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Hey, everyone. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bull Work, and I'm joined by Rachel Genfaza, who is our newest contributor. And for the purposes of this take, her inaugural take, we're going to be calling her our Gen-Z whisper. She is an expert on how that young community is thinking. I'm not a member of it, although I might look like it to everyone else here. She is, so she can tell us what's going on. Rachel, thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Sam, for having me. I'm happy to be here chatting with you. All right. Well, this is to the people who are watching this, a little sort of preamble before we get into this. This is one of those discussions that is both deeply important and potentially uncomfortable for a lot of folks, because we are going to be diving into both polling data and focus group data that we conducted that looks at how young people are responding to and reacting to the state of Israel, to Jewish identity, to pluralism at large, and why, I suppose, many people in this cohort are comfortable engaging in what people would have otherwise considered bigotry or antisemitism or just harsh attitudes towards people who are not like them. Some of the stuff is very real and some of the stuff is difficult to talk about. If Rachel or I misstate something or state something that comes across maybe insensitively, don't blame us. We're doing our best. We're trying to have an honest conversation about a poor matter. Let's start with this. The prompt for this was this NBC poll that came out fairly recently. The dates of the poll are February 27th to March 3rd, and it looked at attitudes towards Israel. Lo and behold, young voters, their views on Israel have turned sharply, aggressively negative. If you are between the ages of 18 and 34, your positive view towards Israel according to this NBC poll is just 13%. In 2023, that number was 26%. Your negative view towards Israel now is 63%. In 2023, that was 37%. The numbers are better as you get to older demographics, but frankly, in the 35 to 49 demo, it's not that great. It's 20% positive, 43% negative. It's really in the older demo where it gets more even. That's the top line data. Then we did a listening session on antisemitism and attitudes towards hate and safety. A few things we're going to pull out, but I'll just say it's a small group. It's only five participants, but it's four of what Rachel's calls her ambassadors. Rachel, you can explain what that means. One community member. Some of the things that they said were really, I don't know, a nerving, I suppose, for me. Rachel, why don't I leave it to you to speak in generalities about what you discovered through this session? Yeah. Thank you, Sam, for that introduction because I agree. I think these topics are incredibly sensitive and they were for the participants in this listening session that I held last night. At the up and up, which is the Gen Z community and research firm that I have, we have ambassadors who help us in terms of recruitment for listening sessions and getting the pulse of how people are feeling in their communities, whether they're on campuses or they're in cities or communities across the country. After the attack in Michigan at the synagogue there last week, I felt like it was time to talk to our community. Again, we've had conversations like these over the past few years about how they're feeling about a rise of antisemitism in their communities and also just about hate, bigotry, and their own safety in the US more broadly. Last night in this listening session, I heard from current students who were on campuses across the country that, yes, these topics are very pronounced for them on their campuses, that they definitely see a rise of antisemitism in their communities. There were members on the call who are Jewish and others who are not. The ones who are Jewish said that they have felt ups and downs when it comes to antisemitism and its prevalence since October 7th. For the ones who are not Jewish, they said that they've seen this with their friends, too. The biggest theme overall was just that the anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism have been totally conflated. The high-level quote that I felt was just the most both shocking but also telling was from a 22-year-old who's at Georgetown who said that it's now considered just a base take, and we can talk about what that means in a second, but a base take to be anti-Israel and therefore to then be anti-Jew. I think we look at a poll like that NBC poll and this is pervasive and it's felt by students. I think that's really important to talk about because, yes, we've talked a lot about campuses and students and the way that the Israel-Palestine situation has played out on their campuses since October 7th, but I think now again with the Iran War, this is just only becoming more of a prominent conversation on campus. What struck me about that in the base take is basically like you kind of signaled to your peers that it's like you're a free thinker basically if you say anti-Semitic stuff or say insulting stuff about minorities or something like that. But what struck me about some of these responses is that they believe they're in a climate more or less where they have been liberated. I mean, this is just me channeling what they're saying, where they have been liberated or it's signaled to them that they can just act this way, that you are one of them called it the death of others, but others were talking about how using dehumanizing language now seems like it's utterly tolerable. One of them was talking about how the election of Trump after Barack Obama meant that you could have a backlash against PC culture and it was fine and acceptable and if not encouraged. And I guess it raises this kind of depressing secondary question, which is, was this stuff always in us? And we just kind of held it back because social norms said you can't say that it's awful, it's wrong, you'll be in trouble. Or are we getting signals from authority figures that in fact you should say this because it's a way to signify that you are edgy and based, maybe both. I think both of those are a little bit true. I think that first I've read a lot about this idea of the two Gen Z's and that our generation was split down the middle based on how it would be at the time of the pandemic, but also different technologies that shaped your upbringing, whether it was Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok or YouTube or whatever. But there's a difference in how Gen Z 1.0 acts and how Gen Z 2.0 acts. And part of that was the sort of counterculture during their adolescent time growing up, going through puberty, all of that when you're really forming your political beliefs and also your sense of individuality. And so for Gen Z 1.0, that's what I'm a part of, we were considered to be so progressive to be leading the charge on social movements, whether it was the March for Our Lives or Black Lives Matter or climate strikes or reproductive healthcare access, all of it. And then Gen Z 2.0, I think, and this came up last night in our conversation, looked at that activism and said, where did that get us? Like that didn't really change anything. And so they kind of have swung. I don't want to say that Gen Z 2.0 is all to the right because I think that was a big talking point around the time of the 2024 election. And it is a part of why young people did swing towards Trump in 2024, but it was kind of that countercultural swing and not so much that all of a sudden they're all MAGA or Republicans. But the reason why I bring this up is because I think that Gen Z 1.0 was peak woke and Gen Z 2.0 rejects that. And so just to be clear, on this call last night, in the listening session, the students weren't a fan of the way that this was going. They don't believe that any of this is right, but they do see a normalization amongst their peers of some of this outspoken, more bigotry. Like they said that the R word is being thrown around in a way that it never would have been 10 years ago, and they recognize that. Sure. Well, and well, first of all, that gives me a little bit of hope that there's a backlash to the backlash coming. But secondarily, I mean, it makes sense that they see it and they respond to it because the biggest voices are the ones who are pushing it. Right. I mean, so we talked about Trump a little bit and he obviously is anti-woken. He's said incredibly racist and hurtful things around minorities. But then you look at Candace Owens, who has this immense audience and she is spouting anti-Semitic bile day in and day out. And yeah, I mean, when you have that type of audience and you're reaching that type of cohort, people are going to pick up on that. I think she came up in one of these conversations that you're having. Yes, she did. I mean, people are well aware of where this is coming from. I think also, you know, they pointed to the fact that there are prominent figures like Candace Owens who are spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric, but they also talked about the way that it's not just Jews who are being targeted right now or who are being talked about in this awful, hateful way, but that there's anti-immigrant rhetoric and there's rhetoric against trans people and other minorities. And I think it just feels like kind of this tipping point where it is very much in the cultural norm right now to be able to be outspoken where you are, you know, like I said, bigoted in any of these ways. And it kind of feels like it is either going to get worse or it has to get better, but it's not like you can't stay at this cadence that it's at right now. I think that's what I mean by a tipping point. And they feel this. And I think they talked about, too, the fact that they see it very much coming from the top down and the result that that has. And also, if you think about it, and I feel like I make this point over and over again, but if you're in Gen Z, you've literally only known a political ecosystem dominated by President Trump. And so this type of language and rhetoric has been the norm for the entire time that they've existed in politics in their life. It's hard to sort of overstate how important that is to have that as kind of your anchor on which you look, you view political rhetoric. But the other, I mean, there's been other obviously seminal moments for this generation. And then we'll get to another one in a second. But the one I want to talk to right now is obviously October 7th, because what happened on college campuses after October 7th, we're dealing with the ripple effects today. Obviously, each campus was different. And I don't want to say everyone's experience was the same. But, you know, it was clearly for Jewish students on campuses, difficult. And you talk to one of them here who literally felt for the first time in their lives a sense of discomfort because they had a very recognizable Jewish surname. Explain that. Yeah. So there were actually two young women in this session last night who talked about feeling a certain way because of their last name and worrying about being perceived basically because they come across as Jewish, not necessarily by the way they look, but by what their last name is and if someone knew what their last name was. And so we had one student who told me that she for the first time really after October 7th had to think twice about wearing her Judaica. And this was a conversation that she was having with her friends. This is something I've heard plenty of, you know, and even experienced this myself since October 7th. And then there was another student who said that she very openly outwardly disagrees with the actions of the state of Israel, but that she worries that she will be perceived a certain way by her peers because she's Jewish and the way that there is that conflation of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. And I found that there was a lot of nuance in the way that these young people that we spoke to last night talked about their relationship, both, you know, when it comes to they might disagree with actions taken by the government of Israel. This one young woman in particular is very critical. Of the government, but yet still understands that it is very dangerous to blame Jews for the actions of the state of Israel. And and that's been something that Jewish students in particular have had to grapple with regardless of where they stand on the spectrum of how they feel about the actions that the Israeli government has taken. Right. You have two sort of countervailing trends here. One is incredible antipathy, if not outright anger towards the state of Israel. You saw it in the NBC poll. I mean, those numbers, they're like shocking in terms of how bad young people view the state of Israel. And, you know, this is obviously the poll was done right around the start of the war. But, you know, you have to imagine those numbers are even worse now. And then, secondarily, you have a real sense of concern among Jewish students on college campuses, including among Jewish students who, as you know, don't necessarily agree with the actions of the state of Israel. And these two things are getting conflated in which these Jewish students are being targeted for acts of the Israeli government. That's what we saw with the Michigan synagogue as well. The last thing I want to talk about, though, which in a way, I mean, all the stuff is pretty chilling, but in a way, this kind of actually affected me the most was how this generation has basically become desensitized to both the rhetoric, but also acts of violence. These, these, how old were these kids when Parkland happened? They were all in middle school. So we talked about that specifically. They, because we've been talking about gun violence and they were all in middle school. Yeah. And just expand on that. I mean, some of them were just sort of like, yeah, you know, I'm not really moved by hate rhetoric and acts of violence because I live it every day. Yeah, it's very numbing. There's been a numbing effect because of how common this has become. And also because there has been no action taken. So, you know, think about it. If you were in middle school during the time of Parkland and even before that was Sandy Hook and they, you've grown up in an environment where you're doing active shooter drills where that's just literally the norm. And yet you're not seeing any government action when it comes to gun safety. And someone in the conversation last night also brought up the fact that this is very obviously not, even though that this, you know, gun safety has been championed by the left, gun violence is something that has very prominently affected Republicans. In fact, President Trump was shot and Charlie Kirk was assassinated. And so they, they talked about the fact that like this clearly shouldn't be a partisan issue because it's affecting people on both sides. And yet it obviously is. There's been no action. And the fact that there's been no action, it keeps happening over and over again. And they're witnessing on they, I talked about this a lot actually after Charlie Kirk was killed because everyone watched that video in real time. And you could be scrolling and you could be watching a meme about something completely unrelated. You could be watching something from pop culture. You could be watching a sports highlight reel. And then all of a sudden you see a video of someone being shot and killed. And then you scroll past and the next thing pops up on your feed. And so for young people who have seen these, this play out time and time and again, and also they're watching war play out time and time and again. And then just scrolling past it, it's, it's very numbing. And the young people on the call last night, we had one student who said that she sees a lot of friends who decide they're just going to be apolitical because they can't take it anymore and they want to tune out. And I think that's really dangerous. And because, you know, if all of a sudden young people feel like this, it's not all of a sudden this has been obviously going on for a while. But if they feel like it's too much that they don't want to even partake in the political process anymore, because there's just no point, that is not where you're not having a representative democracy at that point. Might lot to read a quote or is that for a forbidden here? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm going to read one of the quotes because this is the one that really stopped me. It said, when I hear about kids dying, yes, it's sad. But for a lot of these things, like I think it's sad, but then I kind of move on because if I got heartbroken over every single thing that happened, I wouldn't be able to live, right? This is a 19 year old. Uh, I mean, that's just, that shakes me a little bit. And I'll just add to your point. You scroll and you see the gun violence and then you scroll and you keep seeing the war and then you scroll and you see Candace Owen say Israel's responsible for all of this, right? And then it's like at the certain point, it becomes kind of an uncontrollable fountain of, you know, horrible imagery and conspiratorial thinking. And I don't see how you break through that. I mean, I'm not trying to blame it all on the algorithms, but I think a lot of it has to do with the algorithms and what, what, what, what we're being fed on a day-to-day basis. Yeah. And it's just not just the algorithms. You know, we had a young woman last night who made the point that not only do you have people like Candace Owens who are saying that, but then you actually have the current administration saying that they got into this war because of Israel. And so it kind of justifies these conspiracies and justifies the fact that, you know, that there, there is this belief that Israel is just, I mean, that America is just doing Israel's bidding. And that doesn't help. That doesn't help Jews who are facing this on campuses. That was directly what they told us last night, that they feel like that only conflates the issue even more when the U.S. is, is, you know, saying they're doing this simply to protect this ally and not because of any interests of our own. And let me be clear. I mean, I don't think that all that explains why young voters are turning on Israel, right? Like is the Israeli government has made proactive decisions around what happened in Gaza and certainly what's happening in Iran that have caused people to recoil at the state of Israel. What I do think is obviously problematic is when people equate Jews everywhere with the state of Israel and take them on with anti-Semitic acts or rhetoric, because that's the definition from anti-Semitism is conflating all Jews with Israel. This is a really important study. I guess you can call it study. What do you call it? It's a focus group. It's it's important reporting. It's a listening session. I appreciate it. And for those who listen to this, we appreciate your, your viewership and your understanding of how sensitive this conversation is. Like I said at the top, you know, these are difficult topics to talk about. And oftentimes there are ones that elicit some of the most sharp responses and commentary, and we appreciate that. You should be engaging with us and we like hearing from you. We hope that you appreciate that we tried to deal with this with the sensitivity that it deserves. Rachel, thanks so much. It's such it's so great having you as a contributor here. I'm looking forward to the next listening session. Hopefully it can be a little bit more uplifting than this one. We can do good content too. Optimist content as well as negative ones. Okay. I appreciate that. Let's try to get one on the books. That's a little bit more uplifting than this. For those who are watching, thank you for subscribing. Thank you to the Bull Work. Appreciate that as well. We'll talk to you soon.
