Shabbat shalom! Temperatures across the globe continue to set records. For the first time ever, The Acropolis was closed to the public due to the heat, the water temperature in Florida reached 90 degrees, and Bibi Nut-and-yahoo fainted from dehydration. So, keep cool and stay hydrated everyone!
A tip of the kipah this week to my niece Carrie, a special one of the 20 thousand or so members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) currently on strike. Some of you may be thinking “who cares about the privileged Hollywood people”, but most writers barely eek out a middle class salary and the issues faced by the writers are the same issues many of us face as AI and Large Language Models begin to disrupt many industries. Digital streaming (Netflix, eg) has led to a new business model and new rules will need to be written if the studios want to stay in business and maintain their very fat salaries. The key questions on the table are how those new rules will split the pie and how to deal with AI. As The Guardian recently noted: “What would be remarkable is if – when you realized that your once-good job was being made worse in order to satisfy the profit hunger of some faraway investment banker – you were able to actually do something about it. That, in our nation, would be news. That would be something for everyone to cheer for. The plain old workers standing up against enormous companies to stop the process that is turning their careers into execrable “gigs”. Is it a fairy tale? No, my friends. Welcome to the Great Writers Strike of 2023.” So keep walking the line Carrie, we need you on that wall!
Fran Drescher, who leads the striking Screen Actors Guild, said recently in an interview by Kara Swisher, that this strike will go on until someone from the greedy studios steps up and displays some “courage and character”. Until then, we will have to entertain ourselves with the clash of the mega-toy movies, Barbie and Oppenheimer, aka “Oppenharbie” or “Barbenheimer”. The plethora of promotions of these two films feels like inescapable fallout from an atomic movie bomb. The New York Times has already published at least 20 articles on Barbie alone! (American businesswoman Ruth Handler, a Jewish immigrant, is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration.) I have not yet seen either of these films, but my bet is on Barbie as the winner of this cinematic smackdown. After all, there are not many Oppenheimer action figures out there for kids to play with, but maybe there should be? One of my favorite thought pieces on the Barbie movie is from Kat Rosenfield, co-host of the Feminist Chaos podcast. The piece is titled, ”Barbie is Fight Club for Women”, and while I don’t agree with all her opinions, it is well-written and made me think, two attributes lacking in most social media these days.
And now, a rant from your local sponsor: Social media is the new “vast wasteland”.
Let’s take a short ride in the wayback machine. It’s May 9, 1961, and the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Newton Minow, is giving a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters. In the speech, Minow referred to American commercial television programming as a “vast wasteland” and advocated for programming “in the public interest”. Here is an excerpt from his speech:
When television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers—nothing is better.
But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland….True, you’ll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few.
Now, back to the present and replace “TV” with “social media”. Try and think of something positive contributed to society by Facebook, Twitter, tiktok, Instagram, etc. Yes, there are a few things you might enjoy or find helpful, such as finding out about the death of friends, or maybe a good recipe, and a laugh now and then due to stupid pet trick videos, but on balance, it’s a shit show. And left unregulated, big tech has used the power of algorithms to promote postings that indulge hate speech and divisiveness and provided platforms that promote anti-semitism, as evidenced by the meteoric rise in those incidents over the last several years. And then of course there is the direct correlation between social media and the rise of teenage suicides and depression, particularly among teenage girls as documented clearly by Jonathan Haidt who demonstrates with hard evidence that social media has rewired childhood to become phone-based and rates of anxiety and depression are soaring (see Haidt’s Feb 8 post). “
And now, the latest craze on TikTok and now Twitter, is watching livestreams of people role-playing as “NPCs”, or non-playable characters in video games, a new genre of professional hot girl. Do these men want a living, breathing Barbie doll? These mostly young women (“content creators”) use face filters to appear as anime or infantilized characters on TikTok livestream, performing a constant stream of repetitive chatter while fans pay anywhere from a few cents to a dollar to send her virtual tokens. For those with a big following and the stamina to perform for hours on end, a single streaming session can net them thousands of dollars. The fact that the average NPC streamer’s fanbase is largely male has given rise to the theory that their performances satisfy a not necessarily sexual fetish for control. Yikes! This is the porn industry model brought to you by TikTok and Twitter! To paraphrase Minow, when social media is bad, nothing could be worse. It is indeed, the new frontier of a vast wasteland. Nuf said.
Meanwhile, in Israel, tens of thousands continue to protest Nut-and-Yahoo’s attempt to derail democracy with the judicial reforms being pushed by his coalition of crazies. For an amazing 28th straight week, protesters jammed the streets of Israel despite intense heat gripping the country. Without a clear leader or ambassador, this amazing grassroots campaign to save Democracy in Israel is now organizing a march on the Knesset in a last ditch effort to stall or stop the vote this week to remove the “reasonableness” clause that currently allows judicial review of legislative actions. There is a lot at stake here, including the US relationship with Israel, which is already on shaky grounds with many of the Dems, so stay tuned.
Now, on with the Jewy stuff. Your standard smorgasbord of superbly selected semitic stuff from sources such as The Forward, JTA, The Times of Israel, Nosher, Kveller, and Jewish Boston to name a few. Enjoy!
- Over 1,000 Air Reservists Threaten to Stop Serving, as Israel’s Political Crisis Grows – More than a thousand pilots and other personnel in the Israeli Air Force reserve said on Friday that they would stop reporting for duty next week if the government pushes through a contentious plan to reduce judicial power without broader consensus. In a joint letter released Friday, 1,142 air force reservists — including 235 fighter pilots, 98 transport plane pilots, 89 helicopter pilots and 173 drone operators — said they would not serve if the government proceeded with its plan to reduce the ways in which the Supreme Court can overrule the government. “Legislation that allows the government to act in an extremely unreasonable manner will harm the security of the State of Israel, will cause a loss of trust and a violation of my consent to continue risking my life — and will lead, with deep sorrow and lack of choice, to the suspension of my volunteer service in the reserves,” the letter said.
- Nut-and-yahoo doubles down on judicial reform – TEL AVIV (JTA) — In a primetime address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to press on with his government’s effort to weaken Israel’s judiciary, accusing some of the legislation’s opponents of “endangering democracy.” The nearly 10-minute televised speech came as Netanyahu’s coalition is pushing through a measure that will strip the Supreme Court of the power to strike down government decisions it deems “unreasonable.” In response, opponents of the judicial overhaul effort have held mass protests, blocked major streets and engaged in other forms of civil disobedience. The overhaul’s critics say sapping the Supreme Court of its power and independence would endanger Israeli democracy by removing a curb on the government’s power. While he bookended the address with calls for unity, Netanyahu defended legislation overhauling the “reasonableness” clause unequivocally, saying the current legislation is a scaled-back version of the original proposal. He blamed his political opposition for the failure of negotiations that had aimed to create a compromise proposal.
- The Jewish story behind Oppenheimer – (JTA) — Friday is not just “Barbie” release day — moviegoers are also planning to fill theaters across the United States to see Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” biopic. Many hope it will answer a question that has long divided Americans and the country’s understanding of its history: Who exactly was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb? Oppenheimer’s name has become “a metaphor for mass death beneath a mushroom cloud,” in the words of Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, whose 2005 book “American Prometheus” was adapted into Nolan’s film. But to fully understand the physicist, biographers have looked for clues in his belief system — an ethical code grounded in science and rationality, a fiery sense of justice and a lifelong ambivalence toward his own Jewish heritage.Here’s a primer on his Jewish story, the other Jewish characters he met while developing the Manhattan Project and how the movie portrays it all. Click here for the full story.
- Barbie is Jewish! – Four of the Forward‘s culture writers, intrigued by suggestions that the biggest, pinkest movie of the summer might be interestingly Hebraic, went to see it the day it opened in New York. Afterwards, over a staggering array of pink snacks (who knew you could buy decent pink cheese?) and cocktails made with sparkling rosé, we sat down to talk about how much of Barbie‘s promise — Jewish and otherwise — was fulfilled. We loved Rhea Perlman as Barbie’s Jewish inventor, Ruth Handler, “a five-foot-nothing grandma with a double mastectomy and tax evasion issues.” And we cackled at the film’s most obvious Jewish line, which comes courtesy of Will Ferrell’s bumbling Mattel CEO, who pleads his liberal credentials by saying “some of my closest friends are Jewish.” Click here for more.
- We need to talk about RFK Jr.’s antisemitic conspiracy mongering: The Forward’s language columnist, Aviya Kushner, argues that the Democratic presidential challenger’s comments represent a toxic blend of old and new hatreds – blood libels with a contemporary twist. “The idea that Jews are either responsible for disease or not dying quickly enough from disease is a throwback to the medieval era,” she says. And the framing of Ashkenazi Jews as a race plays into the modern-day great replacement theory, “which was behind the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s rage and was often amplified by Tucker Carlson.” Read the essay ➤
- Left-wing Democrats are boycotting the Israeli president. What other heads-of-state speeches have Congress members skipped? When Israeli President Isaac Herzog delivered his address on Wednesday, a few seats in the House chamber were empty: At least five Democrats announced they would stay away to protest Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and other policies. Turns out there’s a long history of this kind of thing, targeting leaders from Iraq, India and even a pope. Here are some other examples. Read the story ➤
- A Jewish guide to the Women’s World Cup – The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup is underway in Australia and New Zealand, and there are no known Jewish players in the tournament. In fact, Jews in women’s pro soccer seem to be few and far between — a fact that disheartens Yael Averbuch West, the former star player who is now an executive in the National Women’s Soccer League. “I do think that representation is important,” Averbuch West told me. “And because of the lack of representation, I think that that affects up-and-coming Jewish players. I’ve had people say to me, ‘oh my gosh, you’re my favorite player, because we’re Jewish and we don’t see any Jewish players out there.’” Though there won’t be any Jews on the field, there are some notable ones off the field — from legendary broadcaster Andres Cantor to fans Doug Emhoff and Sue Bird, who will be there to cheer on the U.S. team.
That’s all for the week folks. Have a great weekend, stay cool, and shut off your social media accounts. Read a good book instead.
Brad out.
Jew News Review 