Live Interview Transcript

David [00:00]: Also immersed in the fictional universe of Harry Potter, as it turns out, face-to-face with an alleged antisemitic caricature. Now, the game’s release brings back the longstanding concerns that the creature’s prominent features and their role in the Harry Potter universe running the Wizard Bank, of course, Teeter on the edge of an antisemitic stereotype that characterizes Jews in similar imagery controlling the world’s banks. All powerful in that regard, obviously concerning. Well, we’re joined by Daniel Pomerantz, the CEO of RealityCheck, and legal expert and political analyst to have you back on the subject. Thanks for being back, Daniel.

Daniel Pomerantz [00:31]: My pleasure.

Daniel Pomerantz [00:32]: You know, what does it look like to you? First of all, just focusing on the Harry Potter story and enrolling in particular, what’s this situation look like to you? I know she’s been kind of immersed in this troublesome discussion in the past. You know, what does this latest issue strike you?

Daniel Pomerantz [00:46]:  Well, the character itself does seem to resemble those Nazi Der Sturmer cartoons, just visually. I don’t think JK Rowling knew that or intended it. If you look at her history in 2015, she refused to join a British anti-Israel academic boycott, and that was right after the Gaza War in 2014. It was not an easy time.

David [01:07]: There was a lot of pressure on her.

Daniel Pomerantz [01:08]: There was a lot of pressure on her. She paid a price for that. Then in 2016, she went to bargains against Jeremy Corbin over his antisemitism and his desire to lead the Labor Party again, and she also put together her own letter of some 150 British academics supporting the idea of continued dialogue and engagement with Israel and with Palestinians based on the idea that boycott aren’t the way to go. She paid a price every time for those things and stood by her convictions. So, the idea that she would be intentionally acting in a way that’s antisemitic, I think is unlikely.

David [01:39]: It’s a hard sell.

Daniel Pomerantz [01:39]: But I do believe that she didn’t know, and I believe that is a problem. It’s a problem in the sense that there is an adequate Holocaust education. Now, the UK became the first country in the world to have mandatory Holocaust education in 1991, but JK Rowling was going to high school in the 1980s, so that wouldn’t have impacted her. And you know we’ve talked about this before. Our first research project at RealityCheck shows that when you have proper Holocaust education that reduces hate crimes against everybody, 24% decrease against Muslims, 55% against Black communities, 54% against Jewish communities, not even as much as the Black communities. Everyone benefits from proper Holocaust education. Everyone suffers some harm when you don’t have, and I think we’re seeing little hints of that here where even good, well-meaning people end up taking a position that causes some harm without intending to just because they don’t know.

David [02:29]: Well, that certainly can be the case. JK Rowling, as you mentioned, no credible evidence there that she’s trying to insert some insidious messages into her antisemitic messaging. But there was another thing coming into the weekend here about Joe Rogan. I mean, he’s Spotify’s most listened to podcaster. I think everybody at this point has seen something or knows something around Joe Rogan entertaining as he is. But he takes on fringe topics, and of course, he had that inflammatory statement saying that Jews and money is like Italians and pizza. That was so off-flavor. What’s your response to Joe and how do we deal with this?

Daniel Pomerantz [03:05]: You know, I think it’s a very similar situation in that I think it’s pretty clear that Ellan Amara was intending to be antisemitic in her comments. But I don’t guess right. I don’t know if Joe Rogan realized that, he said that there wasn’t antisemitic for her to say the Jews are into money, but that’s not what she said. No. What she said was that Jews essentially are controlling the United States Congress using money, and also that Jews are not entirely loyal as American citizens. Which interestingly is almost precisely the wording and the framing that Hitler used in the years leading up to the final solution, and that I think she does know now. Rogan didn’t, I don’t think know that, but it’s exactly like having goblins that look like Der Sturmer cartoons. If you don’t know Der Sturmer cartoons, you don’t know the goblins look like them.

Daniel Pomerantz [03:47]: And if you’re not familiar with Hitler’s rhetoric in those years, you may not realize that the things Ilhan Omar is saying, actually track that very closely. Again, it’s this idea that if you have proper holocaust education, someone like Joe Rogan would’ve known that, someone like JK Rowling would’ve known that, and that’s really the benefit of this Holocaust education, is that the idea isn’t to get people who are hateful to suddenly magically be not hateful. The idea is that if you get someone who’s well-meaning, but is causing harm out of not knowing, out of ignorance, to use a stronger word, this can actually make a significant difference in terms of the way people behave in the world.

David [04:25]: You think of the in some cases, tens of millions of listeners to a single podcast of Joe Rogan here, how many, probably the vast majority of those may not even know a Jewish person. So, this idea of these seeds being planted in people’s minds. I want to take this a step further you mentioned Ilhan Omar, a Representative, US Representative. Of course, her comments being the impetus behind some of the Joe Rogan comments here. This is what they were discussing. Now, she herself came out making comments that she was unaware that there are stereotypes relating Jews and money. I think very recently making that comment, which was a hard one to swallow, because after similar incidents with her, going back to I think 2012, she emerged saying, hey, I’ve sat with my Jewish friends and I’ve been educated on these issues now. How does she get away in 2023 making comments like this that she’s ignorant of it, that she doesn’t know, does she fall into that category? Is it fair?

Daniel Pomerantz [05:10]: First of all, I would doubt that, but I would also add that it probably doesn’t matter. The reason I would doubt it is because her language tracks Hitler’s Mein Kampf  language so closely. But the reason that I’d say it doesn’t matter is because whether you’re aware that it’s a stereotype or not, if you’re not aware that those Der Sturmer cartoons look like goblins, then you don’t realize there’s a problem. But you don’t have to know the history to realize that when you say that Jews are disloyal citizens who are controlling the American government and causing America to behave in a way that harms Americans, that is harmful towards Jews whether you know the history or not.

David [05:43]: Daniel Pomerantz, eye-opening, disturbing as it should be.

Daniel Pomerantz [05:47]: Yes.

David [05:47]: Discussing these things. Appreciate you being with us though.

Daniel Pomerantz [05:49]: My pleasure. Thanks for having me, David.