Shabbat shalom!
I’m taking the week off to visit with family.
There really wasn’t much to write about anyway, just the incredibly horrendous shit which is now considered “normal”: Masked ICE agents snatching people off the street, the National Guard sent into major cities on the obviously false pretense that these cities are shit holes under siege, the U.S. military brazenly blowing up people on the high seas, huge tariffs that will inflict heavy economic burdens and that have already destroyed alliances that took generations to build. And lets not forget that green energy and clean tech have been eviscerated, revenge and vindictive prosecutions are now the norm, many millions are on course to lose their health insurance, and the orange man child, in addition to stealing $230 million from taxpayer coffers and posting memes of himself showering half the country with literal shit, has also decided to raze the historic East Wing of the White House and replace it with a gilded monster ballroom without any review or approvals by anyone. Just another normal week.
As Andrew Sullivan noted in his weekly post, “The bottom has already fallen out of any semblance of public dignity for the United States government.”
So, forget about all that “winning”, try to enjoy the weekend, and take comfort in over 8 million of us taking to the streets to express our dissent in watching our democracy get demolished like a wing of the White House.
And to make you feel even better about things, here is some Jew News of the week, courtesy of Nellie Bowles, (wife of Bari Weiss), who writes a weekly sarcastic punch at the news for The Free Press.
→ News of the Jews: You know the situation is bad. I know the situation is bad. Yes, I will tell you when I pack a go-bag.
One interesting thing to know is that our commentariat are true hardcore Hamasniks, like even within Gaza they would be on the militant side. Rima Hassan, a member of the European Parliament from France, seemed to celebrate the news that Hamas was hunting down dissidents in Gaza. She posted a story about how “groups in Gaza that collaborated with the Israeli army” are being killed by Hamas during the ceasefire and added the caption: “one by one.” Like, go get ’em all, boys! Bushra Shaikh, a popular British media personality, had this to say: “People who betrayed their countries to support the Nazis after WWII faced severe consequences, including execution. This is no different. . . . Hamas are only doing what they have to, for the little stability Palestinians have.” Right.
Over in audio media, Louis Theroux, the beloved British journalist, has fallen. Here he is this week on a podcast, claiming that Jewish national identity has become a role model for all racism, the inspiration for all ethno-religious nationalism around the world.
There’s an even more macro lens which you can put on it which is that Jewish identity in the Jewish community, as expressed in Israel, has become almost like an acceptable quote, unquote, way of understanding ethno-nationalism. And so it’s like they’re prototyping an aggressive form of ethno-nationalism, which is then rolled out, whether it’s by people like Viktor Orbán in Hungary or Trump in the U.S. . . . . It’s become sort of this certain sense of post-Holocaust Jewish exceptionalism or Zionist exceptionalism, has become a role model on the national stage for what these white identitarians would like to do in their own countries.
The feeling I have now is similar to the one I had during the height of #MeToo, when every morning brought news of another famous mogul who had been trapping interns in his car, or a beloved actor who turned out to have a rape button under his desk. Now, I wake up each day to another person I respected who suddenly has a lot of rage toward one very specific group of people, who suddenly thinks the world’s ills can be put on this one little group. Et tu, Theroux?
Theroux has a similar philosophy to Irish actress Denise Gough, who argued that if we destroy Israel, then every evil nation in the world will snap into goodness: “The Death Star apparently has a place in it that if you shoot through that specific place in the Death Star, you explode the entire Death Star,” Denise explained. “And so somebody said Palestine is that place, and the construction, the Death Star, is like all of it: Sudan, Congo, all of it, everywhere, Nigeria now, everywhere. If we can free Palestine, it explodes everything.” Love this logic. Really sophisticated stuff.
Another to fall is moderate Seth Moulton, a nice congressman in Massachusetts. Rep. Moulton last week announced he’d be returning all AIPAC money donated to him and would no longer accept AIPAC donations, which is, of course, fine, if that were a blanket rule of his, but he accepts donations and even a junket from Qatari advocacy groups, but who cares about that. AIPAC is also the Death Star.
Over at Pomona College in Southern California, a campus Jewish group was hosting an October 7 survivor to speak about his experience in captivity and resilience and whatever else you can imagine someone might say to make sense of life after that happens. The talk was interrupted by masked protesters dressed in pseudo-Hamas garb (keffiyehs over their faces except for little eye slits), who attempted to storm the room. You see, the idea of a Jewish man escaping Hamas is infuriating (how dare he!). So kids in America put on the clothing of his attackers to scream at him. Across the world, pretty little blond boy Oxford students are now this week chanting: “Gaza, Gaza, make us proud, put the Zios in the ground.”
Tucker Carlson did an episode on Covid with Dr. Andrew Huff, where Tuck was sure to imply that Covid has a Jewish angle to it: “I remember Bobby Kennedy got into a great deal of trouble because he said at some event. . . that Covid could be tailored, that for whatever reason Covid had disparate effects on populations,” Tuck said, prodding his guest: “What does that mean? Which populations suffered less from Covid?” The answer, per our guest: Ashkenazi Jews. The implication is obvious. Even though Covid was made in China, by the Chinese, with some funding from America, Tucker is managing to sprinkle a little Maybe it was the Jews on top. That pangolin wore a yarmulke!
And because no week is complete without checking in on Candace Owens, now she’s claiming that Kirk’s assassination was a plot involving Turning Point USA, the U.S. military, the CIA, Mossad, the Mormons, and many paid actors. “I actually believe that this was a military hit that involved foreign actors, and also literal actors. I believe that that day ran something akin to JFK’s assassination. I believe that there were therefore multiple decoys on the ground.” I’m terrified of Candace, but I also can’t get enough of her. It’s all the theories, all at once. Something feels off, and therefore everyone is an actor in Candace’s world. Must be stressful.
And that was this week’s news of the Jews.
Yikes.
If you are looking for something to make you laugh this week, here is a link to a post from Shalom Auslander’s Fetal Position, called , “Bris Amiss”, a funny satire on one of RFK Jr’s most recent stupid claims, that Tylenol given for circumcision increases the likelihood of autism. As Shalom says, “Maybe yarmulkas cause brain tumors.”
Be safe out there everyone.
Brad out.
Here is something to make you smile: one of our little nachas machines, Cam, who really enjoyed my pasta dish!
Jew News Review 