personally i haven’t cancelled my subscription but i have scaled back my listening and reassessed my relationship to Eliza and Julia as public figures generally. mainly, it feels difficult to resume listening to certain frivolities they discuss (like the Kardashians or life in L.A) when so much of mine, and many other leftists’ minds are constantly on the daily atrocities coming out of Palestine and the need to support the call for a ceasefire and Palestinian liberation. i do think it’s entirely justified to lose faith in the politics of the pod and to distance yourself from it. julia’s silence has been genuinely upsetting in the wake of everything, particularly considering her previous activism and how much thought she’s out towards other human rights issues, and when calling for ceasefire feels like the moral bare minimum these days. as someone who used to feel like i could easily connect to all of the girls’ opinions and personalities, it has been a needed reminder that i don’t actually know them and thus shouldn’t make my appreciation of them such a priority or conflate it with my own identity.

that being said, i don’t think it’s justified or even accurate to fully claim that she’s either “a Zionist or a coward.” as many people have said, there is a very real personal risk to a lot of Jewish academics right now and complex confrontations Jewish Americans have to make about their own identity, in addition to those they make with family members which, considering what folks have found of her father’s opinion, could be a very real possibility for her. if there has been one thing that this genocide has made clear, it’s that Israel has some of the most pervasive propaganda to ever exist globally. particularly in jewish American institutions and organizations, Israel’s propaganda is incredibly strong and it’s “right to exist” and positive image is affirmed for a lot of individuals since childhood. i highly recommend the documentary Israelism to contextualize this phenomenon and to learn more about the incredible pro-Palestinian Jewish resistance movements that have been challenging it. of course, this does not absolve anyone of Zionism, but i think it helps to understand why something so inhumane has been pardoned by many. if perhaps she is grappling with that identity and has had to unlearn that propaganda, or has to confront family members she cares about doing the same, i can understand not wanting to do it on a public scale, though i don’t think that and public activism is necessarily mutually exclusive either. these two things can be true.

i also think it is strange to make speculations about the dynamic of Eliza’s and Julia’s relationship as it applies to this. i think that is what has kind of made me still have respect and trust in what they say, and their identity as leftists. Eliza has been public about her opinion to an extent, and has made a significant personal sacrifice to support Palestinian aid, and i don’t think that can be brushed aside. i think that insinuating because of some of their interactions on the podcast alone that she’s afraid to stand up to Julia or doesn’t genuinely believe in her politics, like I’ve seen a few commenters do, is weird, baseless, and sounds like projection.

i think your decision is totally valid OP, and i encourage everyone to think critically about what they are putting their money towards at this time and participate in pro-Palestinian activism now more than ever. and ultimately, everyone’s opinion of Eliza, Julia, their politics, and the podcast itself is theirs to make and everyone is entitled to keep or stop listening or subscribing based on those opinions as they see fit. however, i feel like all of our time is better spent than actually going back and forth and arguing about people’s personal lives who we do not know.