Echoes of Israeli Food

There’s a new form of antisemitism circulating in academic and cultural spaces. It doesn’t come with swastikas or slurs — instead, it disguises itself as “sociology” or “food studies.”

Some claim that when Jews say hummus or falafel are part of Israeli cuisine, it’s not food — it’s “gastro-colonialism.” They even invoke the language of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, turning academic terms like symbolic capital into weapons against Jewish identity.

But this isn’t sociology. It’s propaganda. No one accuses Italians of stealing tomatoes from the Americas, or Indians of stealing chilies. Only Jews are singled out.

This kind of argument is what I call cryptic antisemitism — it hides under intellectual jargon, but its aim is to delegitimize Jewish belonging in our own homeland.

That’s why I dedicated a full episode of my podcast to unpacking this issue. My goal is not to promote a show, but to give our community language and clarity for how to recognize and respond to this subtle, modern antisemitism.