Shabbat shalom!
The dog days of summer are upon us, and the world is literally and figuratively heating up. The earth recorded its highest average temperature EVER this week while a catastrophic cocktail of anger, frustration and hubris combined to cause violence, death and destruction across the globe. Here in the good old USA, as we sat on the lawn near the Marine Corp War Memorial in Washington DC on a humid holiday evening, the Grucci rockets red glare in the night sky and feted the throngs of wilting patriots with a dazzling display of cascading showers and exploding chrysanthemums. We could feel the booms resonate in our bodies from the mid-air explosions, while ironically, the nearby Raytheon tower’s logo seemed to cast an approving shadow over the Marine Memorial and gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
I love our country, despite all of its many flaws and self inflicted wounds, and boy, are we experiencing a lot of them lately. While much of the country was celebrating a long weekend of hot dogs, apple pie, and fireworks, violence erupted in cities and towns across the country leaving hundreds dead or wounded and a congress unwilling to do anything about the scourge of military weapons in the hands of the wrong citizens. In France, thousands of protesters, or bored citizens, depending on who you talk to, fueled by rage over the police killing of a teenager during a routine traffic stop in June, have been lashing out against alleged racial profiling and calling for greater police accountability. Sound familiar? Protesters have lit thousands of cars on fire, attacked schools, town halls, police stations, banks and businesses, and set nearly a thousand buildings ablaze. As a result, thousands of young people have been arrested since the rioting began in the days after 17-year-old Nahel M. was killed on June 27. According to France’s Interior Ministry, the average age of those arrested is 17. Macron blamed it mostly on social media and video games. Go figure.
And in Israel, the situation ain’t much better. The IDF completed the largest assault on the west bank in over 20 years in order to route out terrorists operating in the area supposedly controlled by the Palestinian Authority, but as we know from too much experience, the PA is pretty useless. Hence, the violence continues to spiral out of control leading to at least 27 Israeli deaths since January. Meanwhile, thousands of Israeli protesters are once again hitting the streets to pressure Nut-and-Yahoo into dropping the judicial reforms that will decimate the current and fragile balance of power. More on Israel later, but to give you an idea of the bias in the mainstream media against Israel, check out this BBC interview with opposition leader, Naftali Bennett, who is getting kudos from both sides of the political spectrum for his handling of this interviewer, who has since apologized for some of her stupid questions.
As most of you should know by now, I am a glass half full kind of guy. And even while the news cycle is a continuous feed of negativity, there are always glimmers of hope springing up hither and yon. For example, our capitalist system has produced tremendous wealth at home and abroad, leading a global economy that has reduced poverty in third world and developing nations significantly over the last several decades. And while there are certainly inequities in wealth distribution within western countries, we can take pride in the innovations of our tech sector that continues to lead the world in AI and other transformative and disruptive technologies. Just this week Apple passed the $3 trillion valuation point, an amazing accomplishment I am sure could not have happened without the hiring by Apple of my niece Natalie who is rocking it in Cupertino. Another notable bit of good news is that international opinion of the US has gone up significantly since the orange turd left the stage. The latest Pew Research on this topic shows that after all-time low ratings in many countries in 2020 and a sharp recovery in 2021, ratings of the U.S. remain high this year. A median of 61% across the 17 countries surveyed have a favorable view of the U.S., while only 35% have an unfavorable view.
So, put aside our country’s fixation with guns and put aside some awful self inflicted wounds (Iraq invasion, Dobbs decision, Trump election, etc) put aside the ever-haunting fact that a treasonous, narcissistic bullying a-hole is the leading candidate for the Republican party, and celebrate the big picture: The US of A is still the greatest nation on earth, the shining City on the hill that all other countries look to emulate. What makes it so? Is it diversity and opportunity? Freedom? Here is what Aaron Sorkin had to say on the topic in one of the greatest episodes from The Newsroom, probably a speech that saved Jeff Daniels career and made a convincing argument that just maybe we aren’t the greatest nation any more, but we sure use to be! And we still can be!
Happy birthday America!
But enough of this patriotic palabra! And give me some of that old time Jewie journalism! Bring on the carefully curated cornucopia of columns crafted for cranial consumption. Well, here you go! Enjoy these appetizing tidbits from the likes of The Forward, Times of Israel, JTA, Haaretz, and other respectable platforms of Jew news:
- Explained: What’s happening in the Palestinian city of Jenin, and why is Israel targeting it? The Israel Defense Forces launched a major military operation in the northern West Bank city on Monday morning, with eight Palestinian militants killed and more than 50 reportedly wounded. While nightly raids have become commonplace in the West Bank in the past year, this was exceptional. For only the second time since the end of the second intifada in 2005 – and the second time in the last two weeks – the army carried out airstrikes before sending in ground troops. The operation lasted 48 hours, involving around 2,000 Israeli soldiers.An expanded attack on the West Bank is reminiscent of the dark days of the second intifada, but also augurs the potential start of a darker phase for the northern West Bank. Click here for more.
- Did Religion win at the Supreme Court? Yes and no. The justices ruled last week for religious plaintiffs in two blockbuster church-state cases, saying workers have the right not to work on the Sabbath, and to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings. Michael A. Helfand, a law professor and expert on religious liberty, described them as “relatively modest decisions,” where, “upon careful review, there was ultimately less there than originally meets the eye.” The JNR editorial board backed the decision, (a fairly nuanced one at that), with the qualifier that, “if you ask is it okay for a kosher caterer to say “I am not going to cater your wedding because this is an intermarriage between a non-Jew and a Jew”? And if the kosher caterer says, “I will do any other event that you want to do, but I will not do an interfaith wedding because that’s just not something that I approve of.” I’ve always thought of that as completely okay and plausible and within the free speech rights of the caterer.” Read this essay ➤
- Live free or die boycotting – 🇮🇱 New Hampshire on Thursday became the 37th state to prohibit state contracts or investments with companies that boycott Israel. Are such bans constitutional? Arno Rosenfeld of The Forward explored the question in 2021, when states threatened to divest from Unilever, the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, after the ice cream maker refused to sell its products in the occupied West Bank. (Times of Israel)🍦 Speaking of Ben & Jerry’s, one of its co-founders, Ben Cohen, was arrested Thursday while blocking the entrance to the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C., where he was protesting the prosecution of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. (Daily Beast)
- Opinion | Rabbi Seth Winberg, the Hillel director at Brandeis University, argues that the school is a great place for Orthodox Jews, despite a recent ad by the school that seemed to mock them. (The university has apologized.) Brandeis was “the first university in the country to have strictly kosher dining,” Rabbi Winberg notes, has a Shabbat eruv, offers separate hours for women and men at its pool and hosts Torah study classes. Read the essay ➤
- 👮 Protesters burned bonfires on a Tel Aviv highway after the city’s police chief, Ami Eshed, resigned on Wednesday. Eshed quit rather than accede to a demand from Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister in charge of national security, to be tougher on those protesting the government’s judicial overhaul. “With my head held high,” Eshed said, “I am paying an intolerably heavy personal price for my choice to avert a civil war.” (Haaretz, JTA)
- 💊 The Red Pill MAGA Republicans need to take – A former white supremacist says he no longer holds extremist beliefs after taking the drug MDMA as part of a research study. “In certain cases,” the author of a book about MDMA wrote, the drug can “help people see through the fog of discrimination and fear that divides so many of us.” (BBC)
- 🍦 We have our limits, even when it comes to ice cream – Manischewitz has launched what some shoppers are calling “Frankenstein” foods: ice cream that tastes like gefilte fish or matzo balls. Asked why they chose those flavors rather than sweets like hamantaschen or babka, the company said: “Gefilte scored higher on the research.” (Jewish Chronicle)
- ⚽ Soccer legend David Beckham opened up about his family’s Jewish background in a speech this week at a London synagogue. Beckham praised his bubbe’s matzo ball soup and, when quizzed, perfectly recited the hamotzi blessing over bread. (Jewish Chronicle, JTA)
- The Borscht Belt in the Catskill mountains was once home to the best summertime resorts for American Jews. They “were largely barred from gentile-owned hotels, so they had to really create their own vacation world,” said Andrew Jacobs, who is helping build the Borscht Belt Museum in Ellenville, New York. While the museum is not set to open for two years, fans can trek to Ellenville for the first-ever Borscht Belt Fest on July 29.
That’s all folks! Stay cool and hydrate, and enjoy the weekend! And let’s stay safe out there.
Brad out.
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