By Rabbi Steven Burg, JNS
Americans need to wake up and take back our narrative, history and future.
A disturbing video from a podcast called “Fresh and Fit,” hosted by Myron Gaines and Walter Weekes, and which calls itself the “No. 1 men’s podcast in the world,” recently circulated online in which young Americans shared their appalling views about Adolph Hitler and the Holocaust, and claimed that Jews somehow deserved the Holocaust. The ridiculous diatribe was espoused mainly by one guest, though the host instigated and actively encouraged the rhetoric.
As someone who has dedicated my life to combating antisemitism and building bridges between communities, I find this incident appalling and heartbreaking, not because hatred exists, but because of how easily it now spreads unchallenged through digital platforms.
What we witnessed on that podcast wasn’t merely ignorance; it was the result of a deliberate campaign to normalize hatred against Jews that has been gaining momentum on social media and college campuses. When a young woman suggests “the Germans must have had a reason” for the Holocaust, she’s not merely misinformed; rather, she is making a calculated statement aimed at demonizing and dehumanizing Jews. She is echoing the very human characteristics that enable genocide.
What has happened to our current cultural landscape in America in recent years is very disturbing. The normalization of antisemitism, or any racist hatred, doesn’t begin with violence; it begins with words. Hatred begins with the subtle suggestion that whatever group is the target of the hate deserves whatever happens to them. It begins with dehumanization and demonization.
During my time as the Eastern director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, I worked with survivors of the Rwandan genocide. I learned a critical lesson: before mass violence occurs, perpetrators first strip away their victims’ humanity. The Tutsi, for instance, were called “cockroaches” before they were slaughtered during the 1994 genocide. Throughout history, Jews have been portrayed as scheming manipulators, as less than human, as deserving of punishment. That is the crime that these podcasters were committing. They were paving the way with words for the next attack against Jews in America.
It has already happened several times, and if we as a society don’t start pushing back against this demonization and dehumanization of Jews, then I dare say it will happen again.
The digital age has created a dangerous new reality. Where once hatred might have been confined to a single community or area radicalized by a local leader, today’s digital platforms allow hatred to spread globally and instantly. When protesters chant, “Globalize the intifada,” they are literally calling for worldwide violence against Jews, and these calls find receptive audiences through campus activism, podcasts and social media. These audiences will listen and repeat the chants, slogans and dangerous revisions of history.
Making this even more concerning is the abandonment of intellectual conversation in favor of slogans. The “Fresh and Fit” guests weren’t engaging with history, and they weren’t trying to have a thoughtful conversation about what actually took place. Instead, they stated what they felt and pretended that it was factual, based on absolutely no information. They were regurgitating talking points designed to justify hatred. They were trying to make violence seem reasonable.
This style of rhetoric isn’t confined to fringe platforms. It has found its way into our educational institutions and political discourse. When political candidates such as the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, refuse to condemn calls for violence against Jews, they normalize such rhetoric. When colleges allow antisemitic propaganda to flourish unchallenged, they become breeding grounds for the kind of ignorance displayed on Gaines’ podcast.
Americans need to wake up and take back our narrative, our history and our future. The more than 400,000 Americans who gave their lives fighting Nazi Germany and the hatred the Nazis represented did not make that sacrifice so that, less than a century later, young Americans could casually suggest Hitler “had his reasons.” This dishonors not only the memory of the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust but also every American who fought to defeat fascism.
We must recognize that silence equals complicity. When demonization and dehumanization of any group in America rears its ugly head, as it did on Gaines’ podcast, the perpetrators need to be held accountable. We cannot continue to allow platforms to promote hate or antisemitism without challenge, otherwise we become accomplices to its spreading. Digital platforms must take responsibility for the content they amplify.
Additionally, we need to revamp the education system in a robust way and equip young people to recognize propaganda and historical distortion. The ignorance displayed by those who spoke on the podcast and the silence shown by the other participants reflect a failure of our educational system to convey the reality of the Holocaust in specific and hatred in general, and the dangers of dehumanizing rhetoric.
We must all become active participants in creating a culture that rejects hatred in all of its forms. No one should try to justify what Hitler did, just like no one should try to justify the Ku Klux Klan or any group that thrives on the dehumanization and demonization of the other.
The path from dehumanizing words to violence is shorter than many realize. When we allow hatred to flourish unchallenged on podcasts with millions of followers, we create conditions where violence becomes increasingly possible. This is the lesson of history.
