Wewill meet again on Tuesday, December 17, at7:30 via Zoom, to discuss the nonfictionbook, Uncomfortable Conversationswith a Jew by Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby. Thebook is 292 pages and was published in April 2024. The book is available through Link+: https://csul.iii.com/search?/XUncomfortable+Conversations+with+a+Jew+&SORT=D/XUncomfortable+Conversations+with+a+Jew+&SORT=D&SUBKEY=Uncomfortable+Conversations+with+a+Jew+/1%2C3%2C3%2CB/frameset&FF=XUncomfortable+Conversations+with+a+Jew+&SORT=D&1%2C1%2C
From two New York Times bestselling authors, atimely, disarmingly honest, and thought-provoking investigation intoantisemitism that connects the dots between the tropes and hatred of the pastto our current complicated moment.
For Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby no question about Jews is off-limits.They go there. They cover Jews and money. Jews and power. Jewsand privilege. Jews and white privilege. The Black and Jewish struggle.Emmanuel asks, Did Jews kill Jesus? To which Noa responds, “Why are Jewishpeople history’s favorite scapegoat?” They unpack Judaism itself: Is it areligion, culture, a peoplehood, or a race? And: Are you antisemitic if you’reanti-Zionist?
The questions—and answers—might make you squirm, but together, they explain thetropes, stereotypes, and catalysts of antisemitism in America today.
The topics are complicated and Acho and Tishby bring vastly differentperspectives. Tishby is an outspoken Israeli American. Acho is a mild-manneredson of a Nigerian American pastor. But they share a superpower: an uncannyability to make complicated ideas easy to understand so anyone can follow thestraight line from the past to our immediate moment—and then see aroundcorners. Acho and Tishby are united by the core belief that hatred toward onegroup is never isolated: if you see the smoke of bigotry in one place, expectthat we will all be in the fire.
Informative and accessible, Uncomfortable Conversations with aJew has a unique structure: Acho asks questions and Tishby answersthem with deeply personal, historical, and political responses. This book willenable anyone to explain—and identify—what Jewish hatred looks like. It is amuch-needed lexicon for this fraught moment in Jewish history. As Acho says,“Proximity breeds care and distance breeds fear.“
