The Karol Markowicz Show: Former Democrat Warns of Rising Antisemitism on the Left

Karol Markowicz (0:02)

Hi, and welcome back to The Karol Markowicz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Marc Sarnoff. Marc was the City of Miami Commissioner for nine years until 2015, Florida International University Vice Chair of Board of Trustees for 10 years and is a lawyer at Schutz and Bowen. Hi Marc, so nice to have you on.

Marc Sarnoff (0:22)

Karol, thanks for the opportunity.

Karol Markowicz (0:24)

So while I was researching you a little bit for our conversation today, I like to not know that much about the person, but so I could find out their path. But I came across an article you wrote in 2016 that was called, Miami Welcomes Exodus of French Jews. A little foresight there.

Marc Sarnoff (0:45)

Yeah. I had just finished being commissioner. I had a lot of time and I was thinking, and I was thinking to myself what was going on in France at that time. There was a murder of a father in front of his daughter, and I think it was in Toulouse. I just thought to myself, Miami would be a great place for the Exodus of Jews from France, which I think is lost, and literally a welcoming place. You're right. It was very prosaic and very profound.

The fact that you found the article, which I think it was only printed primarily in the Israeli Times. But I think it was my first attempt at writing too.

Karol Markowicz (1:32)

Really? Wow. It was good.

I think it's funny. There's this conversation about people who woke up on October 7th, and they're calling themselves October 8th Jews. Look, I love that people woke up. It's unfortunate that it took such an event for them to wake up. But I also want to give credit to people like you who saw it, the whole time. I feel, I give myself credit as well. I definitely saw Europe heading in a bad direction for many years.

But I think that those of us who were ahead of the curve have something to say right now.

Marc Sarnoff (2:11)

Well, I also consider myself an October 8th Jew.

Karol Markowicz (2:14)

Do you? Even though you knew back then?

Marc Sarnoff (2:18)

I saw things coming, but you always figure, am I right? Am I wrong? Or am I...

You know, it's just like the stock market. Have you picked the right one or you picked the wrong one? And I didn't know if I was right on the Jewish front, but on October 8th, to me, everything in the world changed. And it was so profound and so glaring that, you know, it was a wake up call to all of us who, and I put myself in this boat very squarely, that just didn't do enough for Israel, didn't do enough to understand how precarious a situation it is for Jewish people. And how just under, what, the eighth inch of ice was anti-Semitism from people we knew.

Karol Markowicz (3:07)

Yeah.

I guess I always say this, but I was born in the Soviet Union. I just never had any illusions that anti-Semitism was gone. I lived my whole life expecting it, seeing it. I lived my, in so many different ways and so I, you know, I can't say that I was shocked. I guess I'm more surprised about how bad the college campuses have gotten. And you have a recent piece called College Freshmen. If you care about justice, beware the Free Palestine Movement. That was maybe a little bit more surprising to me. I knew that there were a lot of youth that were damaged with this leftist omni-cause, but I did not expect the kind of hatred that I saw on campus. So what do you tell the students?

Marc Sarnoff (3:55)

Well, I think TikTok has really been usurped or was created, primarily by the Chinese and to some degree by the Russians.

And I think it just, the intent is to sow discord. And I think Jews are part and parcel of that discord, because prior to October 7th, they were pretty liberal.

Karol Markowicz (4:20)

Yeah.

Marc Sarnoff (4:20)

Post October 7th, you're now finding a resurgence or a resurrection, if you will, of just people realizing that, you know, your liberalism is really leading you to your own death.

Karol Markowicz (4:35)

Oh yeah.

Marc Sarnoff (4:35)

And listen, I think that's sort of the reality. TikTok, unfortunately, you know, is used to create this derision. And then, you know, Columbia, MIT, Princeton, and Harvard, which has a horrible history.

I don't know if you remember the racial quotas for Jews.

Karol Markowicz (5:02)

Of course, yeah.

Marc Sarnoff (5:02)

You could only have 18 Jews in the school.