In Celebration of Noa Tishby, an Inspiring Israeli Warrior-Artist Fighting Antisemitism
I enjoyed interviewing Israel's special envoy so much for two articles that I decided to pick up her book!
Click here to check out the first 30 Installments - Volume I - in this series on Antisemitism and Culture. The top 5 most important pieces from this first wave:
What It Means When the Leader of the Republican Party Dines With THREE Antisemites
7 Reasons This Christian Hippie Became a Zealot Against Jew Hatred
This is the 19th installment in Volume II, intended as another 30 pieces exploring the many manifestations of Jew Hatred and the issues surrounding it in America and globally. See the 18 previous installments listed at the end of this article.
These writings are part of my ongoing effort to overcome my PTSD by forcing myself to try to write and publish something every day commenting on and analyzing current cultural affairs and their impacts on politics, faith, and, well, everything. “Politics is downstream from culture,” the late Andrew Breitbart popularized among conservative bloggers while he was alive. I’d go a step further: Everything is downstream from culture. The cultures you embrace determine who you are and who you become. You become what you worship.
Well it’s been nearly a month since my last installment in my “Antisemitism and Culture” series here at GOTD books, previously I was calling out “amoral racism-apologist, antisemitism-enabler, and man-child” Elon Musk for his defense of racism and allowing it to proliferate on his platform, prompting a boycott of Twitter from me. And my excuses for this delay I think are fairly decent and understandable: my antisemitism writings have largely shifted at the moment to the freelance journalistic articles and brief writings for Jewish News Syndicate, the delightful freelance writing gig I’ve been working since December.
And my PTSD has been striking back with a vengeance in the evening, slowing down the pace that I wish I could be moving at every day on my writing and editing.
(I also have to give a shout-out. Partially why I haven’t felt so desperate to pump out the posts myself has been because our associate editor and art director
has been kicking so much ass with his regular contributions. We've also had several phenomenal new contributors more than picking up the slack this month, including writing on video games, starting with an autobiographical series, on technology, writing on music in film, has really been picking up the pace and I invite others to subscribe to his new solo Substack he's going to do focusing on pro-life themes from his serious Catholic perspective . has also upped his contributions level with several music pieces and recent writings on the brillian Camille Paglia. has also stepped up to the plate with some strong posts and Francis Blaise Gillis had a tremendous poem which turned out to be espeically popular.)Two of my recent JNS articles which I’m most proud of focused on Noa Tishby, a tremendously effective actor-turned-activist. First, I wrote about a speaking engagement she did at Duke University. Here’s an excerpt from the beginning.
Noa Tishby, Israel’s inaugural special envoy for combating antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel, is not known for holding punches. Her talk on Feb. 21 at Duke University in Durham, N.C., was no exception.
When moderator David Schanzer, a public-policy professor at Duke, called Tishby’s 2021 book, Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth a “wonderful read,” Tishby had another view. Her volume is “a history book with some F-bombs in it,” she said.
At another point in the talk, Tishby—an actress whose credits include “Star Trek: Enterprise,” “Charmed” and “NCIS”—told the nearly 200 assembled students: “If you try to tell me that Israel does not have the right to exist, if you try to slander what Zionism is—excuse me, you’re wrong. You’re an idiot.”
The event was co-sponsored by Duke’s Center for Jewish Studies and Freeman Center for Jewish Life, the Israel on Campus Coalition, Students Supporting Israel and Chabad at Duke. One of the organizers, Duke sophomore and public-policy major Alex Ahdoot, described Tishby as “an absolute superstar.”
To see how normalized anti-Israel sentiments have become, Tishby told those assembled that one need only look to Wikipedia. Israel is the only country to have a page questioning its legitimacy. Not even North Korea has that, she said.
In conversation with activists on campus, who support the BDS movement, Tishby advised students to ask which other countries they want to dismantle. “It’s just one country, and that country just happens to be Jewish,” she said.
To Schanzer, the moderator, Tishby explained that she titled her book a “simple” guide because supporting Israel isn’t complicated.
“The Jewish people deserve the right to self-determination, self-governance in some parts of their ancestral home,” she said. “That’s it. That’s as simple as it gets.”
Please click here to read the rest.
After that article I got a chance to have an exclusive interview with Tishby, talking with her over two days. Here’s the piece, titled “A day in the life of Noa Tishby,” published on March 14:
Almost a year into her role as Israel’s inaugural special envoy for combating antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel, Noa Tishby is often on the road. But when the actress is home in Los Angeles, something like a regular day takes shape.
She is up at 6:15 a.m. to prepare lunch for her son for school. After she wakes him, the two eat breakfast together. She takes him to school, “then I’ll go to work out if I’m a good girl that day,” she told JNS. Next, she will “just go slam it.”
“It’s reading and writing, recording videos, scheduling for the next few days and doing meetings,” she said. “Speak around LA at high schools. It’s extraordinarily busy.” And that is all when she is not traveling.
The week before she talked over the phone with JNS, Tishby had taken the Saturday night red-eye flight to Florida. She visited six cities in five days—speaking at schools in Florida, Massachusetts and North Carolina—and flew back to Los Angeles on Friday morning “and went to pick up my son from school as if nothing happened.”
If this sounds like Tishby, whose credits include “Star Trek” and “NCIS,” is left with little time for acting, that is by design. “I can’t tell you how disinterested I am in acting,” she told JNS.
When she landed a contract with Simon & Schuster for what would become her 2021 book Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, Tishby felt that the project was what she was meant to do.
“I just had one of these ‘aha’ moments,” she said. “It was like, ‘Oh, right. So everything led me to here. Of course. This makes so much sense.’ ”
She has turned down audition requests, even from casting directors with whom she has worked in the past, Tishby told JNS, saying “my work right now is so much more rewarding.”
“I was asked this the other day, and people are like, ‘Are you saying absolute no?’ And I’m like, ‘Look, I’m not saying absolute no,’ because I’m a trained actor and I’ve done this since I was 8 years old. But it does not hold the same interest to me as it did in the past,” she said.
‘This new hip social-justice cause’
She has also been an activist for 15 years, and amid rising antisemitism, her work feels more important than ever. “I’ve been in this world for a very long time, and I never imagined that we’d be having conversations about whether or not Hitler had some positive traits that we should appreciate,” she said. “I’m blown away by what’s happening, and I feel like my voice is needed—actually needed—and I’m not as needed in a series regular on a procedural show on network TV.”
As she describes in the book, Tishby’s activism began gradually, when she realized on trips to America that the U.S. public had strong feelings about but little understanding of what was happening in Israel.
“We’re talking about over 20 years of me just not being able to shut up,” she told JNS. “Over and over and over again, I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I can’t not say to people, ‘No you’re wrong about this, and this is what actually happened. This is what reality is.’ ”
“It’s not as if I was some actress that just one day woke up and I was like, ‘Oh, I should write a book,’” she added. “I’ve been doing this work for a long, long time.”
Again, please click here to read the rest.
Interviewing Tishby and writing about her speech at Duke were so much fun I decided to buy a copy of her book, which I hadn’t at the time it came out because, “Oh, I know all this stuff about Israel’s founding and its history! I’ve got so many other books on the pile!” But now I’ve decided to get Tishby’s take on it and give myself a refresher course. And surprise, surprise, my fiancee and business partner
jumped on it first, reading the whole thing over three days.
She’s said she plans to write something for GOTD about her thoughts on the book. It sounds like she really enjoyed it, especially given how fast she consumed it.
So as if you don’t have enough now on your plate to read, here are a few more Tishby items to consider.
The Algemeiner published a great piece by Shiryn Ghermezian about Tishby’s recent appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher”:
One such question was directly for Tishby, and the former actress was asked to explain how people can differentiate between “legitimate criticism” of Israel and antisemitism.
Tishby began by explaining that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” which garnered loud applause from the studio audience.
“There’s nothing wrong with criticizing the Israeli government, the Israeli government’s policies, politicians,” she continued, “[but] if you’re trying to dismantle the Jewish state; if you’re trying to go against the existence of the state of Israel, that’s where the line is drawn. Sadly, there are a lot of people who are criticizing Israel, and that’s totally fine, but there are a lot of people that are saying Israel is not a legitimate country. And that is unacceptable.”
…
She added, “the biggest problem within the Israeli system is that there’s no constitution, so right now, what we’re seeing is a conflict between the government and the Supreme Court. The government wants to take too much power basically and overrule the Supreme Court decision by a simple majority, and the Israeli people are rebelling against this. This is quite amazing what’s happening.”
Bravo, Ms. Tishby, you are an inspiration to the entire Zionist activism community and all who support the continued survival and thriving of the world’s 15 million Jews.
I also had two other articles in the past month at JNS - both a bit less important than spotlighting Tishby’s work but still worth talking about in this series. I’ll write on them in another installment in this series, which will come soon, hopefully this next week.
But in the the meantime, start following Tishby, pick up a copy of her book, and here’s another excerpt from her Real Time appearance, explaining to Bill Maher the conflict roiling in Israel right now over reforming their Supreme Court:
Bill Maher:
And here we are. And you're the one to explain this to me. I mean, I have read some really disturbing things. I mean, usually in the past, okay, it was Israel against the people, they're neighbors, who are not big fans of them. And that was the war. Now it's internal. Now Israel seems to be fighting with itself. I mean, I see protestors in the streets, hundreds of thousands. For people who are not following this, please tell us why the president of Israel said civil war is possible. He said, "The abyss is within touching distance." Why is this?
Noa Tishby:
Okay. This is first of all slightly dramatic. Let's just be straight here, what we're seeing in Israel- It is, it's great. He's a great friend of mine and an incredible human being. What's happening in Israel right now, what we're seeing is literally democracy on full display. It's actually quite extraordinary. So let's backtrack for a little bit. So a few months ago, Benjamin Netanyahu, whom you know very well won the election-
Bill Maher:
Of course.
Noa Tishby:
And because of how the parliamentary system is built in Israel, he started this coalition, which is on the extreme side. It's right wing, more religious-
Bill Maher:
Very right wing.
Noa Tishby:
As it happens in the US when new governments come in, they jump in to make sweeping changes quite quickly. And that's what this government decided to do. They suggested a judiciary overhaul, which is going too far, and the Israeli people are basically rebelling against it now.
Bill Maher:
So-
Noa Tishby:
Sorry.
Bill Maher:
Let me ask you this though.
Noa Tishby:
Yeah.
Bill Maher:
I've heard this, that that's the big thing, that he wants to somehow make it so that the congress can basically overrule, it would be like our congress with a majority of one-
Noa Tishby:
Yes, simple majority.
Bill Maher:
Could overrule our Supreme Court.
Noa Tishby:
Yeah.
Bill Maher:
But I don't know. Tell me, is the Israeli system the same as ours with three forms of government, checks and balances between three equal forms of government?
Noa Tishby:
Not entirely. And also the biggest problem within the Israeli system is that there's no constitution. So right now what we're seeing is a conflict between the government and the Supreme Court. The government wants to take too much power basically, and overrule the Supreme Court decision by a simple majority. But the Israeli people are rebelling against this. This is quite amazing what's happening.
Bill Maher:
You yourself have unspoken out against this.
Noa Tishby:
I have. I've spoken out.
Bill Maher:
And you never really spoke out against anything, any Israeli policy before.
Noa Tishby:
I never have publicly.
Bill Maher:
And I going to say a lot of people, I think I would put myself in this camp, have been supporters of Netanyahu, even when many others weren't. And people have said to me, "Well, he's so conservative." I'm like, "But we're a different country than Israel."
Noa Tishby:
Yes, we are.
Bill Maher:
This is a country that is perpetually at war.
Noa Tishby:
Yes.
Bill Maher:
In that country, I'm not against somebody who is a little more conservative being at the helm, but he seems to be losing even his supporters. I can't think of anybody who's-
Noa Tishby:
Over 60% of the Israeli public wants to stop this overhaul. 54% of [inaudible 00:03:04] voters didn't know that this would be the first line of item for this new government. And I do believe that it's going to stop. It's not going to pass in its current form. It shouldn't pass in its current form. And what we are seeing though, it's incredible what's happening. Nearly 10% of the Israeli population is out on the street and there are no riots, there's no violence, there's no blood. One person got hurt, but that's about it. So it's an extraordinarily creative demonstration. Israeli people are speaking up, they don't want this.
Bill Maher:
But it's more than just the court. I mean, it does seem like they're at a point where there's sort of a battle for the soul of this country.
Noa Tishby:
Yeah.
What’s my take on this controversy right now in Israel? I don’t have one. As I wrote about previously in this series, I choose not to take positions on internal Israeli politics. Those matters are for the citizens of Israel to decide.
Thank you for everyone’s continued support with both my writing and this publishing company.
Update:
And if that isn’t enough Tishby yet, here’s an hour long interview with Matt Lewis (who has a new book coming out this summer) which he did with her after her book came out:
See the previous articles in this Volume II of the “Antisemitism and Culture” series:
Martin Luther King, Jr: An American Hero and Courageous Zionist Voice
Talking to These Students Gave Me Hope in this Dark, Dark World of War and Hate
Why I Don't Expect the Palestinians Will *Ever* Make Peace with Israel and Thus Gain Statehood
The Antisemitism of Ron Paul's Far Right Anarcho-Capitalist Ideological Cult
When Holocaust Trivialization Manifests in the Wrestling World
2 Numbers Which Reveal the Overwhelming Level of Human Devastation Wrought by the Holocaust
The Deep Depths of Ideological Depravity: Comparing the Holocaust to the Covid-19 Vaccine
Unfortunately, Christian Nationalism Is the Normal, Much More Longstanding Version of Christianity
7 Great Counterculture Authors Who Inspire My Writing and Zionist Activism
Why Twitter & Social Media Are Such a Poison Brew of Antisemitism, Hate, Death, and Lies
The Antisemitism of Noam Chomsky's Far Left Anarcho-Syndicalist Ideological Cult
Why I Make a Point to Avoid Analyzing or Pontificating on Internal Israeli Politics
Joe Rogan: Just a Full-Blown Idiot, Not a Full-Blown Jew Hater... Yet...
How to Revive King & Heschel's Black & Jewish Anti-Racism Prophetic-Activist Partnership