Shabbat shalom. 

We are away this week, heading eventually to Vermont (God’s country) for a week of hiking and skiing at Smuggler’s Notch. We have been making this trek for over 20 years, a pilgrimage that started shortly after my dad passed and we decided buying real estate on a credit card was a good way to deal with his loss. Turns out it was a really good idea, as each year we make more memories on these mountain ski trips that continue to bring the family together. Soon, our grandchildren will be enrolled in Smuggs ski school, sleeping arrangements will become much more challenging, and the treasured memories will continue. 

I bore you with this family mush as my way of wishing you all the best holidays and a happy new year, and announcing a pause in the JNR until after the new year. One of the great things about the Substack platform is that it introduces you to many new writers and I recently ran across a Zine called Oxford Sour, produced by Christopher Gage, who’s latest piece was entitled, “How to Eat an Elephant”, a brilliant lament on FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), in which he writes:

This box-ticking disease is everywhere one looks. At concerts, out are the lighters, and in are the smartphones recording footage nobody will ever willingly watch. At every major landmark in every major city, swarms of standardised faces jostle for selfies. We’d rather prove we were present than be present. We’d rather be seen than see. Ironically, by fearing we’ll miss out, we miss out.

So, I am logging off for a few weeks to make sure I stay present and avoid missing out, but also to avoid carving a trail into a dense glade beyond my modest skiing capabilities. And, to take a break from the dreadful news cycle that only looks like it will get worse next year. But before I do, a quick tip of the kipah this week to my Dad, who while we miss him dearly, inspired our dumb purchase of this time sharing vacation that is a gift that keeps on giving. 

And lastly, anglophile that I am, I am closing with a classic John Lewis ad (UK Department Store), which reminds me of my wife, who gets way more pleasure out of giving gifts then receiving them and has a real hard time waiting to give them. She too, has been a gift that keeps on giving. Enjoy, and happy New Year everyone!

And hey, stay present, and let’s be careful out there. 

Brad out. 

Shabbat shalom! 

And a tip of the kipah this week to that bastion of intelligence, fortitude, courage, and statesmanship, The US House of Representatives, who finally displayed a sliver of integrity by expelling George Santos from that esteemed body. While it may have taken too much time for such an obvious conclusion, Santos will be missed for his late night talk show entertainment value. After packing up his office (including his Oscars and Super Bowl rings), according to Santos, we will be seeing him soon as the next judge on the Great British Baking Show!

On a more serious matter, the pause in the Israeli war in Gaza has ended and bombings on both sides have resumed. It was a roller coaster of emotions in Israel and around the world this last week, as we got to see videos of hostages re-united with family members. Some of the hostages have started speaking publicly about their captivity, and of course it wasn’t pretty. And just this morning, Netanyahu instructed the Israeli negotiating team in Doha to return home “due to the dead end in negotiations. The Hamas terror group did not fulfill its obligations under the agreement that included releasing all the women and children that were on the list provided to Hamas that had authorized it,” the statement from Netanyahu’s office read. 

So, we are back to war and eradicating Hamas while trying to free the remaining hostages. Still held hostage by Gaza terror groups when the truce collapsed were 136 people — 114 men, 20 women and two children — government spokesperson Eylon Levy said. Ten of the hostages are 75 and older. The vast majority of the hostages, 125, are Israeli. Eleven are foreign nationals, including eight from Thailand. My heart bleeds for the hostages and their families, but they need to face facts and remember who we are dealing with. Hamas would have given the other women back if they were in good enough shape to be presented publicly. They aren’t. They are either dead or brutalized so badly Hamas cannot allow them to be seen. It would truly be a miracle if any of them ever return or are rescued alive.

Israel, for its part of the negotiations, released 240 Palestinian prisoners. Around half of them had been arrested for violent crimes including 10 for attempted murder, 19 for making, planting or planning bombings, and 7 for shootings. Very few were detained for “administrative” reasons, a security tactic employed by Israel which has come under sharp criticism by many international groups. And in yet another example of incredibly stupid reporting by the lame stream media, check out this exchange between Britain’s Sky News anchor Kay Burley and Israeli spokesman Eylon Levy on the topic:

In the midst of this hostage diplomacy, one of the most important diplomats of our time, Henry Kissinger, passed away at the ripe old age of 100. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, and the first Jewish Secretary of State in the US, he certainly left an indelible mark on global affairs with his administration of Realpolitik diplomacy. I was never a big fan of Kissinger, given his association with Tricky Dick Nixon, and later, his secret bombings of Cambodia and Laos, but I learned something about him in one of the many obituaries which I find very relevant to the situation in Israel today. 

According to foreign policy expert Robert Kaplan, one of the tenets of Kissinger’s Realpolitik was that “the fundamental issue in international and domestic affairs is not the control of wickedness, but the limitation of self-righteousness. For it is self-righteousness that often leads to war and the most extreme forms of repression, both at home and abroad.” I paused on that thought, and immediately connected it to a lot of the issues facing Israel today. 

While I believe to my core that Israel is more righteous and has moral superiority in this current conflict, I cannot help but share the feelings of Rami Elhanan, who lost his 14 year old daughter to a Hamas suicide bombing 26 years ago, and now co-directs a group called The Parent’s Circle, a group of Palestinian and Israeli parents that have lost children in the many conflicts. 

We are in a circle of blood for the last 75 years. And this is just another round. Nobody expected the viciousness and cruelty of this round, but it was expected. You cannot put two million people in a box, close the cover, and expect nothing will happen. It will not stop unless we talk. You cannot annihilate Hamas. You cannot ignore six million Palestinians living here in the holy land. And you cannot expect them to go away. They will not go away. We will not go away. We are doomed to live here together and we have to choose — whether to share this land or to share the graveyard under it. 

Amen.

Now, what about all the other news of the Jews across the globe and the Jew S of A? Well, your wait is over. Here is this week’s roundup from the likes of The Forward, Times of Israel, Haaretz, Kveller, Future of Jewish, JTA and other respectable Jewy journals:

1. Opinion | It’s time for Israel’s far right to go. Yes, a majority of American Jews back the war with Hamas. But they do not support the goals of Israeli nationalists calling for “an ethnic cleansing of Gaza and a reestablishment of settlements on land that, from biblical times to our own, does not belong to the Jewish people,” writes Forward columnist Jay Michaelson. As some members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet have argued for those ends, it’s time for American politicians to take a stronger line in pushing for their ouster. Read his essay ➤
2. 🤨  A Maine town removed a Star of David from its holiday lights display after a local Arab American organization reportedly called it “offensive.” The mayor said local Jewish groups agreed it should be taken down, and that it would be replaced with depictions of dreidels. (JTA)
3. Henry Kissinger wasn’t bad for Israel — he helped save it: “A deep historical review of thousands of declassified documents,” wrote Martin Indyk, the author of a book about Kissinger and Middle East diplomacy, “reveal that, rather than undermining the nascent Jewish state, he did much to ensure its survival and well-being.” Read the story ➤
4. 🤦  More Musk Madness – Elon Musk, fresh off his trip to Israel on Monday, lashed into advertisers who are boycotting his social media platform after he endorsed an antisemitic post. In an expletive-laden appearance at a business conference Wednesday in New York City, Musk expressed regret, called himself “philosemitic” … and also seemed to suggest that some Jewish organizations have funded Hamas-affiliated groups. (JTA)
5. There’s a new Jewish Caucus in US Congress, but its mission is still unclear – More than a dozen Jewish members of Congress gathered on Friday for the first meeting of the US House of Representatives Jewish Caucus. But following the meeting, held in the offices of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an influential Jewish Democrat from Florida, it remains unclear what the caucus will stand for as the chamber’s Jews are deeply divided over the Israel-Hamas war and other issues. A statement from Wasserman Schultz’s office suggested the caucus was still finding its feet. (Times of Israel)
6. 🕎  The grinch who stole Hanukkah? A borough in London decided not to allow a giant menorah to be erected outside its town hall “in light of escalating tensions from the conflict in the Middle East.” (Jewish News)
7. “Me Too Unless you’re a Jew” – Opinion | The women’s movement has a double standard when sexual violence happens to Jews: “For those of us who work to end domestic and sexual violence, there are two key tenets: Believe women. And never blame the victim,” writes Meredith Jacobs, the CEO of Jewish Women International. “And yet here we were. The brutal rapes, bodily mutilations and sadistic murder of women and children on Oct. 7 is being dismissed as lies and Zionist propaganda.” Read her essay ➤

On a lighter note, and with Chanukah around the corner, I thought I would end this week with the original version of Adam Sandler’s Chanukah song. Enjoy! And as usual, be very careful out there.

Brad out.

Shabbat shalom.

While our hearts may be heavy from the situation in Israel, and our place in the world in perpetual doubt, let’s take a pause from the weekly mayhem to be thankful. Despite the daily depravity that seems to envelop us, we still have each other. And we can still laugh and kvell, and flash a smile when a child or grand child runs to greet us, and cling to the hope that tomorrow will be a brighter day and bring better news. 

I am grateful, and thankful, to all of my JNR friends and family for their continued support, and for even opening this email. My editorial premise has always been quite simply, l’dor v’dor, or “generation to generation”. I feel a great sense of pride in my Jewishness, but also a strong sense of stewardship to keep the generations connected to a culture and religion that has delivered so much to the world, but especially to my own sense of self and “tikkun olam.” And although things seem to carry us to serious places these days, I try to not to be too serious, and to offer different perspectives and bits of culture or a “tip of the kipah” as a tonic on what can seem like a callous and unforgiving news cycle. 

So, even in these darkest of days in the Jewish world, we can take a pause in the action, and let time with family and friends bring in some nourishing light. We can put the phone down, take a walk, watch some football, eat some turkey, play some cribbage, and/or recall the old stories and memories that bring loved ones back to life, or all of the above. As long as we have loved ones to share all of that with, how can we not be grateful for such a gift?

As always, be careful out there, and thanks again for your support. And enjoy this bit of Thanksgiving fun from SNL!

Brad out.

Shabbat shalom. 

Oh boy. Many rants today, please indulge me. How I long for the days when my biggest complaint was a certain orange turd trying to destroy democracy. While that threat continues to haunt my brain (and the country), my inbox, my list of podcasts and my Substack readings grow exponentially, mostly about the shit show going on in Israel. Keeping up with that whirlwind is not easy, and I have tried to make room for voices on both sides to avoid breathing too much algorithmic fumes funneled my way by social media platforms that care more about fueling division than finding the truth. I even listened to Piers Morgan facilitating the dumbest “debate” I have ever seen between Muslim philosopher, scholar and YouTuber Mohammed Hijab and the most famous rabbi in America, Rabbi Shmuley. Shmuley tried his best to swat down the bullshit, but in the end, the hour long debacle left me feeling worse about a potential peace, and a lot dumber. Piers lost control for most of the hour, and Hijab refused to shake the rabbi’s hand.

If you want to hear a more rational and reasoned debate that provides a Palestinian perspective, I recommend this podcast with a discussion between Coleman Hughes and Yousef Munayyer. Yousef is a Palestinian-American writer and political analyst based in Washington, D.C. He was the executive director of the US campaign for Palestinian rights, and previously he directed the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development. I don’t agree at all with his articulation of a one state solution, which I believe is just a veiled plan to get rid of Israel, but at least you can get a sense of where he/they are coming from.

But there was some good news this week, although you wouldn’t know it based on the lame stream media coverage. Here in the Jew S of A, over 300,000 of mostly American Jews and supporters of Israel descended on Washington DC to march in support of Israel. This was the largest gathering of Jews in the history of the country, praying and protesting with their feet, yet our newspapers of record, the NYT and WAPO in particular, relegated the event to the back pages and estimated the crowd at “tens of thousands”. 

One of the featured speakers was Deborah Lipstadt, American historian and diplomat, best known as author of  Denying the Holocaust, who was recently appointed by President Biden as United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism. She began her speech with this historical reference:

“Two hundred and 30 years ago, President George Washington reassured the Jews of Newport that our new nation would give bigotry no sanction and persecution no assistance; his meaning and his message were quite specific: In the United States of America, the bigotry of antisemitism must have no place, no quarter, no haven, no home, for antisemitism, or more explicitly, Jew-hatred—the world’s longest, oldest form of prejudice, [which] has pierced and permeated too many countries, too many cultures, faith and communities.”

And she admonished the crowd thusly: “Let me be clear: Do not sink to the level of those who harass you, do not tear down posters, do not intimidate those who disagree with you, do not cross their path or taunt them as they do to you. But do not cower. Allow no one to make you afraid.”

“The fight will be a long one. But Jews have faced such challenges before and have overcome them. You who hate this evil will prevail because this cause has justice wholly on its side,” the special envoy said. “The fight will be won because there is no option. And because as President Washington reassured the Jews of Newport, this nation gives bigotry no sanction, and 230 years later, that still holds true.” Amen Deborah!

I need to continue my rant about the lame stream media as it continues its unrelenting support of Palestinian propaganda. In yet another example of stupendously bad journalism, the BBC was forced to apologize for one of its presenters saying that IDF soldiers who entered Shifa Hospital in Gaza City “were targeting people including medical teams and Arab speakers,” after she mangled a report that actually said Israeli troops at the hospital were accompanied by “medical teams and Arabic-speaking soldiers.” The BBC has mangled and misrepresented so much of the Israeli-Gaza conflict that the Israeli equivalent of Saturday Night Live offered up this satirical piece. At least Israelis are maintaining a sense of humor through this nightmare. You need to click on the image and then the link to view it. (Substack and X do not play well together. Let’s hope more sponsors follow IBM and Microsoft and pull their ads from Musk’s anti-semitic platform. How can someone so smart be such a flaming a-hole!)

My next rant is regarding Gen Z. WTF people?!! Generation Z (also called Gen Z, zoomers, or post-millennials) is the second-youngest generation, with millennials before and Generation Alpha after. Gen Zers were born between the late 1990s and early 2010s. Currently, Gen Z makes up 20% of the U.S. population. A recent poll foretells of bad things ahead of us with these Zoomers, as 56% of them have an “UNfavorable” view of Israel, compared with 69% of the over 65 crowd that hold a “favorable” view. That gap is not good, and was the subject of Ezra Kleins latest podcast which you can listen to with this link. Klein rightly categorizes three generations of diaspora Jews noting that the youngest, the Gen Z crowd, have only seen a strong, prosperous Israel led by Netanyahu and his extreme right wingers whose actions and policies have sought security through subjugation of the Palestinian people. The danger here is that if Israel loses its moral legitimacy in the eyes of its greatest supporters, we risk losing the world’s good will when we need it most. Like right now! It certainly doesn’t help when TikTok and other platforms help torque up the murderous messages of Osama Bin Laden!

Next week I will add another rant about the indigenous people argument and the nonsense around anti-colonialism. Stay tuned for that, but for now, let’s get to a quick roundup of news for the Jews, courteous of The Forward, Times of Israel, Haaretz and other Jewish journals. 

1. The latest on the war:
   1. Family members of those missing and held hostage in Gaza were accompanied by over 30,000 Israelis on the fifth day of their march from Tel Aviv to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, which they were set to reach this afternoon.
   2. The body of Yehudit Weiss, 65, who was abducted by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, was extracted by IDF troops near the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. In the same structure, soldiers also found military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and an RPG missile.
   3. Israel raided other Hamas sites in Gaza overnight, finding more caches of weapons. IDF soldiers also recovered the body of Cpl. Noa Marciano, 19, three days after announcing she had been killed in Hamas captivity.
   4. Police charged a man with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of Paul Kessler, a pro-Israel activist who died after a confrontation at a rally in Los Angeles.
   5. Gunmen killed one Israeli soldier and injured five others Thursday at a Jerusalem checkpoint. Security has increased since the war began, leading to longer lines. “Anybody who wants to do harm can just go into that traffic jam,” said a nearby Israeli mayor.
   6. Osama bin Laden’s antisemitic “Letter to America” has gone viral on TikTok. “Everything he said was valid,” said one user among many promoting the screed.
   7. Jewish celebrities and social media influencers confronted TikTok executives on a private call Wednesday night to urge them to tackle the surge of antisemitism on the platform. “Shame on you,” Sacha Baron Cohen said.
2. Opinion | I teach at an Ivy League university. The tolerance for antisemitism has become unbearable – “Amid the current tensions, here is a message to all my faculty colleagues,” writes Dany Bahar, a Forward columnist who is a professor at Brown and the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. “You can take whichever side you want on this conflict, even if you — as is often the case — have no stake whatsoever in this part of the world. But if you do not start by outright condemning terrorism and calling out antisemitism whenever you see it as soon as you see it, then you are part of the problem, not the solution.” Read his essay ➤
3. 💻  IBM said it would stop advertising on X, formerly known as Twitter, after its ads appeared next to antisemitic content – Other advertisers have expressed concern after Elon Musk endorsed an antisemitic post this week. (Washington Post, New York Times, Forward)
4. 🖼️  Two Holocaust-themed street murals in Milan — one featuring Anne Frank and the other an iconic image of a boy in the Warsaw Ghetto — were defaced with pro-Palestinian messages. (Jerusalem Post)
5. The Al-Shifa hospital
   1. Israel raided buildings on the campus of Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, searching for evidence of a Hamas military presence. The Israel Defense Forces released a video showing troops had found rifles, ammunition, body armor and other military equipment in a radiology building.Hamas is believed by both Israel and the U.S. to be operating out of a network of tunnels under the hospital; as Israel’s ground operations have come to focus on Al-Shifa, international conversation about the ethics of raiding a hospital has grown heated.
   2. Opinion | When terrorists are hiding in hospitals, what is the morality of attacking them? A rabbi weighs in: “Even if Israel is overreacting, it is overreacting in the context of Hamas’s cruel calculations, in which the deaths of thousands of Palestinians (who never agreed to be used as pawns) is a price they deem willing to pay in order to destroy the Jewish state,” argues Rabbi Jay Michaelson. “That, together with the appalling suffering of the innocent, is perhaps the only moral clarity we can hope for.” Read his essay ➤

Let me close with this recording of Barbra Streisand’s conversation with Golda Meir during the 1978 network broadcast of The Stars Salute Israel at 30, followed by a haunting and beautiful version of Barbra singing Hatikvah.

Have a great week everyone, and remember, be careful out there. 

Brad out. 

Shabbat shalom. 

Today is Veterans Day, so a tip of the kipah to all our service men and women who help protect us and our democracy, such that it is. Your vote for any Democrat in every election is the greatest act of patriotism you can commit to that will help maintain our democracy going forward. 

And another tip of the kipah to the brave men and women of the IDF, who are at this moment putting their lives on the line to defend Israel’s right to exist. Based on reports from journalists embedded with the IDF, they are moving methodically and successfully into northern Gaza, and just in one civilian area visited by the journalists, they have dismantled or destroyed 28 rocket launch sites and 91 tunnels. They even found a tunnel under a child’s bed in a home with a swimming pool on the Gaza coast. 

Meanwhile, Israel has also agreed with the demands from Biden/US to increase the amount of time it is allowing for a “humanitarian pause” in order to facilitate the evacuation of civilians in North Gaza. Israel’s success on the ground has enabled them to create a safe corridor for their passage, hence, on Wednesday over 50,000 used the corridor to flee the area, and that number continues to grow every day. Where they go and how they survive in the South is a good question, but at least we should see a dramatic decrease in the amount of collateral damage to civilian life and limb, and hopefully no more videos of dead or wounded Palestinian children being carried out of the rubble and debris. 

Those images have helped ignite the knuckleheads on campus and around the globe supporting Palestinian justice and contextualizing the horrors committed by Hamas. These misled morons have been abusing the “genocide” term to describe the pain inflicted on the Palestinians, a term which Andrew Sullivan ranted about in his Weekly Dish:

Israel is far from perfect, and has made some hideous mistakes alongside its spectacular achievements. But Israel is not committing genocide in any way, and the accusation, given History 101, is a knowingly despicable one. If you want to organize a march to protest genocide, you don’t have far to find it in 2023 — in Darfur, Azerbaijan, Xinjiang, and Burma. Or better still: march against Hamas, not in defense of it. “Free Palestine — from Hamas!” would be a nice sign to see. But it would take a long, long time to find one.

Here at the offices of the JNR, we are showing our support of Israel in a number of ways. We tied a blue ribbon around our trees, and placed a lawn sign, both of which you can pick up at your local temple/synagogue if you so chose. Also, there is a march being organized in Washington DC on November 14th in support of Israel. Several weeks after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis banned Students for Justice in Palestine from the state’s public universities, Brandeis became the first private university to enact such a ban on its campus in Waltham, Mass. Also, in what could be a silver lining in these very dark clouds, Jews seem to be reconnecting to their faith and communities. Attendance at shabbat services across the country are up significantly, and there is now a global supply shortage of tefilin and mezuzahs! 

Despite all this positivity, the lame stream media continues to demonstrate bad judgment and biased journalism in their coverage of the war. Hence, I fear that as Israel continues to make progress on the battlefield, we are losing the important PR war taking place in the main stream media and social media platforms. For example, just this week, the Washington Post decided to remove a cartoon mocking Hamas (not Palestinians writ large) after readers and staffers complained that it was offensive, racist, unfair, inaccurate, etc. The editor of the opinion page, David Shipley, explained his reasoning thus: “Our section is aimed at finding commonalities, understanding the bonds that hold us together, even in the darkest times.” Weird that the newspaper which still insists that “Democracy Dies in Darkness” on its home page doesn’t have the guts to keep the democratic lights on terrorism.

And the PR war has created a whole new genre of bullshit now being referred to as “open letters”. These performative screeds try to help the signatories feel like they are doing something, but usually end up embarrassing, doxxing, and sometimes getting them fired. Of course everyone is free to sign whatever the hell they want, but the slew of nonsense spewing from these rants is beyond me. The most recent example is one signed by over 750 “journalists” condemning Israel’s killing of reporters in Gaza and criticizing Western media’s coverage of the war. Most strikingly, the letter argues that journalists should use words like “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Really? Journalists? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. 

The journalists’ letter follows several other open letters in recent weeks, most expressing solidarity with Palestinians. The New York Review of Books published one signed by well-known writers including Ta-Nehisi Coates calling on the “international community to commit to ending the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.” A letter signed by hundreds of Jewish writers that was published in N+1 magazine said, “we are horrified to see the fight against antisemitism weaponized as a pretext for war crimes with stated genocidal intent.” Holy shit.

So, while the IDF continues its success in eradicating the subhuman species knows as Hamas, we need to continue the battle on the PR front, and the JNR is up for the challenge. Are you?

Now, for your weekly roundup of news for the Jews across the Jew S of A and beyond:

1. Special report: What’s it really like to be Jewish on campus right now? Conflict over the Israel-Hamas war has sent shockwaves across American campuses, with Jewish and Muslim students alike feeling newly unsafe, and universities’ ability to manage complex political situations while preserving fundamental academic values coming under sharp scrutiny. To get beyond the now-daily headlines chronicling the latest alarming incidents, we dispatched reporters to 11 campuses around the country to learn what students are really experiencing: “What emerged,” we found, was “a portrait of unease and anxiety, of a shifting landscape in which many of the nation’s brightest young people find themselves lonely, confused and concerned about what is unfolding around them.” Read the story ➤
   1. Latest from campuses…
      • A gunman fired at two Jewish schools in Montreal overnight on Wednesday, only days after a synagogue and Jewish center in a city suburb were reportedly targeted with Molotov cocktails. Separately, a pro-Palestinian protest planned for Montreal’s McGill University on Thursday, the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, was advertised with photos of broken glass, a move the university’s president deemed “antisemitic.”
      • Twenty Jewish Brown University students were arrested after occupying a campus building in a protest advocating for a cease-fire.
      • Harvard President Claudine Gay, who had previously announced initial plans for a new campus effort to combat antisemitism, released some details about the strategy, and announced an Antisemitism Advisory Group including writer Dara Horn and Rabbi David Wolpe.
      • Second gentleman Doug Emhoff visited Cornell to meet with Jewish students still reeling from violent antisemitic threats allegedly issued by a junior last month.
      • A student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst was arrested by university police Friday after punching a Jewish student and spitting on an Israeli flag during a vigil for hostages. According to both the school’s administration and the UMass Hillel, the attack occurred at a solidarity walk organized by the Hillel, which had set up empty Shabbat tables symbolizing the more than 200 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.
2. Gal Gadot’s newest movie screening — featuring Hamas atrocities — is drawing criticism. Gadot has organized screenings of a 43-minute video compiled by the Israel Defense Forces to document Hamas’ Oct. 7 atrocities. But the actress’ advocacy for her native country has been criticized, with some activists even suggesting that a screening she organized at LA’s Museum of Tolerance was intended as a “trap” to paint protesters as antisemitic. Read the story ➤
3. Latest on the war…
   • U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed back on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion that Israel would assume an “indefinite” security role in Gaza after the war, saying Gaza should be united with the West Bank under the leadership of the Palestinian Authority.
   • The IDF said troops have destroyed some 130 tunnel shafts in Gaza since the war began, as Israeli forces engaged in street battles and tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians fled to Gaza’s south using a humanitarian corridor opened by Israel. The Gaza Health Ministry said more than 10,000 people had been killed in Gaza in a month of war, and more than 25,000 injured.
   • Israel and Hamas are negotiating the release of 10-15 hostages, including six U.S. citizens, in talks brokered by Qatar. Separately, Arab and Western officials say a deal to release 50 hostages had been near completion before Israel invaded Gaza in late October, but talks broke down after troops entered the strip.
   • The U.S. conducted its second airstrike on an Iranian target in Syria since the war began, as the White House seeks to combat increased attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East. Separately, Iran-backed Houthi rebels reportedly shot down a U.S. drone off Yemen’s coast, and the U.S. suggested that Jews in Iran were being “coerced into staging anti-Israel protests.”
   • Candidates at the third Republican presidential debate — which former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner, skipped — were united in advising Israel to “finish” Hamas.
4. This week was the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Nazis murdered 100 Jews, sent thousands to concentration camps and destroyed synagogues, Jewish businesses and other sites.  Some Jews rethought plans to commemorate the anniversary because of safety concerns related to the war. “We don’t think the synagogues and other Jewish institutions would be comfortable with a physical demonstration of support that highlights their locations,” said one Brazilian Holocaust educator.
5. Three stories that may lighten things up a bit:
   1. A viral video seemingly shows captured Hamas terrorists being subjected to a novel form of torture — a “Baby Shark”-style children’s song being played in a loop for eight hours. The purported prisoners are seen blindfolded and bound as they sit on the ground amid the blaring strains of “Mamtera Im Matara,” which translates to “Sprinkler With A Target,” the Israeli news site Walla reported.
   2. This “Open Letter from Scholars of Antiquity” in support of Israel was just published. Reading the list of signees, one notable name stands out: Prof. Dr. Ricardo Eichmann, Berlin. Ricardo is one of Adolf Eichman’s 4 sons. 
   3. After migrant parent pressure, Anne Frank daycare center to be renamed – The move was driven by parents who found it difficult to explain Frank’s significance to their children. According to Apollo News, a German news site, in a small town in Saxony-Anhalt, a daycare center has become the center of a local scandal.

Let me close with another great song from Playing for Change, a bluesy version of CSNY’s Teach Your Children, with lead singer and my new heart throb, Israeli Tula Ben Ari. 

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live
by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a
good bye…..

So, teach your children well, and let’s be safe out there.

Brad out.

Shabbat shalom. 

We are now at day 29 since Black Shabbat, and I fear that soon we will be noting the passage of time of this war in weeks or months. As the casualties mount on both sides, there is increasingly more pressure on Israel to pause for humanitarian reasons, as the collateral damage to the civilian population in Gaza, despite Israel’s efforts to minimize them, continue to explode. A large majority of Israeli’s want Netanyahu to resign (over 80%), but that is not likely to happen during war time. Faced with no good options, Netanyahu has declared that there will be no “pause” or ceasefire while the Hamas murderers still hold hostages and has vowed to press on in eradicating Hamas. You all know I am no fan of Netanyahu, but I agree with his position, a position which is becoming less and less popular across the world, despite the barbaric unprovoked attack by Hamas and their pledge to do it again, and even as anti-semitic incidents in the USA and across the globe swell to proportions unheard of since the holocaust. 

Last week (“I think these kids have shit for brains”), I noted some of the horrible anti-semitic activities on US campus’s and pro-Palestinian demonstrations that continue to seek ways to contextualize October 7, as if there is any excuse or rationale for the inhuman terror unleashed by Hamas. Obviously, there is not. But, I think and sense that there is a growing number of voices on social media and in the main stream media (not just the whacko right) that are beginning to question liberal thought leadership in academia and how we could possibly get to a place that explains these crazy kids on campus. For one explanation, I point you to this piece in the Atlantic by Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False. Simon is a British historian and television presenter, who felt compelled to take on the topic of “Decolonization”, one of the main excuses and contexts being used to justify Hamas and Palestinian support. He joins a growing list of analysts that are trying to take down the idea, which has become popular in Academia for interpreting and re-interpreting everything from liberal arts to math. According to Montefiore, this decolonization narrative has “dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity. It holds that Israel is an “imperialist-colonialist” force, that Israelis are “settler-colonialists,” and that Palestinians have a right to eliminate their oppressors. (On October 7, we all learned what that meant.) It casts Israelis as “white” or “white-adjacent” and Palestinians as “people of color.” Montefiore goes on, “But its current engine is the new identity analysis, which sees history through a concept of race that derives from the American experience. The argument is that it is almost impossible for the “oppressed” to be themselves racist, just as it is impossible for an “oppressor” to be the subject of racism. Jews therefore cannot suffer racism, because they are regarded as “white” and “privileged”; although they cannot be victims, they can and do exploit other, less privileged people, in the West through the sins of “exploitative capitalism” and in the Middle East through “colonialism.””

Montefiore proceeds to debunk the foggy thinking on every possible ground and craven intellectual front. He is a strong advocate of a two state solution, although that option is looking increasingly unclear. You can read the entire article using this link,and I urge you to do so. 

Contrary to the decolonizing narrative, Gaza is not technically occupied by Israel—not in the usual sense of soldiers on the ground. Israel evacuated the Strip in 2005, removing its settlements. In 2007, Hamas seized power, killing its Fatah rivals in a short civil war. Hamas set up a one-party state that crushes Palestinian opposition within its territory, bans same-sex relationships, represses women, and openly espouses the killing of all Jews.

Very strange company for leftists.

Of course, some protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” may have no idea what they’re calling for; they are ignorant and believe that they are simply endorsing “freedom.” Others deny that they are pro-Hamas, insisting that they are simply pro-Palestinian—but feel the need to cast Hamas’s massacre as an understandable response to Israeli-Jewish “colonial” oppression. Yet others are malign deniers who seek the death of Israeli civilians.

The toxicity of this ideology is now clear. Once-respectable intellectuals have shamelessly debated whether 40 babies were dismembered or some smaller number merely had their throats cut or were burned alive. Students now regularly tear down posters of children held as Hamas hostages. It is hard to understand such heartless inhumanity. Our definition of a hate crime is constantly expanding, but if this is not a hate crime, what is? What is happening in our societies? Something has gone wrong.

I’m not sure if this explains the level of schmuckery and stupidity emerging from our smart ass college kids. There is certainly some old fashioned anti-semitism driving some of this as well. And maybe we can also blame social media, as argued quite convincingly by Jonathan Haidt in this Atlantic article, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid”. According to Haidt,

Liberals in the late 20th century shared a belief that the sociologist Christian Smith called the “liberal progress” narrative, in which America used to be horrifically unjust and repressive, but, thanks to the struggles of activists and heroes, has made (and continues to make) progress toward realizing the noble promise of its founding. This story easily supports liberal patriotism, and it was the animating narrative of Barack Obama’s presidency. It is also the view of the “traditional liberals” in the “Hidden Tribes” study (11 percent of the population), who have strong humanitarian values, are older than average, and are largely the people leading America’s cultural and intellectual institutions. But when the newly viralized social-media platforms gave everyone a dart gun, it was younger progressive activists who did the most shooting, and they aimed a disproportionate number of their darts at these older liberal leaders. Confused and fearful, the leaders rarely challenged the activists or their nonliberal narrative in which life at every institution is an eternal battle among identity groups over a zero-sum pie, and the people on top got there by oppressing the people on the bottom. This new narrative is rigidly egalitarian––focused on equality of outcomes, not of rights or opportunities. It is unconcerned with individual rights.

Smarter people than myself will have better reasons and better ways to articulate them, but, I worry about the backlash against progressivism in general, particularly amongst the more traditional liberals like myself. I hope I don’t take too many darts for this posting. 

Before I get to the JNR roundup, I thought I would share one fun and heart warming story from the front lines in Israel. In the aftermath of Black Shabbat, apparently the wheels of civil government have not been working very well, and to fill that void, thousands of Israelis have volunteered to do everything from offering clothing and shelter, resettling evacuees, and preparing meals for soldiers. One such volunteer group identifies themselves as “War Tinder”, and have been cooking thousands of meals in tupperwear containers that also include the phone numbers of single women along with a short profile and a message. My favorite message from one of these women was, “Our hope is not yet lost, (nor is my mother’s hope lost either)”

Now, for a quick roundup of the news for Jews across the Jew S of A:

1. The Israel Defense Forces said they had fully encircled Gaza City, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel to push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept “humanitarian pauses” in the war. President Joe Biden’s administration is privately warning Israeli officials that there’s a ticking clock on how long it can maintain support for the war, as global concern mounts over humanitarian issues in Gaza.
2. Cornell University canceled all Friday classes as the campus reeled from the arrest of a junior for making violent threats against Jewish students online. Separately, a swastika was found in a residence hall at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
3. Two dozen major law firms issued a letter to top law schools, including Harvard and Yale, demanding they crack down on antisemitism, writing, “It is imperative that you provide your students with the tools and guidance to engage in the free exchange of ideas, even on emotionally charged issues.”
4. The Russian mob that stormed a Dagestan airport Sunday, shouting antisemitic slogans as a flight from Tel Aviv landed, was the product of weeks of disinformation spread in the region, a New York Times investigation found. The disinformation suggested that Israelis were going to be resettled in the region, and social media users began threatening violence against Jews days before the riot. Separately, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson described Israel’s recommendation that Israelis in the region leave as “anti-Russian.”
5. The popular social media app TikTok pushed back against accusations that it spreads antisemitism, saying it had removed millions of videos related to hate speech since the Oct. 7 attack. A group of Jewish creators on the platform said in a Wednesday letter that the app was “not protecting the safety of its Jewish creators and community.”
6. A senior Hamas official threatened further attacks on Israel in an interview with a Lebanese TV station last week, new translation efforts revealed. “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times,” said Ghazi Hamad, calling the Oct. 7 attack “just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.”
7. Concerns about spiking antisemitism in Europe persisted, as police in at least three European countries have arrested suspects allegedly plotting terror attacks related to the war. Antisemitic graffiti appeared across one Paris neighborhood; a fire was set in the Jewish section of Vienna’s main cemetery and swastikas spray-painted on walls; and sidewalk plaques commemorating Nazi victims in Romewere vandalized.

That’s all for now. Let’s stay positive, avoid darts, and, let’s be careful out there! 

Brad out.

Shabbat shalom. And welcome to this early edition of the JNR. Since I will be in New York City this weekend for some culchah, I wanted to get this week’s posting out before we hit the road.

It’s been a tough week for Jews. We are now in day 21 since Black Shabbat, when the Evil Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1400 innocent Jews. Breaking a long held protocol, Israel called a press conference to share with the international media the evidence of rape, kidnapping and mass murder perpetrated by these Evil people. Israel did this in order to combat the lies and misinformation being circulated by Hamas and pro-Palestinians around the globe. In addition to gut-wrenching videos and photographs of the baby killing brutality, the Israeli’s shared a recording of a phone call from one of the young Hamas murderers to his parents where he told them he had personally murdered 10 Jews with his own hands. His parents, presumably two of the Gaza “innocent citizens”, congratulated him. As shocking as this may sound to normal humans/parents, it pales in comparison to the shock and disgust I am feeling about what is happening on our college campuses around the country. 

I graduated from UMass Amherst back in 1979. Before I became an editor of our student newspaper, The Daily Collegian, I was a reporter and covered Student Government and the general political happenings on campus. I distinctly remember there being not one, but three Marxist/Leninist student groups on campus, one of which sponsored, a “Death to the Shah Bake sale”, with signage and cupcakes for sale in order to raise money to assassinate the Shah of Iran, who was pretty much a dickhead. I bring this up not as an analogy to anything related to Hamas and Israel, but as an example and recognition that kids, and they are kids, will do silly and stupid things in College. It is, after all, an environment for exploration, learning, and taking risks. But, and this is a big but, the level of idiocy and naive stupidity has reached levels that go way beyond silly, and are now creating “unsafe” spaces for Jews on campus and are creating an atmosphere that breeds anti-semitism and potential violence. 

This rash of anti-Israel activity, particularly on the Ivy League campuses, was the inspiration behind Conor Friedersdorf’s piece in the Atlantic this week, “Students for Pogroms in Israel” with the subtitle, By excusing murder and kidnapping, activist groups have already changed campus politics in America.  After getting over his shock at the countless student groups attempting to absolve the murderers and child abductors of all responsibility, Friedersdorf added:

I understand various reasons why advocates for the Palestinian cause might keep quiet––as many supporters of Israel have done after abuses of Palestinians. I understand why, thinking of loved ones in Gaza, they might skip right to anticipating and preemptively denouncing retaliatory attacks, hoping to avert the deaths of still more innocent people. I understand why some observers feel there is a double standard in the West that accords less attention to the killings of Muslim innocents. I saw that firsthand when I condemned America’s drone war and argued for a moratorium, to little avail. When Senator Lindsey Graham says of Gaza, a place dense with civilian children, “Level the place,” I’m appalled.

What I cannot understand is endorsing, validating, or standing in solidarity with war crimes. That so many student organizations did so is stunning. It commits them to positions anathema not only to the conservatives they often tangle with but to left-leaning liberals and progressives, many of whom now perceive a frightening difference in core values that too many had scarcely pondered before.

If you think these are just isolated incidents on a few of the Ivies, you would be wrong. Here is a summary from the TGIF posting by Nellie Bowles of The Free Press of what is now being referred to as the “Ivy Intifada”.

Nearly 2,000 sociologists signed a letter that Israel was committing “genocide” and anything Hamas does is justified by the “context.” The University of California, Berkeley Ethnic Studies Faculty Council released a statement condemning anyone who describes what Hamas did as “terrorism,” which is offensive. The student leader of a Wellesley residential house wroteto the entire dorm she oversees: “We firmly believe that there should be no space, no consideration, and no support for Zionism within the Wellesley College community.” Harvard launched a task force to help ensure the pro-Hamas protesters feel safe and can get jobs while also berating any Jews they might find. At George Washington University, students projectedonto the side of the school library: GLORY TO OUR MARTYRS and FREE PALESTINE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA. At Stanford, students are asking the school to pay for round-trip tickets for Muslim students to visit home: “Full round trip covered by University upon the signing of a ceasefire for students to visit their family and friends and grieve properly.” (Okay, fine, that one’s funny; just think of the Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine president calmly trying to explain preferred pronouns to a jihadi upon arrival. 

At Cooper Union, pro-Hamas protesters chased a clutch of Jewish students into the library. Video from inside shows the young Jews standing, frightened, as the protesters pound on the doors. What exactly would they have done if they got in? Librarians reportedly offered to hide the students in the attic. The joke writes itself. 

The protesters trying to ram through those doors to beat up the Jewish students might even be up for some extra credit. Professors are starting to offer it to anyone who joins a pro-Hamas protest. 

Here’s Berkeley professor Victoria Huynh: “Hi everyone, We’re offering a field trip and/or extra credit opportunity: (1) Students can attend the national student walkout tomorrow against the settler-colonial occupation of Gaza (info attached below) OR (2) Students can watch a short documentary on Palestine and call/email your local California representative using this linktree. Doing so will either count as a field trip or an extra 5 points on the field trip category of your grade.” First of all: Who talks to college students about “field trips?” Anyway, UCLA professors are also offering extra credit for students who go to pro-Hamas rallies. 

And after graduation, the future that awaits these students trying to ram through the doors also looks golden: here are some of the hundreds of academic job postings for roles in various normal-sounding departments that say they’re only looking for people who want to push for “decolonization.”

Sensing the vibes weren’t right, Columbia postponed its annual Giving Day, which usually raises tens of millions for the school. It’s really hard to shake down Jewish alumni when your faculty and students are also trying to do a pogrom. The list of donors who are pulling their gifts keeps growing: the latest is billionaire Leon Cooperman, who declared on television: “I think these kids at the colleges have shit for brains.”

Cooperman sums it up pretty well for me. 

In the stacks this week: Here are a few links to some interesting reading.

Ripping down posters of kidnapped children – From the Free Press, a story by Candace Mittel Kahn – A disturbing and particular act of vandalism has gone viral in recent days. You’ve probably seen the videos online: people in cities across the West ripping down posters with the photographs and names of the hostages being held in Gaza. In her brilliant piece, Candace tries to make sense of how a college friend ended up “standing on a street corner, tearing apart pictures of kidnapped Israelis and flinging them to the ground like a dirty tissue.” 

Michael Oren: A war against the Jews – I met Michael Oren back in the 90’s when I was on the Board of the American Jewish Committee in Boston. He was pretty impressive in his knowledge of the middle east. In this piece he pivots from the way the media has mishandled the war and argues that anti-zionism is anti-semitism. 

John McWharter: The ultimate condescension to Palestinians – There is a patronizing racism in the idea that slaughtering innocent people equates to noble freedom fighting, as if this were the only way to respond to oppression. 

Six Myths about Hamas: ‘Hamas seeks peace.’ ‘Their rockets are harmless.’ And more lies we’ve been told for years that keep getting repeated today.

Time is fleeting. So much to read, so little time. I thought I would end with something uplifting, as I am sure we could all use a bit of joy during these depressing times. Playing for Change is a group that brings together people from all over the world to sing and play songs of hope and joy. I hope you enjoy this from Stevie Wonder. “Higher Ground” is a song that speaks of the perseverance it takes to reach a higher consciousness. Let’s all keep trying together, to at least find some common ground.

Be safe out there. My thoughts of course to the folks in Lewiston.

Brad out.

Shabbat shalom. And a tip of the kipah this week to President Biden and Anthony Blinken. The two have provided tremendous leadership during this crisis, presenting a balanced view that demonstrated full support of Israel and the right to defend itself, in a way that respects the rule of law and international humanitarian standards, and “taking every possible precaution to protect civilian life.”

However, I am still angry, and as I ruminate on topics of the week for this posting, I still can’t get past that anger, despite the incredible volume and pace of the news this week, including the release of two hostages, the ongoing Republican clown show and the guilty pleas from the treasonous Trump sicko-phants. But I can’t go there yet. I keep coming back to October 7 and the wanton and senseless slaughtering of innocent men, women and children, whose only “flaw” was being born Jewish in a Jewish state. 

Philosophers talk about Evil with a capital “E”, as being the act of useless violence: the “deliberate production of pain and suffering as an end in itself. There is nothing apart from the violence to which one could point and say “that’s why they did these things”. The sole aim of useless violence is to torture, to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible. It is not evil, but Evil.”

Hamas unleashed their version of Evil on October 7 when they invaded Israel and beat, robbed, raped, kidnapped, and executed Jewish men, women and children. They also burned families alive, shot babies in the head, and decapitated them. Such horrific crimes hadn’t been perpetrated against Jews since the Holocaust. It was an act of terror that embodied Evil, and the only effect or purpose I can see behind it was to instill fear, shock and terror. Terror teaches that the world is a bad place, that life is more pain than joy. Terror also distracts minds and hearts from life. Instead of tending to ourselves, our families and communities, the drama of terrorism pulls us away from today’s reality and toward an endless barrage of questions we can’t answer and emotions that are overwhelmingly difficult to face. This is where I find my own state of mind this morning, but unlike my Israeli friends, I sit comfortably in my home office, safe with my family, far from the terror and Evil doings of Hamas. 

I reached out to my Israeli friends last week to share in their pain and to make sure they and their families were safe. Some are young enough to get called in for Reserve duty, a pretty scary prospect. But the overall sentiment from these mostly Tel Aviv based folks was captured in this quote from one of them, “We are over the shock, and ready to kick some ass!” 

Israelis are a pretty hardened people. Tough, and resilient, facing continuous existential threats, they have overcome many such threats and terrorism since its inception in 1948. I have no doubt they will endure and overcome this one, but it will come at a greater cost, not just in blood and treasure, but in world opinion. As usual, there will be a double standard applied to them in how they conduct themselves in this war, as if any other country takes as much caution in warning civilians and avoiding collateral civilian death and damage. They are already losing the PR battle, thanks to the lame stream media’s amazingly shoddy work in reporting the recent bombing of the Hospital in South Gaza. 

And I wonder if the “progressives” in this country, particularly the college kids, that are demonstrating their sympathy and support for Hamas and the Palestinians understand this Evil? Why is it that when Israel tries to defend itself from a group that is committed to exterminating them, they get criticized by these groups that complain about Israeli oppression? Do you think for a minute that if every Palestinian demand was met by Israel that the Palestinian hatred of the Jews would be satisfied? Is there any record of Palestinian mass protest against Hamas? Have doctors demanded that Hamas take their rocket launchers away from hospitals? Have teachers demanded that rockets be taken away from schools? Have the international supporters of Palestine demanded the same? Do these “social justice” warriors think that being an Arab gay or Arab woman in any Arab state is better than being an Arab gay or woman anywhere in Israel? 

Yes, I am still angry. I hope something positive can come out of this terrifying situation, but I am weary and worried, and can’t help but reflect on what former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir used to say, “If the Arabs put down their guns, there would be no more fighting. If the Israelis put down theirs, there would be no more Israel.”

I will hopefully not be angry next week, and be back with the usual round up of news for the Jews. Until then, be careful out there!

Brad out.