135. Eli Lake on Campus Protests, Israel, and Marijuana as Jewish Kryptonite (updated)

Eli Lake is a longtime journalist, but we know him best for the tremendous “Re-Education With Eli Lake” podcast (Nancy’s #1 pod pick in 2023). Lake has recently become a contributor to the Free Press, where he writes about this world as it explodes. Nancy and Sarah talked with him about the paradox of anarchists attending meetings, why writers can be precious little bitches, the upcoming DNC in Chicago, and how he made our outro song, or at least instructed the robot to do so.

• “When I kiss you on your mask you understand”

• What does PEN America do?

• Eli and Nancy’s Wikipedia pages are full of lies

• “You’re not the boss of me” as the spirit of America

• Will things go full Baader-Meinhof at the Chicago DNC?

• Don’t go to journalism school, kids

• Some love for Tom Wolfe, Bryan Burrough, Ask a Jew

• Newsroom is the Jay Rosen of TV shows

• “Norman Finkelstein is the Jew-y Jew who performs for anti-Semites”

Plus, Lenny Bruce as a podcaster, Menachem Begin as OG punk rock, and is marijuana the Jewish kryptonite?

Send us your letters! We want them!