Don't Know Much About with Naya Lekht – Details, episodes & analysis

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Don't Know Much About with Naya Lekht

Naya Lekht

History

Religion & Spirituality

Education

Frequency: 1 episode/8d. Total Eps: 37

Don't Know Much About is a podcast hosted by Dr. Naya Lekht, a scholar and educator with a PhD from UCLA in Russian Literature. Each episode unpacks a contentious topic — from antizionism and Soviet history to Jewish identity and contemporary geopolitics — through rigorous research, personal stories, and candid conversations with leading thinkers. Clarifying the complex, one conversation at a time.

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🇨🇦 Canada - history
18/05/2026
#95

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https://www.stopaz.org/symposium
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https://www.dailywire.com/
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https://www.stopaz.org/
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https://www.amazon.com/Right-Side-History-Reason-Purpose/dp/0062857908
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Stop Antizionism with Ben Shapiro and Natasha Pein

Tuesday, May 12, 2026 • Duration 27:57

In this special segment of Don't Know Much About, Naya Lekht is joined by Ben Shapiro, co-founder of The Daily Wire, and Natasha Pein, Naya's partner and co-founder of Stop Antizionism, just one week before the inaugural World Symposium Against Antizionism, taking place in Toronto on May 17, 2026. Ben will deliver the keynote address. Tickets are still available at stopaz.org/symposium.

The conversation covers the fundamental failure of the Jewish establishment to name today's Jew-hatred accurately, and what it costs to keep fighting the last war.

What you'll learn:

Why the term "antisemitism" has been stretched to the point of meaninglessness, and why arguing "antizionism = antisemitism" is a losing strategy
How Soviet antizionist propaganda, launched in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, seeded Western universities and never left
The two distinct brands of antizionism emerging on the American right, and why they require different responses
Why the Thomas Sowell framing holds: the surest path to antisemitism is Jewish success
How Jewish kids are losing their Zionist identity, and Ben's unsparing diagnosis of where that failure actually begins
The "strange new respect" dynamic: why being a Jewish critic of Israel is such a "sexy pitch"
The Yevsektsiya parallel: a history of Jews used to advance anti-Jewish agendas, from the Soviet Communist Party to today's campuses
Ben's three specific pieces of advice, for Jewish schools, Jewish organizations, and Jewish parents

Guest Bios:

Ben Shapiro is the co-founder and editor emeritus of The Daily Wire, a #1 New York Times bestselling author, and one of the most listened-to political commentators in America. He is the author of The Right Side of History, How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps, and numerous other books. He will deliver the keynote address at the World Symposium Against Antizionism on May 17, 2026, in Toronto.

Natasha Pein co-founded Stop Antizionism with Naya Lekht. It is a US-based educational initiative that frames antizionism as the third era of Jew-hatred. Born in the Soviet Union, she draws on firsthand experience of Soviet antizionist campaigns to illuminate the roots of today's ideological landscape. She is also a co-organizer of the World Symposium Against Antizionism.

Resources & Links:

World Symposium Against Antizionism (Toronto, May 17, 2026): stopaz.org/symposium

Stop Antizionism: stopaz.org

The Right Side of History by Ben Shapiro

The Daily Wire: dailywire.com

Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.

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The UN's Antizionist Machine: 50 Years of Institutional Bias with Ben Cohen

Episode 36

Monday, May 11, 2026 • Duration 01:12:07

In this episode, Naya Lekht is joined by Ben Cohen, Director of Rapid Response at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), journalist, and one of the foremost researchers on global antisemitism and antizionism. Ben's work spans the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, Tablet, the Jewish News Syndicate, and his book Some of My Best Friends: A Journey Through 21st Century Antisemitism.

Together, Naya and Ben trace the deep roots of the United Nations' institutionalized hostility toward Israel, from the passage of Resolution 3379 ("Zionism is Racism") in 1975, to the simultaneous creation of CEIRPP (the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People), and how that Soviet-engineered infrastructure has outlasted the USSR itself.
They discuss:

The origins and mechanics of CEIRPP: What it does, what it costs taxpayers, and why it's still operating 50 years later
How UNRWA's unique definition of refugee status, inheritable across generations, differs fundamentally from every other refugee agency in the world, and why that distinction is politically explosive
The 1991 rescission of "Zionism is Racism" and why, despite being formally repealed, it functionally never went away
The Durban conference of 2001 as a turning point that revived and radicalized UN antizionism
Countries that have resigned from the committee - Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Ecuador — and the political dynamics that drive those decisions
Whether the UN is irredeemable on the question of Israel
The intellectual history of antizionism: from the Soviet antizionist campaign, to Edward Said, to today's TikTok-era influencers, and how the discourse has shifted from "bistro antisemitism" to open, unashamed hatred
Ben's concept of "Bierkeller vs. bistro antisemitism," crude versus sophisticated Jew-hatred, and whether the distinction still holds
The upcoming Stop Antizionism symposium in Toronto, the first conference ever dedicated explicitly to confronting antizionism as a distinct and lethal form of Jew hatred

Ben Cohen can be found at fdd.org and writes a weekly column for the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS).

To Live with Conviction: A Conversation with Natan Sharansky

Sunday, February 1, 2026 • Duration 01:01:49

What does it mean to live with conviction when the cost is prison, isolation, and the full weight of a totalitarian regime?

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, I have the profound honor of speaking with Natan Sharansky, former Soviet dissident, Prisoner of Zion, Israeli statesman, and one of the great moral voices of our time.

Born in Donetsk in the former Soviet Union, Sharansky became a leading spokesman for the human rights movement and the struggle of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel. After applying to make aliyah, he was arrested on fabricated charges of treason and espionage and sentenced to years in the Gulag, including long stretches in brutal punishment cells. His eventual release in 1986, following international pressure from Israel, world Jewry, and leaders of the free world, became a defining moment in the history of the Cold War and the Jewish freedom movement.

But Sharansky’s story did not end with freedom. In Israel, he went on to found political movements to help Soviet olim integrate into Israeli society, served in multiple Israeli governments, and became a global advocate for democracy, Jewish identity, and the fight against antisemitism.

In our conversation, we go back to the beginning: What drew a young mathematician into the underground Zionist movement? What did it mean to organize Jews under a regime that criminalized Jewish nationalism? How did Soviet Jews, and even many non-Jews, understand with clarity that antizionism was simply another word for hostility to Jews, and why do Jews in America lack this clarity? We conclude by finding out who Natan Sharansky's heroes are. You don't want to miss this candid conversation.

Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.

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The Islamic Republic vs. the Iranian People with Ali Siadatan

Friday, January 23, 2026 • Duration 02:00:57

With thousands of Iranian civilians killed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in recent weeks, the will of the Iranian people is unmistakable: a nation seeking to liberate itself from an Islamic regime that devalues human life and has set Iran back decades.

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Naya sits down with Ali Siadatan, an Iranian who fled the country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Drawing on both his personal experience and deep regional expertise, Ali helps make sense of this pivotal moment—and explains why earlier episodes of unrest in Iran, including the Green Movement of 2009, may not have constituted a true revolution at all.

One of Ali’s most compelling arguments is that both Western observers and many Iranians lack literacy in Islamic religious doctrine. As a result, they often misread the intentions of Islamic clerics, projecting secular assumptions onto a fundamentally theological system of power. This and more on this episode.

Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.

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My Family Read That Too! The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf

Monday, January 12, 2026 • Duration 01:30:09

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Naya Lekht sits down with Professor of Jewish Literature Marat Grinberg to discuss his book The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines. The conversation explores Grinberg’s original study of Soviet Jewish life and how books, especially those on Jewish history, became a crucial vehicle for Jewish identity and self-awareness.

Central to the discussion is Grinberg’s effort to reclaim Soviet Jewish life from a rigid binary that has long dominated how it is remembered: Jews who remained quiet and hidden versus those who were loud, defiant, and ultimately became refuseniks. Grinberg argues that this framework misses a vast middle ground, a different, often overlooked way of being Jewish in the Soviet Union, one rooted not in overt resistance or assimilation, but in cultural transmission, private study, and shared texts.

Sharing her own perspective on how Soviet Jewish life can be remembered, Naya joins Marat in a deeper exploration of how Jews lived and expressed Jewish identity under a totalitarian regime. In a state where access to Jewish religious sources was severely restricted, a striking and consistent phenomenon emerged: Jews across the Soviet Union, regardless of where they lived, often owned the same books. Why did this happen? And which specific texts did Russian-speaking Jews turn to in order to learn about their heritage?

Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.

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Inside the Anti-Israel Cult: Michael's Story

Sunday, January 4, 2026 • Duration 01:01:12

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht sits down with Michael. His story is gripping, urgent, and, quite frankly, one that must be told. Michael was born in the United States to a Coptic Christian family, but he struggled deeply with questions of identity and belonging. Feeling isolated, he found himself drawn to the Palestinian antizionist movement, where he remained for nearly twenty years. Over time, that involvement came at an immense personal cost. Michael describes reaching a point where he felt he had nearly sacrificed his humanity, and arrived at what he calls a point of no return.

After years of research, self-examination, and reflection, Michael ultimately left the anti-Israel movement. Today, he identifies as a proud Zionist, committed to confronting disinformation and advocating for the victims of a cause he once supported.

In our conversation, I explore how Michael came to embrace the anti-Israel cause, not only through what the movement appeared to offer, but through what he himself felt he lacked. This distinction matters, as many young people drawn into this destructive hate movement are searching for something deeper: a sense of belonging, purpose, and collective story.

We also discuss Michael’s journey into Islam, what he learned along the way, and how those experiences shaped his worldview. Michael has only recently stepped away from the anti-Israel cause, and his reflections are raw, honest, and often uncomfortable.

My hope in sharing Michael’s story is precisely that, to illuminate what is uncomfortable. Avoiding difficult truths is a form of complacency, and complacency serves no one.

Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.

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Beware Those Who Condemn Antisemitism: The Relationship between Antizionism and Antisemitism

Saturday, December 27, 2025 • Duration 12:52

On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Dr. Naya Lekht leads a critical conversation on how public condemnation of antisemitism often functions as cover for antizionism, the latest mutation of Jew-hatred.

Drawing on her framework of the three eras of anti-Jewish movements, anti-Judaism, antisemitism, and antizionism, Naya argues that antizionism must be understood not as a break from the past, but as its continuation. Each era, she explains, developed its own language, tropes, and libels to construct Jews as villains standing in opposition to what society defined as moral. In this way, antizionism carries forward the same civilizational project: transforming the Jew, now refracted through Israel, into a demon opposed to redemption itself.

But this episode goes beyond diagnosing the latest mutation. More urgently, it exposes how politicians and public figures strategically condemn antisemitism in order to legitimize and traffic in today’s dominant form of Jew-hatred: antizionism. This cover is further amplified by the rhetorical pairing of antisemitism and Islamophobia in a single breath, a move that appears morally balanced while quietly granting antizionist rhetoric free passage. Because these statements condemn Islamophobia, they often function as a permission slip for antizionism to go unnamed, unchallenged, and unchecked, even as its most active producers today are Islamist movements themselves.

Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.

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When the State Took the Classroom: The Story Behind 15 Days

Wednesday, December 24, 2025 • Duration 59:26

At the crossroads of expanding teachers’ unions, the infiltration of anti-American curricula, and the silencing of dissenting scientists and doctors lies a story that now feels distant but urgent: the closure of schools during COVID. On this episode of Don’t Know Much About, Naya Lekht is joined by filmmaker Natalya Murakhver, whose recent film, 15 DAYS: The Real Story of the Pandemic School Closures, was viewed more than one million times during an exclusive month-long run on X and is now screening across the country.

The film has galvanized parents to reclaim agency over their children’s education and health. Driven to expose how governments used the pandemic to consolidate power, Natalya sits down with Naya to discuss not only the making of the film, but a deeper and more urgent question: why parents must never outsource their children’s emotional and academic safety to the state.

Although schools have reopened, Naya and Natalya argue that the story of pandemic school closures is far from over. At its core, it is a cautionary tale about state control, the erosion of individual rights, and what happens when families surrender authority over their children to institutions that do not bear the consequences.

About our guest: Natalya Murakhver is a co-founder of Restore Childhood, a national nonprofit dedicated to empowering parents to guide their children's upbringing, education, and health. A longtime advocate for children's welfare, she spearheaded efforts against pandemic-era school closures, co-organizing #KeepNYCSchoolsOpen in 2020 and filing a lawsuit to reopen New York City schools for in-person learning. She launched the #MaskLikeAKid campaign in 2021 and collaborated with global experts in 2022 to establish the Urgency of Normal, advocating for a return to pre-COVID childhood norms. Her directorial debut, "15 DAYS: The Real Story of the Pandemic School Closures," has been viewed more than 1 million times in an exclusive month-long run on X and is now screening around the country, galvanizing parents to reclaim their agency in their children's education and health. Parents can host their own screenings and learn more at 15daysfilm.com.

Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.

Illegal on Paper, Ignored in Practice: Jews and the Enforcement Gap

Tuesday, December 23, 2025 • Duration 01:23:23

As anti-Jewish violence continues to rise, Jews are increasingly forced to confront a troubling question: how effective are existing laws at protecting them when the community seeks protection and finds few willing to provide it? Against this backdrop, Dr. Naya Lekht is joined by Sarah Ettedgui, a senior corporate mergers and acquisitions lawyer based in Montréal, Québec. Their conversation took place just one day after the terrorist attack targeting Jews at a Chanukah celebration in Sydney, thus lending this episode unmistakable urgency.

Drawing on her expertise at the intersection of law and hate speech, Sarah explains how Canada’s anti-hate speech laws are designed to function, and why they are increasingly failing to be enforced amid growing civil antizionist unrest. From there, Naya and Sarah turn to the United States, where the First Amendment sharply constrains the criminalization of hate speech, exposing a legal and moral fault line between the ideals of free expression and the real-world vulnerability of targeted communities.

Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.

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Heroes, Villains, and Speaking for a Nation with Eylon Levy

Thursday, December 18, 2025 • Duration 44:45

In this episode, I sit down with Eylon Levy, former spokesman for the State of Israel, to ask, what is the role of a government spokesman, and does every country have one? We begin by examining the function of state advocacy, public diplomacy, and crisis communication, separating myth from reality in how nations speak for themselves on the world stage.

From there, the conversation widens to the deeper challenge facing Israel today. We argue that advocacy cannot remain reactive or limited to fact-checking and image repair. Instead, it must pivot toward confronting the ideological forces that fuel anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hostility, particularly the belief systems that distort moral language, weaponize grievance, and normalize demonization.

I conclude with a reflective note: Who are our heroes today? Eylon names Abba Eban, who spoke ten languages fluently! Eylon recounts the legend that when Eban expressed interest in becoming Israel’s prime minister, Golda Meir quipped, “Of which country?”—a remark that captured Eban’s legendary diplomacy and global stature. His mastery of moral clarity, eloquence, and restraint offers a model of leadership and courage that feels both historic and urgently relevant today, laying bare that Israel was and continues to be the solution, not the problem, facing our world.

About the guest: Eylon Levy is a former Spokesman for the State of Israel, who became one of the most globally recognized voices for Israel in the October 7 War. During the war, he gave over 600 interviews to international media outlets, earning him praise from President Trump for his “words of wisdom.” His press conferences from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office were broadcast live globally. He now heads the Spokesoffice, a civil society initiative that advocates for Israel and the Jewish People in international media. He is a regular panelist on Israeli primetime news, and continues to use his major social media presence to advocate for Israel.

Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.

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Don't Know Much About with Naya Lekht – Details, episodes & analysis

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Don't Know Much About with Naya Lekht – Details, episodes & analysis

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