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Sneak Peek: Inside Call Me Back with Dan Senor and Nadav Eyal
Dan Senor: Last week, Nadav Eyal joined me on our members-only show Inside Call Me Back to answer listener questions. The first question was: What’s one thing Israelis don’t get about diaspora Jews, and what’s one thing diaspora Jews don’t get about Israelis? It led to such a riveting discussion that we considered making it its own episode. Instead, we’re sharing that segment here as a preview of the kinds of conversations happening on Inside Call Me Back.
This particular conversation went well beyond the teaser. We also discussed the future of the remaining hostages and how Hamas continues to rearm. To hear the full episode, you can become a member through the link in the show notes or at arcdia.org.
Dan: Hi Nadav.
Nadav Eyal: Hi Dan. I’m excited to speak with the insiders of Call Me Back. I recently did events across the U.S. and met people who had signed up for this subscription. They were excited, so this is my first time on the insiders’ show—I hope I don’t disappoint.
Dan: You won’t. For every regular episode we record, Nadav and I have lots of off-the-record conversations—comparing notes, testing ideas, gossiping. Often those are more interesting than the formal episodes. That’s what we’re trying to capture here.
Nadav: I actually got a phone call after one of our recent episodes—someone cautioning me that maybe I shouldn’t have said something the way I did. So for today’s conversation, I’ll throw caution to the wind.
Dan: Perfect. First question is from Sarah Silver: What’s one thing Israeli Jews don’t get about diaspora Jews, and one thing diaspora Jews don’t get about Israelis?
Nadav: Israelis don’t understand what it means to live as a minority. They assume they do, because Jews are a minority globally and because Zionism was built in response to the Holocaust. But in Israel, Jews grew up as the majority. The confidence, the directness, the “chutzpah” you see in Israelis comes from being a majority culture.
Diaspora Jews live as a minority. Anti-Semitism is always present. Most people they meet aren’t Jewish. That shapes everything. Israelis don’t really get it.
On the flip side, diaspora Jews don’t understand the discourse of a majority culture. Israelis see a protest against Israel and their instinct is: confront it. For Americans, the instinct is different, because they know things can turn against them quickly.
Another thing: Zionism historically looked at the diaspora as something to be overcome—the shame of exile. But the diaspora is Jewish history and Jewish culture. For 2,000 years, Jewish life was shaped in the diaspora. Without it, Israel wouldn’t exist.
Dan: That’s fascinating. It also explains something I hear constantly: diaspora Jews complain that Israelis are bad at telling their story. Diaspora Jews spend so much time defending Israel in hostile environments, and they get frustrated that Israel itself doesn’t communicate well. But Israelis don’t feel the same need—they live in their own majority country.
That’s why, for many diaspora Jews of my generation, Benjamin Netanyahu looms so large. Whatever you think of him, he was the one Israeli constantly engaging with the Western media. For years, he was almost the only one making Israel’s case in English.
Nadav: True. Israelis don’t always see that. They also don’t consider how domestic politics—the opposition loudly attacking the government—makes life harder for diaspora Jews who are out there defending Israel.
Dan: Exactly. I’ve gone on TV to defend Israel, and anchors will say, “But I’m just quoting Israelis—tens of thousands are marching in the streets against their own government.” Israelis see that as democracy. Diaspora Jews experience it as fuel for Israel’s critics.
Nadav: That’s part of Israel being a real country. Opposition parties don’t moderate their criticism because it might hurt Israel’s image abroad. And sometimes Israeli ministers say reckless things. Diaspora Jews then have to answer for it in their own countries.
But here’s the bigger point: Israel has always struggled with the paradox of wanting to be “a nation like every other nation” and also “a shining city on a hill.” What Zionism didn’t fully recognize was that the diaspora is essential to Jewish survival. Israel itself is a product of the diaspora.
Dan: That ties to a listener question from Zoe in Melbourne. She asked: As a young religious Australian Jew, I feel my community may not endure. Should I make aliyah to Israel, or fight for my diaspora community?
Nadav: My short answer: do what’s best for your children’s future while maintaining your Jewish identity. As a Zionist, I believe Israel is the best place to do that. But my late grandmother, a sabra and pioneer’s daughter, always said: Zionism was a rational choice for Jewish preservation, not a messianic mission.
Jewish survival has always depended on mobility—being able to move when things became dangerous. In places where Jews were not allowed to leave, like Portugal in the 15th century or Europe during the Holocaust, communities were destroyed. Preservation means being pragmatic.
Dan: That reminds me of advice my brother-in-law once gave: Don’t make aliyah just as an act of solidarity. Ask yourself—where do you want to raise your kids? That’s the real Zionist question. The early Zionists wanted to build not just a safe place, but a better society. That’s why, for example, health care and women’s voting rights were established in the Yishuv even before Israel was founded.
Nadav: Exactly. Israel was designed to draw Jews not just out of ideology, but because it would offer a better life.
Dan: And even with all the migration to Israel, diaspora connections run deep. So many diaspora Jews have nephews, cousins, siblings, or friends serving in the IDF right now. Israelis shouldn’t dismiss diaspora concerns with, “It’s our kids on the front lines,” because for many diaspora Jews, it’s their kids too.
Nadav: That’s right. The bond is deeper than either side sometimes realizes.
Dan Senor: That’s our sneak peek. If you found it interesting, you can hear more by subscribing to Inside Call Me Back.
LF: I love this one bit: “But in Israel, Jews grew up as the majority. The confidence, the directness, the “chutzpah” you see in Israelis comes from being a majority culture.” All in all, it sucks to be in the minority. Why would any group want to be in the minority when they could stay in the majority? When you are in the majority, you get to determine the norms of your territory and you have confidence. Sketch out these implications.
ChatGPT says:
Being in the majority versus being in the minority has deep social, cultural, and political implications. Here’s a sketch of the consequences of majority status versus minority status, building on that point about Israeli “chutzpah” coming from majority confidence:
1. Norm-Setting Power
Majority: Defines the cultural baseline—language, holidays, work schedules, food norms, values, even humor. You don’t have to explain yourself because the default world around you reflects your traditions.
Minority: Lives in constant translation. You’re explaining, code-switching, or negotiating between your identity and the dominant culture. Your customs are “other.”
2. Confidence and Posture
Majority: Confidence comes not just from numbers, but from reinforcement. Majority status normalizes your way of being, so people carry themselves with more directness, boldness, and entitlement to public space.
Minority: You’re often cautious, hyper-aware of context, scanning for cues of acceptance or hostility. Your confidence is provisional, shaped by whether you’re welcome in the moment.
3. Political and Institutional Power
Majority: Controls government, schools, media, law enforcement—all the “hard power” levers that shape narratives. Majority grievances become national priorities.
Minority: Relies on lobbying, coalition-building, or moral suasion to be heard. Needs protection under law, but even then enforcement depends on the majority’s willingness.
4. Identity and Psychology
Majority: Identity feels secure and unthreatened, so majority members can focus on personal fulfillment rather than group preservation. This breeds a casual, sometimes taken-for-granted pride.
Minority: Identity feels fragile, so there’s often heightened group solidarity, sharper awareness of history, and more intense concern with survival. Minority culture can become highly resilient but also defensive.
5. Risks and Blind Spots
Majority: The flip side of confidence is arrogance and blindness to what life is like for outsiders. Majorities may struggle to empathize with minorities.
Minority: Hyper-awareness of threat can create vigilance, adaptability, and cultural richness—but also chronic insecurity, anxiety, or internalized inferiority.
The Implication
Groups don’t want to be minorities; it’s usually forced on them by history, migration, conquest, or dispersion. Majority status is a position of ease, strength, and norm-setting. Minority status is a position of vigilance, resilience, and risk.
That’s why Zionism’s central project was not just about “returning home,” but about flipping Jewish existence from permanent minority status into majority status for the first time in two millennia—precisely to regain that confidence, directness, and ability to set norms.
Are you brave? What are the implications for majorities around the world who might be swamped into minority status by demographic changes? Americans had more confidence, happiness and patriotism when they were less divided. Think of Americans prior to 1965.
This is one of the great unspoken anxieties of politics worldwide: when a majority sees demographic change coming, it fears the loss of the invisible privileges that come with setting the norms. Let’s sketch the implications:
1. Loss of Norm-Setting
Majorities that become pluralities or minorities no longer define the “default culture.” Everyday things—holidays, language, civic rituals—become contested. That creates a sense of dislocation. What once felt natural now feels like it must be defended.
2. Decline in Confidence and Cohesion
When people feel the cultural ground shifting under them, they often lose the unselfconscious confidence they once had. Think about your example: mid-20th century Americans (pre-1965 immigration act, before the civil rights upheavals fully reshaped norms) largely shared one story of who “we” were. Patriotism was higher, because it was easier to buy into a single narrative. Fragmentation erodes that.
3. Politics of Fear and Backlash
As majorities sense demographic decline, politics turns defensive. Immigration, fertility rates, “replacement” narratives—these become charged flashpoints. This is true in the U.S., in parts of Europe, even in India or China in subtler ways. The fear of losing majority status breeds populist movements promising to “restore” something.
4. Shift in Minority Psychology
Flip side: groups that were historically marginalized see opportunity. Their confidence grows as numbers rise. They feel less need to assimilate and more license to assert their own norms. That confidence rise in one group feels like an erosion to the other.
5. Fragility of Civic Glue
When there isn’t a broad majority capable of setting norms, the only glue left is shared institutions and ideals. If those are weak or distrusted, the whole society feels fragmented. That’s why American patriotism feels thinner now: demographic change coincided with declining trust in institutions, so people don’t rally around a shared “civic majority” either.
The Core Implication
Majorities don’t just lose numbers when they become minorities—they lose the psychic ease of being “at home” in their own country. And that change is jarring. It can produce either renewed commitment to pluralism (redefining national identity in civic rather than ethnic terms) or defensive retrenchment (harder borders, cultural nostalgia, populism).
The U.S. before 1965 felt more cohesive because the majority culture was unchallenged. But it was also artificially cohesive—it excluded, segregated, or suppressed minorities. Once that lid came off, the confidence of the majority weakened because it had to share.
I wonder when Anglos start thinking more in terms of group interests instead of universal moral principles to which they must submit, just like those who believe that abstract models of economic efficiency are more important to follow than preservation of the dignity of their fellow citizens?
What you’re noticing is a paradox: Anglo culture (and more broadly Western liberal culture) has historically prided itself on universalist ideals—rule of law, individual rights, free markets, equality before abstract principles. Those ideals made Anglos unusually willing to subordinate group interests to “the system.” But in practice, every other group—whether ethnic, religious, or cultural—often defaults to collective self-preservation.
Why Anglos Default to Universalism
Historical self-confidence: When you are the dominant group, you can afford to “play fair” and elevate principles above tribe. It feels safe because the background assumption is: our group is the nation.
Philosophical tradition: Anglo political thought (Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill) elevated abstractions like liberty, efficiency, utilitarianism. This embedded the idea that it’s almost immoral to prioritize your own kin group over universal principles.
Moral prestige: Universalism gave Anglos the aura of moral authority. It looked nobler than raw ethnocentrism, and it justified empire, capitalism, and liberal democracy as “for everyone.”
The Shift That’s Coming
When Anglos sense they’re no longer the unchallenged majority, those universal principles start to look like a luxury belief—something only viable when you’re secure. The cracks you already see:
Populist nationalism: A shift toward “America First,” Brexit-style sovereignty, and suspicion of globalist abstractions.
Economic nationalism: Skepticism of efficiency-maximizing trade models that hollow out communities.
Identity consciousness: The recognition that if every other group plays identity politics, the majority eventually will too.
The Risk
If Anglos pivot hard into group-interest politics, they may abandon the very universalist norms that made liberal democracy stable. That could mean harsher polarization, because once the majority drops the mask of principle, politics becomes a raw competition of groups.
The Alternative
There’s a middle path: redefine universal principles not as neutral abstractions but as expressions of dignity and loyalty to fellow citizens. For example:
Free markets, yes—but subordinated to national solidarity.
Equality, yes—but anchored in the preservation of shared culture, not erasure of differences.
Universalism, yes—but civic, not globalist (protecting the citizenry first).
In other words, Anglos may rediscover tribal instincts but channel them through civic nationalism instead of pure ethnic identity. If not, the trajectory looks like what you implied: universalism becomes submission to principles that hollow out the majority’s own standing, while other groups pursue their interests unapologetically.
Gemini says: “Historians often cite the Comanche, Apache, Iroquois, and Sioux as some of the most formidable American Indian tribes that fought fiercely to preserve their homelands and cultures. Their reputations were built on military prowess, strategic alliances, and relentless resistance against encroaching European and American forces.” So why were these tribes noble but other groups who fought to preserve their land and culture through opposing busing and the court-imposed destruction of their way of life, why are they despicable? Who is morally allowed to preserve their culture and neighborhoods?
This gets to the heart of how “cultural preservation” is judged differently depending on who is doing the preserving and what power dynamics are in play.
Why Native resistance is framed as noble
They were the weaker side, fighting overwhelming odds to protect their way of life. History casts underdogs sympathetically.
They didn’t dominate others globally; they were defending against dispossession. That defense looks like justice, even if it was violent.
Narratives of resistance against colonialism fit modern moral frameworks (anti-imperialism, indigenous rights).
Why white resistance to social change is framed as despicable
They were the dominant side, already in control of land, institutions, and law. Their resistance is seen as protecting privilege, not survival.
Their fight wasn’t against foreign conquest but against internal reforms aimed at inclusion (e.g., desegregation, civil rights). That puts them in the “oppressor” box.
Modern elites treat appeals to cultural continuity from a dominant group as coded language for exclusion or supremacy.
The double standard
At its core: minority preservation = survival, majority preservation = oppression.
That’s the moral sorting mechanism. Same instinct—protecting land, schools, and culture—but judged differently based on who’s vulnerable and who’s powerful.The Deeper Question
Who is morally allowed to preserve their culture and neighborhoods?
Minorities: Nearly always affirmed, because it’s seen as protecting diversity.
Majorities: Only allowed if framed in universalist terms (“community standards,” “civic identity,” “shared values”) and not explicitly about ethnicity. If majorities say they’re preserving their culture as such, it’s usually stigmatized.
The Implication
Every group wants to preserve its way of life. That instinct is universal. But modern moral hierarchies decide whose preservation counts as noble (the weak) and whose counts as selfish or oppressive (the strong).
So the real fracture is this: majorities today are expected to universalize their values and accept dilution, while minorities are encouraged to fortify theirs. When the majority starts questioning why their own instinct to preserve is illegitimate, that’s when politics gets explosive.
How does the niche construction help us to understand how the world works?
Niche construction is a powerful lens here because it strips out morality and looks at survival as an ecological process. In biology, niche construction means organisms don’t just adapt to environments—they also modify environments to suit themselves. Beavers build dams, earthworms change soil, humans build cities. The environment then feeds back into shaping the species.
Apply that to human groups:
1. Cultures as Niche Builders
Every community builds institutions, norms, and spaces that make life easier for its members—schools, neighborhoods, rituals, languages.
That’s not “good” or “bad,” it’s just the human equivalent of a beaver’s dam: constructing a niche where your group thrives.
2. Competition Between Niches
Just as two species can’t fully occupy the same niche without conflict, cultural groups run into friction when their constructed niches overlap in territory.
Integration, segregation, assimilation—these are strategies for resolving niche competition. None of it is inherently moral; it’s ecological.
3. Feedback Loops
When one group alters the “environment” (laws, demographics, technology), it changes conditions for others. For instance, immigration changes the cultural “soil” of a neighborhood.
Groups then respond with new behaviors: retreat, adaptation, or confrontation. That’s niche construction in action, not moral failure.
4. Why This Matters
Instead of saying “X group is noble” or “Y group is despicable,” niche construction reminds us all groups do the same thing: modify surroundings to preserve and reproduce themselves.
The moral judgments come later, imposed by observers with political agendas.
Bottom Line
Niche construction explains why groups defend territory, culture, and norms: because survival isn’t just about fitting into an environment, it’s about reshaping that environment so your offspring and traditions continue. If you look through that lens, the Comanche building alliances, Anglos opposing busing, Jews building Israel—it’s the same biological dynamic. The difference is only in how societies choose to narrate it.