Join the Rabbi Andy Kahn and philosopher Jason Stanley, one of the most widely read scholars of fascism and propaganda writing today.

Stanley’s books include How Fascism Works, How Propaganda Works, and Erasing History. His father fled Berlin in 1939, and his mother survived the war as an orphan in the Soviet Union after fleeing Poland. His grandmother, Ilse Stanley, secured the release of more than 400 prisoners from Nazi concentration camps. In 2025 he left his professorship at Yale for the University of Toronto, where he holds the Bissell-Heyd Chair in American Studies at the Munk School.

In conversation with ACJ Executive Director Rabbi Andy Kahn, Stanley will reflect on how his family’s history informs his understanding of fascism, how charges of antisemitism are being used to justify attacks on democratic institutions, and what Jewish commitment to equality and minority rights requires of us in this moment.

Jason Stanley: Fascism, Memory and Jewish Belonging