're a dirty Jew. My name is Muhammad Atta and you're a dirty Jew. My name is Francesca Albanese and you're a dirty Jew. My name is Kenneth Roth and you're a dirty Jew. It's not that there, it's an anonymous whispering campaign that makes Jews feel less than. It is a straight on, head on attack on our legitimacy as people on our existence and on everything that we believe and stand for. And saying that the problem is that it's making people feel bad. The issue isn't that it's making people feel bad. It's that universities and workplaces and other places, or particularly universities, are denying Jews their civil rights under the Civil Rights Act by treating them differently and allowing people to treat them differently and not intervening and interceding. So this ad is about how, can you people out there be nicer to us? Because you're making us feel bad. And so here's what you should do. and this is the other weird incompetency of the ad though i don't care it's like so the black kid puts the sticker on top of the dirty jew sticker and it's the blue sticker and then you're supposed to put up a blue square on your instagram it doesn't say but john don't forget he puts it also he puts it on himself right yeah it doesn't say hey put a blue sticker on your Instagram. The whole thing is about creating consciousness of the idea of the blue square because the organization, which used to be called the Fight Against Antisemitism, rebranded itself as the Blue Square Initiative. So in fact, it's not an ad about antisemitism. It's an ad about raising the profile of the Blue Square Initiative. It is a solipsistic effort to gain market share for your organization to combat anti-Semitism as opposed to the ADL or other organizations. That's actually what's going on, in my view, sub-Rosa. Now, why would they do this ad? Particularly, one of the other things is we've been spending two and a half years now, or almost two and a half years after October 7th, talking about how jews should respond and the general feeling in the jewish community is not only that it turns out that all these people on the left aren't allies but that they're enemies and then what are we supposed to do are we supposed to arm ourselves there's the whole there's the whole idea that jews should go and like basically turn them turn the entire american jewish community should turn itself into a self-defense organization that is willing to you know like not only stand up But like fight back in some fashion against these acts of aggression that sometimes are really are physical, like the kind of like punching incidents in Borough Park and places like that. That's where the conversation has headed in the Jewish community. So, yeah. Who was it who said, hey, the Black Square posting on Instagram was really great and we should have a parallel movement in the Jewish community because that did a lot. the idea... You know who? Dumb non-profit Jews who work in the non-profit Jewish community, all of whom are focused on dumb performative... There's a really interesting answer to that. There a really interesting answer to that which is that the answer is that the ad is appreciated whatever you want to call it by non and hated by Jews That's the essence. We have no evidence that it's appreciated by non-Jews. I want to go into the response. I want to go into – I mean from their perspective, they ran focus groups and they came out and said this is what happened when they ran the focus groups. And the ADL came out and said – Hold on. Let me – So their – I'm dealing with their claim. Their response is – I know, right. So let's talk about their claim, okay? The head of the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate – by the way, let me point out. This was called the group to combat anti-Semitism. They changed the name to the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate. Remember, after October 7th, the idea what? The problem is not hate. It's Jew hatred. It's not hate. We're not against hate. You can't be against hate. Hate is a human emotion. This was about hating Jews. And if you are universalizing the idea of hate, you are already conceding horribly that the problem is not specific targeted efforts against the Jewish people, but an atmosphere of hate. and that is deeply offensive period and it's a shonda that it was done in the first place that they backed off calling things anti-semitism or jew hatred instead to universalize it which they did probably because they went and they had focus groups and when they said do you care do you hate hate or do you hate anti-semitism and six people in the focus group said we hate hate and three people said we hate anti-semitism and three people drooled and then they had oh my god it's 60% support for the hate as opposed to anti-Semitism. I've been, I've done a lot of focus groups. I've been involved in a lot of focus groups. And the idea that you glean actual information from focus group responses to things is so comic that it beggars description. Like if you watch focus groups of people who are not involved in the issue that they're being asked to, their opinions are very thin or very, you know, it's like, do you like this or do you like that well i guess i like that one a little more than this one but it's like i wouldn't have anything to do with either what happens is that people mark people want something and they use focus groups and they and they ask questions in certain ways in focus groups to get the response that they need so that the patrons like this is the people who run the blue square initiative the pay the people who are giving them money they can go to and say look we have all this data that shows this is how we should do it. It's the way they wanted to do it in the first place. Because what do they want to do? Do they want to fight anti-Semitism? No. They have some deranged idea in their head that they can reignite the Jewish black allyship system. And that by showing this black kid being nice to a Jewish kid, suddenly now we'll all be friends again. And it's okay. Ayanna Pressley doesn't exist and Cori Bush doesn't exist and the world of black anti-Semitism doesn't exist and you know what's what really what's really nice is the tall you know it's like my bodyguard so it's my bodyguard only instead of Adam Baldwin being it's a nice tall black kid with a fro who seems very gentle and lovely protecting the Jewish kid. Kraft was Kraft actually did like a press tour about this he was on cbs in a segment that i watched and this is what i mean about it not reflecting reality he says like we're sponsoring i might get some of this wrong because i don't remember exactly but it's fakakta like he says oh we're sponsoring dinners and we're getting uh you know we're gonna have jews talking to black people and they're gonna start understanding each other like he's the first person to ever come up with this idea And then the interviewer who's like so credulous at what a wonderful idea asks, and would you invite Palestinians to this dinner? And he's like, oh, I'd love to. It would be so great because we just get people with different views sitting around a table and starting to understand each other. Like it is just it is so ridiculous. So ridiculous. And so not the way that the world actually is. And that is why God breathed air into the nostrils of the Seattle Seahawks defense and sacked Drake May seven times. I mean, that's what I mean by the joke about it. That response, though, even if we – I mean I think we should take their response is interesting in its own right, which is I think the debate in miniature, right? they say non-Jews like the I'm going to use like instead of appreciate but we you know what I mean when I say like that it's effective on them or it hits the right notes or it tugs at their heart strings or they have the right response afterwards the next time they see anti-Semitism whatever you want to say let's call it like non-Jews like it Jews hate it this is the ongoing you know Dara horn, people love dead Jews concept, right? I mean, the fact that non-Jews, and I'm going to say this, and I know they're going to hate hearing this, but the fact that non-Jews liked or appreciated the ad should set off alarm bells because there is this dichotomy, there is this, that Jews don't like the idea that they are fish out of water flopping around until some nice Gentile picks them up and puts them back in the lake or something that, but that the, the, everybody appreciates the weak Jew. Everybody has a special place in their heart for Tevye and the dairy man. And, you know, the Jews who get their homes burned down and, you know, run out of, uh, you know, Eastern Europe and pogroms and stuff like that. They don't love the Jews who, you know, have a really powerful army, which I don't like the Jews that, you know, have influence and all this other stuff. But that's what I think is the key is that they should they should see red flags in their own research, because however they're testing it is testing it in a way that is reinforced. I don't trust the testing is my point. I'm now going to go to an important piece by Haley Cohen, which is an e-Jewish philanthropy, which explains the idea behind the ad. Okay? So here's what Adam Katz, who runs the Blue Square Alliance, said. He said, the group conducted a randomized controlled experiment between February 5th and February 6th where about a thousand viewers saw the group's ad and a control group that saw an unrelated ad. The survey research, according to the ADL, which helped do this research, found that the group that saw the anti-Semitism ad said they were more notably likely to, quote, think anti-Semitism is a serious problem, interrupt friends or family who make anti-Semitic comments, and feel more motivated to fight anti-Semitism. Katz told Jewish Philanthropy that the commercial was also tested for audience reaction by the Blue Square Alliance before it aired. They made tweaks to the ad so it would resonate more closely to viewers disengaged with the issue of anti-Semitism. Quote, our research goes very deep into who the Super Bowl audience is. What do they know? What do they not know? And we see very concerning data points around the awareness, visibility and concern about anti-Semitism. It's just not on their radar. We're talking about over 100 million Americans classified as unengaged on the topic who just don't see anti-Semitism as a significant problem, as their problem to solve or something they can have an impact on. That's our audience. We start by coming up with lots of different content and put those concepts in front of a testing audience, which is representative of our target audience of unengaged. And by the time the ad was finished, it was, quote, tested many times in raising awareness, empathy, and ultimately raising attention to become an ally. It was an effort to create allyship that feels approachable, such as in a school setting, and that the phrase dirty Jew has now been used a lot more on social media. Okay, you know what? Here's my point. First of all, this is a fishy explanation. The ADL survey is done on the 5th and 6th of February. Today is the 9th of February. The ad was already in the ether, I think, on YouTube and stuff the day the ADL tested it. So do you test an ad that you've already booked on the Super Bowl two days before the Super Bowl when you've already released it to the public to see? You're not testing anything. I don't know what they tested or didn't test. It didn't matter. The test wasn't going to have any effect on the ad. And if it did, it was only going to tweak two seconds of the ad because the ad was done. It was finished. I saw it on the 6th of February or something like that. So this doesn't pass. There's a smell test that this doesn't pass, number one. Number two, who's asking for allyship? The word allyship is the red flag. It's not that the viewers liked it or didn't like it. It's that their goal is allyship. Because people are unengaged and we need to make them allies. Allyship is a bullshit word which is all about how Jews should go help other people and use all their money and give it to non-Jews to show that we're allies, or that people who are unenlightened should go and support other people. Allyship never goes the other way, because that's not what the doctrine is. Allyship is leftists saying, you give us money to be leftists. And you know what the leftist cause is? It's not Zionism. The leftist cause is, let's try to remake this alliance, the alliance from the 1950s and 60s between African Americans and Jews. What a glorious moment in our history that was. When we're all together, walk in lockstep. Look, you know you carry a lot of responsibility in your household. If something happens to you, there are real consequences, like a mortgage that needs to be paid, tuition that needs to be paid. Everyday bills don't just disappear. Thinking about that used to feel overwhelming for me, but taking steps to protect my family financially changed that. And that's why you should consider getting life insurance through Ethos, which makes getting life insurance fast and easy, 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, get same-day coverage. There's no medical exam. You just answer a few simple health questions. You can get up to $3 million in coverage, some policies as low as $30 a month. As of March 2025, Business Insider named Ethos the number one no medical exam instant life insurance provider with 4.8 out of five stars on Trustpilot and over 3,000 reviews. So protect your family with life insurance from Ethos now by going to ethos.com slash commentary. In as little as 10 minutes, you can get your free quote and up to $3 million in coverage at ethos.com slash commentary. That is ethos.com slash commentary, ethos.com slash commentary. Application times and rates may vary. Let's talk about Aura Frame. So I have an Aura Frame in the middle of my living room. And last night I glanced up at it and there I saw a photograph. Actually, two photographs split in half because Aura does that for you. it sort of seems to understand what photos are related to each other and will kind of edit them for you to put them together in the frame. And there was a picture of my late mother and my late sister, Rachel, side by side. And I was, of course, very moved and pleased and touched to have this memory placed right in front of me in my living room for me to experience almost unexpectedly. And that is one of the great gifts that Aura Frames can offer. This is a wonderful, beautiful piece of living room, bedroom, whatever. I wouldn't call it furniture, but it's literally a photo frame. And you download your photos through an app, as many as you want, in whatever order you want, in whatever way you want. And they can provide you with all kinds of unexpected joys and pleasures. there is free unlimited storage. So you can add as many photos and videos as you want. You can add them from anywhere, anytime using the app. If you want to give it as a gift, it comes in a gift box included. You can personalize the gift with a message before it arrives. And if you download the app yourself, you can text photos straight to the frame or to the person whose frame, whom you're giving it to as a present. So that's Aura Frames, the perfect gift anytime, named number one by Wirecutter. You can save on this perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com for a limited time. Listeners can get $35 off their best-selling CarverMet frame with code Commentary. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com, promo code Commentary. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. There's another aspect of this, though, that I think speaks to what Eliana cited Robert Kraft saying on CBS. And it's a dilettante effort. It's a wealthy Aspen Ideas type thing of we're all going to have dinners together. We're going to cultivate allies. We're going to put this stuff on Instagram, and this will have an impact on antisemitism. I don't question their motives trying to raise awareness and whatnot. But the means they choose and the way they talk about this problem shows absolute disregard for real life and also a disregard for, as you say, John, what actual Jews would say to the problem of anti-Semitism, how it's defined by them. But it's the having dinners with lots of people around the table and the virtue signaling of putting this square everywhere. That strikes me as the effort of a well-intentioned but bungling dilettante who doesn't really understand really the deep and disturbing nature of this problem. I just want to point out, there's something else, I mean, this is all sort of emerged from what everyone is saying here, but another aspect of this very anachronistic spot, because to me it sort of looks like, like a special episode of happy days, you know, like Fonzie helps out the Jewish kid. Christine said it was a boomer. Christine said it had a boomer. Yeah. Like there's no 15 year old like this in the world. I would have liked that if it had the Fonz as a cameo. So another aspect of how this gets the present moment so wrong John as you say correctly the anti are not anonymous at all They in your face They do however sometimes disguise their anti-Semitism as anti-Zionism. That's a massive issue here, completely goes untouched by this campaign, by this commercial. It's just not on their radar at all. And it's a huge part of the actual problem as it now is manifest. This is such an important point, because if it was a more accurate ad, the sticky note wouldn't have said dirty Jew, it would have said stop the genocide. Right. Or it would have said, you know, there weren't enough of you in the camps, or go into an oven. I would have said child murderer. Or it would have said you should do an oven. They go to the APAC executive's house and they throw red paint and baby dolls. You're a child murderer. This is what Jews have had to deal with. You can call it whatever you want, but this whole like the blood of non-Jewish children has been at the center of this whole thing. And you could, yes, Christine's right. You could have taken a moment to even just have an accurate insult on the card and the jews watching would have gone yes that i see every day okay let's go back to the explanation uh by uh the um blue square alliance against hate and what they what they learned from their focus groups according to the adl on the 5th and 6th of February, okay? They found, remember, this is last week. This is the 9th of February that we're talking. So the 5th and 6th was Thursday and Friday, okay? They found a group that saw the anti-Semitism ad, said they were notably more likely to, quote, think anti-Semitism is a serious problem, interrupt friends or family who make anti-Semitic comments, and feel more motivated to fight anti-Semitism. How do they know that? They asked this question on Thursday and Friday. Is there any evidence that they, what was the question? Will you interrupt your friends and family when they say something anti-Semitic? Yes. Yes, I will. I will interrupt my friends and family when they say something anti-Semitic. What kind of horseshit is that? I'm sorry to keep saying horseshit and bullshit but like my head is coming off that is not real that is garbage nonsense research where you are asking phrasing a question what are people supposed to say no i'm not going to interrupt my friends and family when they say something anti-semitic in front of me who wouldn't say no they because they followed that they followed them around with those creepy ring dog cameras that that scan okay you're now making it yes reference to one of the weirdest weirdest ad on the super bowl thank you okay let's we'll interrupt this for a second so ring cameras is like if you lose your dog you know we do we use the image of the dog and then we look for your dog through our ring camera all over your neighborhood and find it the way we'll find you if you violate the homeowner association rule on where to put the garbage this is your everybody who i know on my block who has a ring camera went and reread their terms and conditions they're like wait they can search through our cameras without us agreeing i'm like oh you agreed you agreed i mean the advertising on this on this super bowl was so aldous huxley terrifying that I can't, you know, the, there were 70, you know, every year there's some industry, new industry that like spends a hundred million dollars on Superbowl ads and then disappears the next year. There was a lot of crypto advertising a couple of years ago, you know, so that people then I assume bought a lot of crypto and just had their shirts, like lost their shirts last week in the crypto crash. But so this week, this, this time it was advertising about AI and what AI can do for you. And it was, I wouldn't say that what it did was make me a lot more comfortable with AI. Maybe I come at this with already inherent bias against, but if that's what the AI people think- No, if we've already skipped ahead to dog facial recognition, then we've skipped a step that I was afraid of was coming. That's not even the AI stuff was like, don't worry. Our AI isn't going to feed you to a cougar prostitution website because we won't have ads. The other AIs that you've also never heard of, they're going to have ads. And when you ask a question, they're going to send you to a website with a 60-year-old prostitute. And I'm like, what? so i'm supposed to go to you in order to prevent this thing ageism is a real problem in our society you should not mock it okay i'm not saying it's not anyway but just so just to close the circle on the blue square initiative here's what they want they want allyship they want uh they want the world to understand that jews are feeble incapable of self-defense, don't know how to stand up for themselves, and need somebody else who's taller and better looking and more socially acceptable to serve as their blocking tackle. don't, now I'm glad that it's called the Blue Square Initiative Against Hate, because I don't want the word Jew anywhere near this. And I don't want these people speaking for me or my people. And I don't want them to have any idea. I don't care what focus groups they do and what nonsense they peddle in these focus groups, which as I say, are incredibly twistable, like any push-pull, they are peddling an agenda that is an effort to strengthen the Jewish left's idea that what we need to do is go into alliance with other left-wing activists. And therefore, what we're going to end up doing is not talking about Israel, not talking about anti-Semitism, but talking about allyship. And Adam Katz, the head of the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, was appointed last year. And the announcement of his appointment tells me that what he is, is a classic corporate TED Talk, you know, goes on a lot of committees where they discuss what proper good HR rules should be type of person. Because he was at Wayfair before he did this, so he isn't like actually, he was at Wayfair, which of course makes crappy furniture. I'm sitting at a Wayfair desk right now, so I'm allowed to say this because I bought a Wayfair desk. And then before that, he was at the Boston Consulting Group. And then before that, he was the manager of football administration for the Philadelphia Eagles, where he helped manage the franchise's salary cap and player contracts. He has an MBA from the Wharton school. So is this a person? I believe no problem is unsolvable, not even hate. But solving the world's oldest hatred and achieving meaningful social impact requires more than good intentions. It requires a modern data-driven approach. With my broad experience in the private sector, I understand how to maximize resources, measure outcomes, and scale solutions effectively. In the nonprofit world, these business fundamentals aren't just helpful, they're essential for transforming our mission into sustainable action that encourages and empowers Americans to stand up to hate in ways large and small. We don't care about standing up to hate. This is not about standing up to hate. It's about standing up to people who want to destroy the Jewish community, to sideline us, to marginalize us, and to destroy Israel. Hate is not the enemy hate is a human emotion and this guy is full of shit and this organization is full of shit and anybody who gives it money should immediately send the money somewhere else because this is a disgrace and it's it hurts more than it helps and the fact that they peddle this this social science nonsense research that is totally corrupted is you know i mean some people fall for it. People fall for this kind of thing every time. But the problem is not hate. The problem is hatred of Jews. It's specific. It's very specific. And you know what's unsolvable? Hate. You know what is not unsolvable? The security of the Jewish people in the United States and Israel. Because the security in the United States involves the enforcement of laws and the aggressive effort to aggressively stand up against actions against Jews that are harmful. Not to wait for somebody to come help. And the way – Can I just say – I mean that was – that is the point and just we should spell it out, which is people going, what do you want? What do we want? The point of combating hate or anything like that is that the targets should just be able to live their lives normally. Nobody's actually asking for. So when you brought up before with the debate in the community, should Jews be armed? Why is there a debate about Jews being armed? not because Jews want to go out and put on a sheriff vest and strut around with a handgun, but because they want to counteract and counterbalance the thing that's making it less safe for them to go around. In other words, you add something that puts you back at zero, at the normal. We're normal citizens. So if we need to carry a gun to feel safe, fine, but we're carrying the gun to feel safe, not because, you know, we're going, you know, to shoot fish in a barrel. And the same thing is true with the civil rights stuff. How have we, you know, was, is the, is the, is the black square on Instagram, what got, you know, the civil rights act passed or whatever is that, you know, is that like, is that what broke down the, the, the schoolhouse door that was being blocked by race? Is that what integrated busing is that it's not, it's not a picture of something. The government has laws that you can't violate people's civil rights. So apply those rights to everybody. That's literally all it is. And part of, and that, again, it gets us back to zero. It's normal. Nobody's asking for anything special. What we want is to be able to go to school, whether it's a public school or our own private school, whatever it is, our Jewish school, and have the same experience as everybody else, not a sort of elevated sense of, you know, protectiveness, but just totally normal. And the civil rights laws were made to make things totally normal. You, a young black child could go to school here, or you could go to school here and nobody was allowed to throw you out of the building for it. And, you know, all this other stuff, you, That's the essence of all this. And one of the reasons that certain parts of the Jewish community are uneasy about this is because they aren't easy about Trump and they don't like being on Trump's quote unquote side. and they don't like being associated with the bad press of, you know, the person who got deported for writing an op ed alongside the person who really needed to get deported, which was Mahmoud Khalil, you know, and all this stuff, the casting a wide net and all this, the fight with the with the universities, all that stuff. But it all comes down to either you believe in federal enforcement of the rules on the books, or you don't. And if you believe in the enforcement, you believe in them for everyone, or you believe in them for no one. You can take a libertarian approach and say, you know, I'm Rand Paul, and I don't really like the Civil Rights Act. Actually, I've had misgivings about it, and here's why. But otherwise, everything is about bringing things back to an equal playing field it is not about uh some kind of um you know uh some kind of of of war at which different groups are battling for the upper hand and the jews have it now and that stuff nobody would ever accuse me of being a fashion plate but i do know because I am almost 65 years old, that a well-built wardrobe is about pieces that work together and hold up over time. And that, I can tell you from personal experience, is what Quince does best. Premium materials, thoughtful design, and everyday staples that feel easy to wear and easy to rely on, even as the weather shifts. During this cold snap, for example, I put on a nice thick Quince sweater. I put on my puffer jacket, which I can wear when it's 50, or I can wear when it's zero degrees and feel the same level of comfort. Quince works directly with top factories, cuts out the middleman so you're not paying for brand markup, just quality clothing. Everything is built to hold up to daily wear and still look good season after season. So look, refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q U I N C E.com slash commentary, free shipping and 365 day returns, quince.com slash commentary. Let me just amend this a little bit because, okay, you're saying a level playing field or like getting back to zero if there ever was a zero, but let's say there was basically a month, You know, we're like, that's what the shift was after October 7th, was suddenly this atmosphere in the United States that was unlike any atmosphere that I've felt in my 64 years. Fine. Okay. Jewish self-defense is about deterrence. in order to get back to zero there have to be two things one of which is this you know this the fact that these attitudes like whatever the this this population of anti-sumites crawled out from under a rock from either where they've been hiding or or they've been brainwashed over 20 years or something like that so what do you do with that well you you can try to change that which is the let's fight the hate and we'll teach people to feel better about Jews. How likely is that to happen really I don know But that where Jewish self stuff comes in If you deter not only organizations but people if the idea is Jews make up a very small amount number of the population of the United States, but they are not going to put up with being treated this way. So we have what resources we have to hand. We have a lot of lawyers, and we can sue people who do X, Y, and Z, and we can, you know, we have the federal government, which is right now congruent, has a congruent opinion to our opinion that it is not right to treat kids on campus this way. So we're going to, you know, encourage them and work with them to enforce these civil rights laws. And it gets down to this question of honest, on the, at the street level, do people want to think twice about going and punching a guy with a kippah in the back of his head because he might have a gun, which is what the idea of the Second Amendment is about in many ways. Concealed carry laws, which are data to suggest that they have that they have lowered crime rates in various places. Don't you think that Haredi that you're walking behind is like an easy target? Don't think he's an easy target. You have no idea whether he's an easy target or not because he might be. He might be a neurasthenic yeshiva bachar who does nothing but study all day. Or he might have a gun. So you know what you do? Don't punch him in the back of the head. That would have been a good commercial. thank you the yeshiva student with the gun yeah i'm just saying deterrence if hate is the problem and you call a new square not blue square i just did a rim shot i don't want to that okay that was the best joke yeah okay can i want to stand up um actually it's not to hate but um maybe it is because i want to get we started this conversation on our text chain, and then we had to break it off to come here and record, which is the Super Bowl halftime show, because I'm very conflicted about this particular halftime show. And as grateful as I am not to see a woman my age spinning around a stripper pole this year, and I'm learning Spanish. So I was kind of happy to see what words I could pick up from Bad Bunny's act. I also realized that our country has become with the Super Bowl halftime show way too polarized. I mean, look, if I was the designer of the show, I would just have Fugazi reunite and do an entire set, and half the country would hate that, too. But what I really dislike is that now there's this alternative. 90% of the country would hate that. Okay, well, they're just wrong. But there's now this alternative Super Bowl show, which is like the respondent to the State of the Union address, where it's become totally politicized. And good on Kid Rock for getting up there and trying to rally the crowd. But I hate that it's become so divisive. And I guess that's why I either bring back the marching bands and the variety show type thing they used to do. But I don't know. Maybe you guys loved it. It was just it became instantly political the moment he started singing. I think Bad Bunny might have turned around the midterms for the Republicans. OK, so you're on the didn't like the show. I would disagree with that. It's like I thought it was fantastic. And you want to know why I thought it was fantastic? I sort of know. I know Spanish a little bit. I couldn't make out any of it. So I assume that even Spanish speakers can't necessarily make out a lot of it. I just thought it's the first time they made a halftime show that was actually created for the audience at home. they didn't care about the stadium the whole thing is taking place in this cornfield down on i'm sure no one who was actually in in levi's stadium in san francisco cane i think i think it's sugar cane i'm sorry sugar cane anyway but it was like it was like no one could have seen anything because it was all done to a handheld you know aimed at a close-up handheld camera as he walk through the sugarcane maze and there were various, you know, bodegas and Paragua ice stands and stuff like that. And I loved it. And my thing is you are hearkening back to an age that does not exist because what made the Super Bowl halftime show a legend? Do you remember? Like it was nothing. And then they started having slightly like then they decided to have U2 do a show in tribute to uh 9-11 that was before that it was like there was like a motown medley and there was this and there was that so what was the thing that made the super time show super bowl show like a legend it was the wardrobe malfunction it was when justin timberlake tore off jennifer lopez's outfit and her nipple was exposed jenna jackson jenna jackson excuse me not jennifer lopez okay so that was 23 years ago so uh it's never it's it's it's always been a subject of social controversy as has the super bowl because remember how dirty the ads used to be remember the ads were like nearly porn for years like the way they would sell these ads was they were sort of nearly pornographic as they knew the audience was like 80 male and stuff like that um so uh whether whether it was excessively political maybe another question uh i mean but um it was better than kendrick lamar i'm saying it was better than kendrick lamar show last year uh but abe didn't like it so abe abe didn't like it i loved it seth well can you say something I agree that it was an unbelievable undertaking. Like, you know, it was, you know, incredible feat. It just did nothing for her. I'm not mad about it either. It just did nothing for her. Okay. But no, but you said it was, you made the joke that it's going to win the Republicans in the midterms. Oh, because I think other people are mad about it. Yeah. I don't think anybody who is mad about it hasn't already, isn't already aligned with voting for the Republicans in the midterms. And the polling suggests that there aren't enough of them yet. But Eliana, what did you think? I was really much more focused on, you know, the people I was with and the food I was eating. And I don't feel that strongly one way or the other. I will say my mom's from Peru. I speak Spanish. But my general feeling about this was, is it really too much for these people to put on a halftime show in English? Like that annoyed me. And and then to have I understand Puerto Rico is technically part of America. I get that. I'm not hostile to Puerto Ricans, but like wave an American flag. And then to mention America, the Americas and and like America is just one of all these other countries and Peru and Chile and Ecuador and America. and no the Super Bowl is like a big event in the United States of America which is the greatest country in the world and I thought that was like a tacit political statement that was intended to annoy people like me and it succeeded okay fair enough bothered me by the way I noted because of course the Olympics started right on Friday night and they had the Olympic ceremony and I gathered this aside never noticed this before but they did the parade of the athletes of all the nations yes and puerto rico has its own olympic team that is separate from the united states olympic team they only have one athlete or two or something like that but every puerto rico was its own march by itself um so it is part of the united states or it's not part of the united i mean that's their own flag well every state had its own flag yeah i'm just saying apparently they've had a basketball team for for there's a puerto rican basketball team that has played in the olympics before but i mean i was struck by that because of this whole conversation where i also very present well it's part of america so you can pay tribute to puerto rico and all that it's fine with me but they have their own olympic team that's i was always more surprised i was always more surprised that canada has its own team yeah but we beat them in curling does greenland have a team separate from denmark that's what i want to know because you know when we take over greenland they are not going to have their own olympic team that is going to be you know and whatever nook turns into Trumpville, you know, it's, they're going to, they're going to be carrying the Trump flag. That's, that's all I can, that's all I can say. All right. So we have, I should say I was equally just as much as the performance itself annoyed me. Everybody who loved it so much annoyed me just as much. Starting from a place of total indifference. I just thought it was great. It was so amazing. You shouldn't care that the guy doesn't speak English and did his thing in Spanish. And it's so wonderful. And that bothered me just as much as everything else. I just thought it was fun. At least he ended with a message as bland and useless as the one that the anti-hate campaign. It's like it's all about love. We're all Americans together. We're all Americans together. Total crap. Yeah. Well, there was one there was one test of there was one real test during the show of who was who loved it and who was virtue signaling. And that was at the at one point in the show, he hands his Grammy to a small child. And there was a there were several large accounts on Twitter who spread the idea that the kid who was handed the Grammy during the show was the kid who was in the famous arrested photo last week or the week before who was separated from his parent and was seen sort of being hustled into almost like perp walked or whatever, you know, into a car. And it turned out that wasn't the real story, whatever. But there was just like this, oh, look, can you believe that? What a stroke of genius he gave it to that boy. And apparently the boy was nowhere near California. No, it wasn't that kid. Last night. So I just thought it was funny that like the people who were really into the political symbolism of it all were like, oh, look, there's a Hispanic kid. It must be the one Hispanic kid whose name I know who was in an ice truck two weeks ago or something. That's how you could tell the difference between people who were watching it for like, this is enjoyable no matter what language it's in or I don't like the music. And the people who were looking, who were like putting it under, you know, a microscope to find something that they could consider some sort of political or ideological triumph. And anybody looking that closely at the thing was doing it wrong to begin with. I didn't actually have strong feelings about the show either way. And that made me feel weird because everybody in my timeline seemed to think one way or the other. But. OK, I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. I liked the camera work. I liked Lady Gaga doing the Bruno Mars song, which was sort of interesting in the middle. There was a moment where there was English when Lady Gaga was singing a Bruno Mars song. And then Ricky Martin looks really good, by the way. He's like 55. He looked fantastic. That was AI, too. Probably. No, Ricky Martin really does look good. Another thing to point out about the ads. So there were these various AI ads that featured de-aging. There was one that got people from Jurassic Park. And then there was one with Ben Affleck. The Dunkin' Donuts ad, yeah. Matt LeBlanc. It was very bizarre. It sort of mixed friends and goodwill hunting together. It made no sense. And Fresh Prince. Fresh Prince. But the de-aging was horrible. It was like the war – it was like talk about not selling a product well. It was like let's show you the uncanny valley that will mean that you will never actually want to use AI. here's us trying to make ben affleck look like he's 25 years old again yeesh or like sam neil from jurassic park who really that that's that's what i was gonna say the dh sam neil was uh more terrifying than anything in the original jurassic park movie yeah it was just awful Okay. Recommendation before we go. Movie out, second weekend, send help. It is a revenge action. It takes a lot of stuff and throws it into a blender. uh rachel mcadams and a young actor named dylan o'brien that probably most of us haven't heard of end up basically on a deserted island together because they're in a plane crash so it's like cast away and swept away and overboard and 10 other different movies uh so it's a survival thriller but mostly it's a story about what happens when a toxic boss ends up on a desert island with the employee that he has ritually humiliated. And it turns out that she is far more able as a person on a deserted desert island with no help coming than he is. And she has every reason to make life as difficult as possible for him. And it goes in all kinds of wildly unexpected directions. It is really funny. It is a black comedy, really. It's also quite thrilling, and it's got some real violence in it. But it is great. It's like the first genuinely, like, wildly enjoyable movie that I've seen in a long time. And so I really heart... And Rachel McAdams is dazzling, and this guy Dylan O'Brien is dazzling. And so I heartily recommend send help at your movie theater right now. So we'll be back tomorrow. And I'll curse less. I hope. So for Eliana, Abe, Christine, and Seth, I'm John Podhoretz. Keep the candle burning. Thank you.