The Jew News Review – July 13, 2024 – “Dog days, baseball, and eccentric British politicians”

Shabbat shalom! 

This heatwave is making me more than a bit irascible, and the news here in the Jew S of A, doesn’t help my temperament much either. To avoid inducing any further anxiety, and to keep my optimistic wits about me while I watch a perfect political storm potentially demolish our democracy, I have turned to two of my favorite past times – baseball, and, eccentric British politicians. 

Of the former, we are approaching the half way point of the baseball season with the All Star game scheduled to begin next week. For most of us in the USA, baseball is in our DNA. I still have vivid memories of my Little League years: putting on a wool uniform too big for my undersized frame, running chalk-lined base paths in stiff leather cleats, the smell of recently mowed grass, the sting of a batted ball on a cold day, the taunts and jeers coming from the dugouts, the home run I hit against Randy Friedman, buying waxed lips, pixie sticks and dots candies at the concession stand. For obvious reasons, I am investing more and more time in baseball, making the game do more of the work that helps keep me from losing my shit. Whatever whacky and depressing news is hitting the daily cycle, I know I can count on the game’s deeply enduring patterns, as A. Bartlett Giamatti noted, “three strikes, three outs, three times three innings, and its deepest impulse, to go out and back, to leave and to return home, to set the order of the day and to organize the daylight.” And with my home team, the Boston Red Sox, running like rabbits in this new and improved version of baseball, I have a deeper appreciation than ever for the summer game.

As most politicians know, if the shit is hitting the proverbial fan on the domestic front, one can always turn their focus and agenda to foreign affairs. In that regard, there has been a lot to talk about this past week with elections taking place in both Britain and France, with the former providing much entertainment mostly from that notable and peculiarly British cultural phenomenon known politely as “the eccentric British politician”. Confession: I am a bit of an anglophile, ever since my 10 week consulting gig working in Bishop’s Stortford, where I learned how to hit a tennis ball on grass and enjoy warm beer, not necessarily in that order. I also learned a little about British elections, a far more efficient process than our never-ending campaigns and transitions. In Britain, this last election cycle was all of 4 weeks. Elections were on a Thursday, and by Friday morning Sunak was gracefully handing over the reigns of power to Starmer, (who for some strange reason has British women swooning). Sadly, the US may never see that kind of peaceful transition ever again.

While the British Parliamentary system may run more smoothly than ours, it doesn’t lose its sense of humor in the process. There was a time in the US when we didn’t take ourselves and our elections too seriously. Pat Paulson, a straight-faced comedian, ran for President in 1968 claiming he was neither Democrat nor Republican.  His party was the Straight Talkin’ American Government Party, the STAG Party.  “Are you right-wing or left-wing?” someone asked.  “Neither,” he said.  “I’m kind of middle of the bird.  Too much left-wing, too much right-wing and you fly around in concentric circles.”

And of course there was the campaign by Mad Magazine icon, Alfred E. Neuman whose campaign slogan was “What, me worry?” Neuman is MAD magazine’s signature character, the goofy, gap-toothed guy who fictitiously runs for president every four years in the pages of the humor magazine. “He’s just got this stupid face that people seem to like and they write in his name,” MAD magazine editor John Ficarra told the JNR. “He’s sort of like Ron Paul, but with better looks and better positions.” 

I myself ran a satirical campaign for Student Government President in 1978 at the University of Massachusetts with my partner in crime, Bill Edelstein. We ran as Co-Benevolent Dictators against “None of the Above”, a Yippie named Russell Swan who along with his toy duck ran on the Swan-Duck platform, and about six other candidates. With student funding, Edelstein and I rented a Piper Cub plane at Northampton Airport and actually dropped leaflets from said plane onto the Amherst campus, in what is probably one of the best political stunts in UMass history. Unfortunately, we misjudged the wind and our leaflets fell on the Dean of Students house and a nearby Amherst elementary school. We didn’t win, but as Edelstein claimed in the student newspaper interview, “we nailed the 4th grade vote.”

So, I am someone who can appreciate some good satire and few good political stunts. Hence, I was particularly thankful to the leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, who launched himself into some attention-grabbing stunts which helped propel his party into the media, while also carrying serious messages. Some of his crazier stunts included:

1. The bungee jump

2. Paddle boarding in Lake Windermere

3. Interview in a tea cup

Sir Ed’s Liberal Democrats came in 3rd in the voting, ending up with 72 seats, a gain of over 60 from the last election in 2019. So, it seems that these planned stunts paid off for Sir Ed and the Liberal Democrats. It was not a fun night for the Tories however, who predictably were clobbered in what most considered a rebuke of 14 years of incompetence. Even Liz Truss, the Conservative MP who couldn’t last longer than a head of lettuce as Prime Minister, lost her seat. And no MP symbolized Tory humiliation more than Senior Conservative politician Jacob Rees-Mogg, who lost his seat while standing next to a man in a baked beans balaclava. Mr Rees-Mogg looked solemn in the moment, but the man standing next to him in a brunch-themed balaclava and a wooden tie stole the show. This was Phin “Barmy Brunch” Adams, a schoolteacher, radio presenter, and Monster Raving Loony Party candidate for North East Somerset and Hanham. Barmy Brunch stood on a platform of introducing a “statutory brunch hour,” but also to make a statement about mental health. You really can’t make this shit up.

So, thank you baseball for being a great summer distraction, and thank you eccentric British politicians who continue to provide comic relief during these particularly dreadful dog days of summer. 

Now, what about all the news for the Jews? Without any further ajieu, here is your weekly buffet of baffling, beguiling, and sometimes bitter news for the Jews copied and pasted from the likes of The Forward, Kveller, Times of Israel, The Jewish Chronicle, JTA, and other reputable sources of all things Jewish-y.  

1. The latest on the war
   1. There was significant progress made at hostage-truce talks Tuesday in Egypt, according to a U.S. official. Talks are set to resume in Qatar. Netanyahu has announced 4 red lines in the negotiations, which hostage family members believe is a deliberate attempt by him to derail the negotiations.
   2. A cease-fire in Gaza could also calm tensions in Israel’s north, where dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Hezbollah fighters have been killed since the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group began launching missiles on Oct. 8. Hezbollah has launched yet another barrage of explosive drones into northern Israel. One person in the Western Galilee has been reported as critically wounded from the barrage. Nearly 100,000 residents of northern Israel remain displaced around the country through the end of August, according to a government order issued earlier this week. With school starting the day after the latest evacuation order ends, families who are unable to return to their homes in the north are unlikely to uproot their children in the middle of the school year. That would make the prospects of an imminent return even less viable, which is likely to have a devastating impact on northern communities for the foreseeable future.
   3. IDF strike targets Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif; group claims at least 70 killed – Muhammad Deif, the elusive commander of Hamas’s military wing, and another top commander in the terror group were targeted in an airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday morning, the Israeli military said. The pair were struck with large munitions above ground while in a low building between the al-Mawasi area and Khan Younis in southern Gaza, and not in a tunnel. Hamas claimed that over 70 people had been killed in the strike.
   4. The Biden administration will soon begin shipping the 500-pound bombs to Israel that it initially withheld in May. The heavier 2,000-pound bombs are still on hold.
   5. The IDF is moving forward with drafting Haredi men. Some prominent rabbis are urging yeshiva students to ignore the draft notices.
   6. A vandal in Amsterdam defaced a statue of Anne Frank, painting the word “Gaza” across the base.
   7. A Jewish man is suing two groups that protested outside a Los Angeles synagogue last month, claiming that his right to access a house of worship was impeded.
   8. An Israeli airstrike in Gaza Tuesday afternoon killed at least 25 people, according to local health authorities. The IDF said it was targeting a Hamas leader and is investigating the incident. Separately, the IDF warned all residents of Gaza City to evacuate.
   9. The FBI is interviewing U.S. survivors and relatives of victims of the Oct. 7 attack as it builds a case against Hamas’ financial backers.
   10. Iran has provided funding for pro-Palestinian protests in the U.S., the director of National Intelligence said on Tuesday. Related: Iran’s new president reaffirmed his country’s commitment to support anti-Israel groups.
   11. Two Israeli civilians were killed Tuesday night when a Hezbollah rocket struck their car in northern Israel.
   12. A judge ruled on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must continue testifying in his corruption trial on Dec. 2, and that an ongoing war should not impact his ability to prepare for that.
2. French Jews reel over shock election results boosting extreme parties – Many in France celebrated the unexpected victory of a left-wing coalition in blocking the rise of Marine Le Pen’s controversial far-right party in Sunday’s parliamentary elections. But for the country’s Jewish community – the largest in Europe – the results cast a gloomy outlook on their future, although it is unlikely to spark mass immigration to Israel, at least for now, those who spoke to Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash this week said. “This is the worst parliament since the Shoah if you look at all the seats gained on the extreme right and all those gained on the extreme left,” Ariel Kandel, CEO of Qualita, an umbrella organization for French immigrants to Israel, told JI. “And those numbers will just keep on growing.”
3. HFAC Republicans pass measure to claw back UNRWA funding with no support from Democrats – The House Foreign Affairs Committee split along party lines on a bill seeking to rescind U.S. funding previously provided to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency before the administration and Congress froze funding to the U.N. body earlier this year, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
4. Notes on the North: In The Times of Israel, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, previously a member of Knesset, argues that Israel needs to take a harder stance against Hezbollah as the Iran-backed terror group continues to attack Israel’s north. “Israel is losing the north, but the loss will not be of land alone. Endangered, too, is the state’s commitment to defend all of our citizens irrespective of their place of residence, to preserve our precious human and natural resources, and to deter our enemies. Nor will that fate be confined to the north but, along with Hezbollah’s southward-creeping rocket fire, it will eventually afflict the center. A new northern border running from Haifa to Kfar Saba is not unimaginable, or even from Ra’anana to Netanya.” [TOI]
5. A newly released IDF report into operational failures on Oct. 7 found that the Israeli military made a number of grave errors in its response to Hamas’ terror attack on the community of Kibbutz Be’eri.
6. On a private Zoom call, Biden’s top Jewish supporters question his ability to win – The Biden campaign dispatched a staffer on Wednesday to reassure the members of Jewish Women for Joe, a grassroots group that for years has contained some of the president’s fiercest backers, and several other politically involved Jewish Democrats — who are now, like many other Democrats, privately stressed about President Joe Biden’s ability to beat former President Donald Trump. It didn’t go well, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports, after obtaining leaked audio from the call. 

Finally, I recommend Dan Senor’s latest interview, this time with former Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett. Here is a link to the podcast and a short excerpt from the transcription:

“Well, unfortunately, right now, the evidence shows that their big driver is a deep religious desire to destroy the Jewish state, and they view that superior to their own desires for their welfare. Now, this is very hard to accept as a Western mind, people who live in Israel and had normal lives, we assumed that our neighbors also pursue happiness and pursue the good of their children. Unfortunately, both the polls, even the most recent polls show that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians, roughly 75% support Hamas and support the massacres of October 7th and the consequences.

And whoever perpetrated October 7th, which was thousands of Hamasnicks, but also thousands of random civilians who went in and joined the party, the pogrom, it shows that this is a massive popular sentiment that is a result of decades and decades of brain poisoning by their own leadership, by their media, by their mosques, by the schools. So I don’t think a baby is born bad. I think babies are born neutral and it’s what you feed their minds and hearts for decades that shapes them.”

From Call Me Back – with Dan Senor: Naftali Bennett, (former) Prime Minister, Jul 12, 2024

That’s all folks. Try to stay cool, stay optimistic, and remember, be careful out there. And go Red Sox!

Brad out.