“Uncoolness is Judaism's brand.”
Conversations with Coleman · Ideas & Essays · September 2026
Context
Horn is answering Coleman Hughes, who has just read her line calling Jewish culture a counterculture. She argues the standard anti-bigotry lesson, that a group is just like everyone else, fails for Jews because they spent 3,000 years deliberately not being like everyone else, and that tolerating the uncool is the real test of a pluralistic society.
Transcript
…spent the last several years thinking about this, and it occurred to me that actually there's a lot of things that we could be doing differently. And so, in this book, I really take people into how we got into this dumpster fire that we're now living in and how we can potentially get out of it.
…a quote from your book: Jewish culture is a counterculture that weaves its way through the history of the world, influencing and being influenced by majority cultures, but also directly challenging those majority cultures. And within that challenge, many possibilities emerge. Explain that to me.
…which is a very well-intended message, where educators will say, see this group of people over here who you might be prejudiced against, you shouldn't hate those people because they're just like everyone else, right? They're just like you and me, they're just like everyone else. And what I realized is the problem with this idea is that Jews spent 3,000 years not being like everyone else. Uncoolness is Judaism's brand. You know, this goes back 3,000 years to the ancient Near East. There's a Marvel cinematic universe of sexy deities. The Jews are sitting in the corner with their bossy, unsexy, invisible God. Like, Jews have never been cool. And so, what I realized is that this idea that you shouldn't hate people because they're just like you and me, they're just like everyone else, this is the acid test of a…
Yeah. I'm a huge fan of Walter Russell Mead's book, The Ark of the Covenant, which will be familiar to many people in the audience. I had him on my podcast as well. And part of the argument he makes there is that it's not an accident that America has been, in my estimation, the best country ever to…
I think it's an interesting idea. What I want to point out is that Jews being in that position in many societies in the West is actually also something that comes from Jewish civilization. I know Seoul is an economist. I'm so out of my depth. I feel like Econ 101 was like the last time I've ever…
So one of the choices that the Jewish community in America and throughout the West faces now is how to address the rise in anti-Semitism.
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