Jew News Review

The Jew News Review – Special midweek edition – “Theater of the absurd”

Shabbat shalom.

The orange man continues to flood the zone with his clown show chaos at “muzzle velocity”, doing his best to distract the media, build upon his momentum and take advantage of sleepy Democrats and spineless Republicans (the latter clearly a redundancy) in order to do what? Put the country through a DOGE directed “wood chipper”? Cut funding to poor, desperate people in far off places in order to find enough budget to pay for another tax cut for the wealthy? Piss off our closest allies to the point where they boo our national anthem? Commit ethnic cleansing in the middle east?

Welcome to the theater of the absurd! The orange turd’s modus operandi has not changed. He has made an art form out of his ability to use theater as a political weapon. He creates dramas that often cause his enemies and opponents to react in ways that might enhance him, but more importantly, put him at the center of the drama where he can convince his MAGA dunderheads of his faux leadership prowess. Just this last week we have been subjected to a few of these performances that are laughable, but sadly also hurtful to our integrity as the leading superpower in the world. The first two performances, led by the “Tariff of Nottingham”, called for imposing 25% across the board tariffs on Canada and Mexico, which of course 98% of economists judged would cause inflation and be harmful to the economies of all three countries. So, a lose-lose proposal with the supposed objectives of improving border control over fentanyl and illegal immigrants. But of course, Donny the deal maker got played by both Trudeau and Sheinbaum and ended up agreeing to a deal where both Canada and Mexico agreed to do things they were already doing. As Jeff Tiedrich noted in his recent post:

“but Donny’s too dim to understand that he got his pockets picked, and so he’ll be crowing endlessly about how the Master Negotiator did it again — and MAGA will eat that shit up. they’ll swallow anything.”

let’s let WaPo columnist Catherine Rampell sum it up nicely.

https://youtu.be/miVPp82UshM

If all that tariff nonsense wasn’t bad enough, we had two wild and crazy guys, Bibi and the orange man, previewing Act I of the next performance of the theater of the absurd: The Mar-a-Gaza Hotel.

I am all in favor of thinking outside the box in order to come up with alternative plans for what Israelis call “the situation” in the middle east. Lord knows the “land for peace” avenue has been a dead end for too many decades as Palestinians continue to be more focused on eliminating Israel “from the River to the Sea” instead of building schools, hospitals and an economy for their country. So, fresh eyes with new ideas? Sure, bring it on. But holy shit, WTF is the orange turd talking about, resurrecting son-in-law Jared’s Gaza Riviera vision! And ethnic cleansing over two million Palestinians with the potential of American boots on the ground! Is this Trump’s channeling of Nixon’s Madman Theory in which he hopes to make adversaries believe he is irrational and unpredictable, and willing to take extreme actions to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals? The Madman Theory may have worked for Nixon, but the novelty of that approach wore off long ago for the orange man. And while I am certain Israelis (and most Arabs!) would love nothing more than shipping all Palestinians to the middle of Australia, everyone around the globe, friends and foes alike, have already dismissed the Gaza Riviera idea as lunacy, and contrary to many long established international laws to which Israel and the US are signatories.

Lost in this latest Trumpian theater was the real headline from Bibi’s visit: the executive order re-asserting the mass pressure campaign against Iran. And here I confess I am in total agreement with the orange man! (Also proving that the “broken clock theory” is alive and well, at least on the pages of the JNR.) The Iran appeasement policy of Obama/Biden proved to be a dismal failure, freeing the mullahs to spend billions on developing their proxy armies in Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen. It’s time, IMHO, for the US to use our soft and hard power to bring down the mullahs and stop them from exporting more Jew hatred and genocide. This is something our bully President may actually be capable of executing. Iran has been seriously weakened by Israel, leaving the mullahs exposed and likely open to negotiating the end of their nuclear pursuits.

For this special edition, I thought I would end with a re-stack of a short post by Sam Harris titled, “The Cult of the Bully”. Sam notes the current “vibe shift” led by the orange man and Elon Musk, and asks the question, “Does the world still need good people, or are we all free to become monsters now?” Do you think MAGA parents would want their kids to emulate these narcissistic a-holes? The post is behind a pay wall, so here it is in full, below.

Does the world still need good people, or are we all free to become monsters now?

It may seem priggish to say it, given the current “vibe shift,” but we really can’t give up on personal integrity just yet. The day we celebrate our children for their selfishness and cruelty will be the point of no return.

Clearly, we need systems and institutions that can withstand the intrusions of a charismatic psychopath. We also need ones that can resist when otherwise normal people behave like psychopaths (e.g. on social media). However, if we want to live in good societies—where most games are positive-sum and decency is the norm—there is no substitute for having a sufficient number of people who are actually good, or struggling to be so.

It is, therefore, ominous that our political culture now celebrates figures who are obviously unethical—liars, bullies, and conmen—many of whom see no reason to even pretend to harbor deeper values or virtues. Whatever your politics, President Trump has said and done a thousand things that should make it impossible to admire him as a person—and he will commit further atrocities this week. Elon Musk has achieved a similarly vile orbit—lying with abandon, making common cause with racists and lunatics, and pointlessly defaming ordinary people—it seems, just for the fun of it. Both men are conspicuous for the degree to which they still resemble children, having retained a juvenile sense of entitlement, recklessness, and self-absorption. Both are already cautionary tales about the corrupting influences of fame, wealth, and power—even as they continue to achieve new heights.

Narcissism is one key to understanding both Trump and Musk. One can’t say that they suffer from narcissism, exactly—as they have become its high priests. Neither man ever apologizes for the mistakes he makes or the harms he causes. Each luxuriates in a moral weightlessness conferred by the adulation (and short attention span) of the crowd. Did Trump attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election, while falsely claiming that it had been stolen from him? Did Musk just get exposed as a fraud by some of his most ardent fans? No one cares or remembers, because there are fresh antics and outrages to contemplate today. For all their flaws, the chaos that these men bring into the world, hour by hour, is at least interesting.

Of course, their fans love them, in part, because the chaos is also transgressive. In different ways, Trump and Musk prove that it is okay to be terribly flawed—and to aspire to no ethical standards whatsoever—because you can always be washed clean by the attention of others. In this way, each man has become a kind of savior for people who don’t want to be judged. It is a mutual absolution and intoxication.

For those who are unconcerned about this phenomenon, it seems worth asking, what would it take to startle you? What could Trump or Musk do to make you suddenly feel that something essential to the health of our politics, or our society, has been broken?

And if it really is all about the price of eggs, how expensive would a dozen eggs have to be for you to realize that Trump 2.0 has been a terrible mistake?

And as Canadian columnist Dan Gardner notes, “An entire generation of young people is looking at Elon Musk and Donald Trump and concluding that the keys to success are intemperance, impulsiveness, snap judgment, relentless aggression, and ruthlessness. Try to imagine where that will take us.”

Be careful out there.

Brad out.

The Jew News Review – February 1, 2025 – “Special Reprint – “It’s up to us” by Steve Schmidt”

Shabbat shalom!

We are traveling all day today, snow birding our way to better and warmer weather for the month. Hence, I am taking the weekend off, but have reprinted a post from Steve Schmidt I think you will enjoy. For those not familiar with Steve, he is a self-avowed “Never Trumper”, best known for working on Republican political campaigns, including those of President George W. Bush, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arizona Senator John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Enjoy, and remember, let’s be careful out there.

Brad out.

THE WARNING WITH STEVE SCHMIDT

It’s up to us

STEVE SCHMIDT

JAN 26, 2025

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is the shameful leader of the US Armed Forces.

He is a Christian nationalist degenerate, who would be deemed unfit to serve as an enlisted submariner — let alone an officer — because of his well-documented misconduct. That misconduct includes allegations of rape, excessive drinking and strong inferences of domestic violence.

His tenure is a desecration, and his confirmation an abdication.

The US Senate has made clear that it is feckless and broken as the institution envisioned by the founders. It has ceased functioning like a shattered glass has ceased functioning when it lays shattered on the floor.

This is the fundamental legacy of Mitch McConnell, the morally decrepit leader of the Senate Republicans for 18 years: he was unable to muster one fellow senator to follow his too little and too late act of nothingness.

He enriched himself, and his staff enriched themselves. They are an honor roll of DC lobbyists, foreign agents and scumbags who sustained an economy of taking, while being celebrated as political geniuses by the corrupt access media, who traded information like Mitch dealt favors.

So there it was that Mitch stood alone in the US Senate.

Surprise!!!!

He would vote against Pete Hegseth.

I guess the only question left is for America’s corrupt news editors at the leading purveyors of access media drivel whether it was an act of courage or genius, or both.

The only person who stood with Mitch as an equal in the moment of disgrace was the buffoonish and ineffectual Chuck Schumer who is weak, soft and utterly useless in this moment when an opposition with grit is badly needed. There were many things Schumer could have made clear privately that he was prepared to do to raise the price on a Hegseth vote to make it completely unbearable.

He did nothing. He is a Neville Chamberlain from Brooklyn. The single most important crisis facing Democrats in this precise second is that, once again two years from now, Senate Democrats will lose races that could have been won, but will not, because of the abject incompetence and ineffectiveness of the hundreds of millions of dollars in political spending controlled by Schumer and his lieutenant JB Porsche, who runs the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee. There are no words to describe how bad their efforts have been, and how terrible are the ads they produce.

It would be as equally effective if he took the $300,000,000.00 they spent in 2024, and lit it on fire in a field. No Democratic donor, particularly if you live in California, should send a penny to any DEMOCRATIC PARTY POLITICAL COMMITTEE IN WASHINGTON, DC, UNTIL THEY ARE CLEANED UP.

Starve them.

Yesterday, I told my son that an institution headed by Pete Hegseth is unworthy of his service and sacrifice.

It is with a heavy heart that I would say to every parent and every young person in the United States that the American Armed Forces are unworthy of their service and their sacrifice in this low moment.

I do not trust the leadership of the Department of Defense, and neither should you.

Let us dispense with the notion that the officer class of the United States Armed Forces is filled with Templar Knights. The people who rise to the top are often careerists and ass-kissers, not iconoclasts and problem-solvers.

The line of senior brass willing to lay down their careers to stop illegal anythings at the Pentagon will turn out to be as long as the one around the Pentagon.

Mostly, they will capitulate to their new master, who is unlike the old commanders in chief because the new one couldn’t be more indifferent about the average soldier, sailor, airmen and marine — or the US Constitution that they pledged to defend.

Let me tell you a story about the Oval Office, and the power of an American president to act for all of us.

Michael Gerson served his country as an assistant to George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States of America.

During his service, Gerson played an outsized role in conceiving and realizing the greatest humanitarian achievement in world history: President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It has saved more than 26 million lives from the AIDS virus.

Think about that.

Twenty-six million human lives.

Saved.

Saved by you.

Saved by us.

The people of the United States of America.

We did that. We saved 26 million human beings from AIDS in Africa this century.

This was a good thing, and it belongs to all of us.

PEPFAR, the greatest gift to humanity ever offered by the people of the United States, is about to be choked off by MAGA cruelty for no reason at all, other than its goodness.

That’s what happens when politics is stripped of grace and decency. It is what happens before the darkness falls.

Maybe this is what the Bishop Budde was talking about?

All over the world, there are American patriots working to make humanity better in some form or fashion.

Somewhere, in small poor villages all over the world, there were Americans and American dollars there saying, “We are here to help.”

In an instant — with the strike of a pen — the message has changed.

F*@k you! We’re leaving! MAGA.

My friends, America will not be made great by an increase of suffering in the world.

The question isn’t whether there is goodness all around us.

There is.

The question is whether the American people will muster the strength to defend it.

The hour is growing late.

Don’t look to Washington politicians and the magic letter “D” to rescue us from this debacle.

It’s up to us.

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The Jew News Review – January 25, 2025 – “Should we negotiate with terrorists?”

Shabbat shalom!

Another week of the news overwhelming the ability of our brains to absorb.

The orange man continues to flood the zone with bullshit, most of it bad for the country, (check out this “Bullshit Tracker”) but some of it swinging the far left pendulum back toward normal. Meanwhile, Israelis celebrate the release of four more hostages while also absorbing Halevi’s resignation, Nut-and-yahoo voting down an October 7 investigative commission, and Ben-Gvir’s departure from the government in response to the hostage deal. Add to that monster list whatever the hell Elon Dickhead Musk was doing with his salute, the orange man’s reversal of sanctions on West Bank settlers, his renewal of sanctions on the ICC, suspending development aide to UNWRA (yeah!), re-instating the Houthis as a terrorist organization, and Elise Stefanik’s dodge in her confirmation hearing of the question on Palestinian self-determination. OMG. WTF.

The second wave of the hostage for terrorist deal happened this morning, bringing tears of joy to the re-united families and to Israelis and diaspora Jews across the world. The cost of their freedom was very high: 200 Hamas and/or Palestinians were released, many of whom were serving life sentences for murdering Israeli citizens. And while we will not know for some time what kind of hell these women endured in the torture tunnels beneath Gaza, and despite the horrible Hamas choreography of their release to the Red Cross, they look physically and emotionally healthy.

Israeli hostages Liri Albag (2nd left), Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy wave on a stage before Hamas operatives hand them over to a team from the Red Cross in Gaza City on January 25, 2025. (AFP)

Liri, Karina, Daniella, and Naama re-uniting with their loved ones

The mix of joy and pain associated with the whole hostage crisis has given rise to some serious discussions in Israel about changing its strategy on the best way to manage future hostage situations. Critics of the current policy believe that the capture of Gilad Shalit in 2006 and the subsequent exchange of 1,027 security prisoners for his freedom, was a microcosm of October 7, and the fact that Sinwar and several other mass murderers were released in that exchange furthers the point of view that Israel pays too high a price for freeing hostages.

A little history. The Shalit capture proved to be Hamas’ very first tunnel operation. Hamas forces entered Israel through a tunnel, killed a few soldiers, and then forcibly took Shalit back into Gaza. That launched what the Israeli Army called Operation Summer Rains, which was basically a five-month military operation into Gaza to stop rocket attacks and rescue and/or recover Shalit. Despite Israel killing about 400 Hamas/Gazans in the process, that rescue effort failed. Shalit ended up being held for a mind boggling 1,934 days before negotiations, led in the end by Netanyahu, succeeded in bringing him home alive.

Even in today’s hostage deal, the ratio of Israeli hostages to Palestinian prisoners is weirdly disproportionate. In stage one of the deal, the current formula is 30 Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli civilian and 50 for every female Israeli soldier. We don’t yet know the formula for male soldiers, which is yet to be negotiated in stage two. Why would Israel pay such a high price for one soldier? Or for 100?

This is a very sobering, and very serious topic starting to resonate in Israeli public and policy forums. How do you stop incentivizing jihadists like Hamas from using hostages to further their genocidal goals? What is the cost to Israel of the lives of hostages yet to be taken?

Israel’s willingness to negotiate for hostages reflects the deep integration of Jewish religious values with its national ethos. Principles such as pikuach nefesh (sanctity of life), and arevut (collective responsibility) shape its policies, underscoring the sanctity of life and the collective responsibility to rescue those in harm’s way. These religious motivations are complemented by cultural and historical factors, making hostage negotiations a central aspect of Israeli policy. Tal Becker, an Australian-Israeli lawyer and diplomatic advisor, noted this about Israeli hostage policy in a recent “Call Me Back” podcast:

“there is an understood willingness to sacrifice, an understood kind of view of a solidarity of a society where individuals are required and expected to sacrifice for the whole. I often think of parents who send their children to the army as engaged in their own act of the binding of Isaac, their own willingness to say, there are things more important than the safety of my children, which revolve around requiring you being willing to enable your children to sacrifice for the collective good.”

But that comes as part of a core social contract. I’m willing to make that sacrifice for the collective, because I know that the collective will be willing to do everything it takes to protect me if needed. And on the hostage issue, it can, for an outsider, drive people a little crazy.

But ensuring that the fabric of Israeli society remains and the resilience of Israeli society remains is tied to that feeling of ultimate responsibility for those who are willing to make that sacrifice. An ultimate responsibility of the society as a whole for each individual. In Hebrew we call this, kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh (all of Israel is responsible for one another).

It’s a beautiful thought, and a national ethos we have seen on full display in the aftermath of October 7, where citizen heroes quickly filled the gap in the failures of Bibi’s administration to prevent the attack and to administer to the needs of those impacted families, kibbutzim, and general citizenry.

But Israel’s enemies know this. It’s the achilles heel of the Israeli resolve and commitment to keep its citizens safe. Hamas in particular, knew this from the Shalit hostage experience, and essentially scaled it to an ugly extreme on October 7. And for Hamas, the fact that so much of Gaza is devastated doesn’t matter, since we know they don’t give a shit about the Gaza citizenry, it is a worthwhile price to pay for enormous benefit. At the beginning of the war, there was approximately 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Today, there is now approximately 10,000 representing a huge number of Hamas fighters, a huge number of various terror organizations in Gaza that have been captured in the course of battles. And so the release of 500 prisoners, 1,000 prisoners, they could even release 8,000 prisoners, and they would still have a net loss in terms of the sheer number of Palestinians remaining in an Israeli prison.

But, that’s not the point. According to one of my favorite Israeli journalists, Haviv Rettig Gur,

“the point isn’t even the release. And the point isn’t victory. The point is tormenting the Israelis, because they have a long-term strategy that says that if the Israelis never have a day of rest, if they’re tortured and tormented and beaten and abused constantly, then eventually, just like the French left Algeria and the British left Kenya, the Jews will leave the land of Palestine. That’s the theory.”

“And if that’s the theory, if the destruction of the Palestinian side is irrelevant, the torment has to continue. And the way you torment the Jews best is by taking hostages. That was the great Hamas’ strategic lesson, and it has become their grand strategy, and it’s the heart of what happened in Gaza over the last 16 months.”

And that logic leads Rettig Gur to the difficult and sobering question of how do you lower the value of hostages to our enemies?

“Hamas doesn’t feel the costs of Gaza’s destruction, of the level of destruction that was inflicted on Gaza by the fact that the Israeli army had to literally get through the cities to get into tunnels and go searching for them. We have to lower the value of the hostages to the enemy. And maybe the way to do that, I’m saying something radical and awful and anti-Israeli, maybe the way to do that is to lower their value to us.”

That thought runs contrary to the heart and soul of Israel, the religious and national ethos mentioned above. And I am certain that if one of my kids was a hostage, I would not even consider such a conversation. But the country needs to have the discussion if it wants to avoid the inevitability of further hostage crisis ahead, and we all have seen how the current crisis has torn the country apart. The problem is that the current administration, Nut-and-yahoo and his nut job coalition, lack the integrity and credibility to conduct such a conversation. While most of the generals accountable to October 7 have resigned, one guy still stands, convinced he is the only reason Israel survived this historic moment. But he needs to go too. And the sooner the better.

Have a great weekend everyone! Let’s hope, and pray if that is your thing, that all the hostages are safely returned.

Stay safe out there.

Brad out.

The Jew News Review – January 20, 2025 – Special Edition – “It’s mourning in America”

I am trying my best to avoid anything to do with the fakakta inauguration. I am no fan of AOC, but I appreciated her response when asked if she would be attending the schmuck’s big day, “I don’t celebrate rapists,” she said. “So no, I am not going to the inauguration.” Mic drop.

It’s going to be a long 4 years. The orange turd is back, smelly as ever, and no amount of Poo-Pourri or Fight, Fight, Fight cologne will be able to hide the stench of the man or his administration. But what really sucks is the horrible irony of the inauguration of one of the country’s worst examples of humanity falling on Martin Luther King day, a federal holiday honoring one of the better humans the country has ever produced. How do we reconcile a day when the very worst and the very best men this country has ever produced are in the nation’s spotlight at the same time? There is no amount of media whitewashing, or even any amount of good executive decisions or good policies he may enact, that can or will change the nature of the orange turd. He is, always has been, and always will be an a-hole. It pains me that I spend any more of my time thinking or writing about him. But I can’t help myself, because I can’t forget that four years ago today, the a-hole inspired an insurgency against our country and constitution. An act of treason which half our country completely ignored, or pretended to think was nothing more than an overdose of patriotic fervor. And, no Mitch, you spineless turtle head, the legal system did nothing to hold him accountable for his abuses against the law, our country and humanity.

So, what do we do? Hunker down on the arts? Pop in our ear buds and listen to good music for four years? Book a four year cruise in the Gulf of America? I would join an opposition party, but is there one any more? Or are the Dems still navel gazing, finger pointing and licking wounds?

Prepare yourselves for orange turd 2.0. For those of us fearing the worst, we can always reflect positively on better men that have come before, and the hope for better men still to come. And today, a day when we honor one of those greats that came before, we can recall one of his now seemingly prescient quotes, “We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice. Not in love with publicity but in love with humanity.”

Be careful out there.

Brad out.

The Jew News Review – January 18, 2025 “”We will never forget, we will never forgive”

This is quite the historic week. Here we are on the eve of a peaceful transition of power in our decaying democracy, preparing for another orange turd shit show, while Israelis, Palestinians and diaspora Jews like myself search for meaning in what one analyst described the cease-fire as a “miserable draw”.

My feelings on the proposed ceasefire (just ratified by a vote of the Knesset) were captured eloquently in this poem by a fellow Substacker:

We shook hands with you monsters
Not because
It will bring about peace
But only because
It will bring our people home
Our people that you stole
Leaving behind a gaping hole
In an entire nation.

You knew
What it means to be a Jew
What wouldn’t we do
To return our family
The lengths we’d go
To choose humanity
One soul, one world
And in an act so perverse
You stole a universe.

We will never forget
We will never forgive.

While I am thrilled with a deal that puts the killing on pause and returns our people, including babies and elderly (who kidnaps babies?!) there are hundreds of other innocent victims that no deal will ever return. The list of the 800 civilians murdered by Hamas on Oct 7th can be found here. The youngest murder victim was a 14-hour-old newborn, delivered in an emergency procedure after his or her 9-months-pregnant mother was shot and killed. The mother remains unnamed; she was a Bedouin from a village near the City of Dimona.

All the children and thier teacher depicted in the image below were murdered on October 7.

This image used in accordance with Section 7A of Israel’s Copyright Law

The oldest murder victim was 88-year-old Chana Kritzman of Kibbutz Be’eri. What kind of animals do this shit? We will never forget, we will never forgive.

In my humble opinion, it was always about the hostages. Still is. The butchering of innocents was just a sideshow to the real Hamas objective: bring back hostages so we have leverage and can negotiate with the Jews. Hit’em where it hurts. And hurt it did. It tore a hole in Israelis soul and helped divide the nation. While the rest of the Arab world did not join Hamas in its intended genocide, Israel is now paying a dear price to bring our hostages home. Not only will Hamas live another day, and potentially regroup and control Gaza and it’s people once again, but hundreds of Jew killers will be released from Israeli prisons, and who knows if another Sinwar is among those freed murderers.

There will be a lot of analysis in mainstream and social media about “who won” this war, and what was the meaning of all this loss of blood and treasure. The simple answer is that it was, and always has been, and probably always will be, about killing Jews. And until the Arab world de-radicalizes the jihadists and loonies that defile the broader, peace-loving Muslim community, there is no relief in sight. It’s lather, rinse, repeat. Isreal, a tiny enclave of liberal democracy surrounded by hostile Arab neighbors, has survived yet another attempt at a real genocide. But, how long before Hamas, or some other jihadist group goes over the wall again and butchers more innocent Jews? As Daniel Clarke-Serret writes in his Guerre and Shalom Substack:

The international community called for armistice now and so it had to come. They prioritised the temporary end of human misery for the price for its assured recurrence. The Americans and Europeans could have demanded an immediate Hamas surrender; an immediate return of the hostages; but they refused to do so. The war could have ended on October 8th, but the equivocators equivocated. Throughout the entire war, the whole global commentary has been centered on casualty numbers (real or imagined) over grand strategy. The powers that be wanted death to end, so they called for war to end. Ceasefire over surrender. Humanitarianism over real peace. The needs of the moment over the slaughter to come. A huge, inevitable error. Yet without the surrender of Hamas put at front and centre of global demands, they were always always going to live to fight another day, however gingery, however diminished. In this context, Israel had no choice but to agree to this hostage deal and take stock knowing that their “Second World War” is a decade or more around the corner.

And if you think Hamas is bowed, or vanquished, think again. As many predicted, there is now a new generation of Jew killers who will bide their time, and play the long game. See the video below, a scene repeated throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Scary.

https://youtu.be/FRnNK0Ezl8E

Israelis may brush off this kind of celebrating as “this is how Arabs celebrate losing”, but the celebrating is not just in the West Bank and Gaza. Progressive morons in our own US of A are also celebrating in the streets. I will spare you the images. And if you think Israel’s image around the world can’t get much worse, think again. The images that will emerge from Palestinians returning to their destroyed homes and cities will be tough to watch, and the Israeli haters and “anti-Zionists” will continue to fuel the media with those images and propaganda.

By not allowing Israel to win the war, lives of innocent Palestinians and Israeli soldiers will be saved. Some of the hostages will be returned to their families and to their wounded nation. But I fear this is not the end. As Clarke-Serret writes in his latest post:

Today, Hamas stand vanquished : their forces mowed down, their leadership in an early grave, their allies diminished beyond measure. Destruction has been wrought on an enormous scale and innocents have been sacrificed on the pyre of their leaders’ fanaticism. Yet from the depths of hell they still claim victory. They claim to be undefeated. They claim to have been stabbed in the back by the Saudis and Emiratis and their Arab brothers. Like Ludendorff before them, they will sell falsehoods to their people and continued militancy, murder and jihad will be the result. In their attempt to ensure that ‘never again’, the international community have unwittingly created Versailles 2.0: The forces of darkness will surely return for one last unthinkable fight to the death.

I pray he is wrong, but this seems like ground hog day to me.

I also pray that our hostages make it back safely, hopefully alive and not in a body bag, although we know the Hamas a-holes have been using dead hostages as part of their negotiations. So, the next few weeks are going to be difficult as we look to square the joy of the return of those hostages with the knowledge of what we gave up to get them home.

So, how do I really feel about this deal?

I will never forget, and I will never forgive.

Be careful out there.

Brad out.

The Jew News Review – January 10, 2024 – “Paradise Lost?”

Shabbat shalom.

Several JNR readers, friends and family alike, reside in the Los Angeles area, some currently under threat of the Palisades fire heading east, or some new conflagration erupting in urban/suburban areas that were once thought to be safe from any Santa Ana wind-whipped flames. As of this morning, at least 11 deaths from the fire are confirmed, over 100,000 have been evacuated, and over 10,000 “structures” have been burnt and destroyed. Many of those “structures” are people’s homes, rich and poor alike. The hell released by these fires does not discriminate. And the scale of the destruction defies comprehension: think Dresden after the fire bombing in WWII. And this madness is not yet contained, despite the brave and relentless courage of the fire fighters and civilians working feverishly to stop the madness before it spreads even further. One of my friends in West Hollywood is currently safe, but texted this yesterday, “Still good for us thankfully… but terrible situations elsewhere. Scenes of devastation from the Palisades are shocking. That was one place we looked when moving here in 2016, and the houses we checked out all seem to be gone. Awful, sobering and so sad for the thousands of people affected.” Indeed.

One Substacker, JD Hayman, put it this way:

You hear this refrain again and again: People have lost everything. Movie stars and paupers alike are leveled by an uncontrollable elemental force. “Everything” can’t quite convey the enormity of the loss. It includes the dumb, sweet gimcrack of our lives—photo albums and pajamas, old love letters, faded heirlooms, warm coats, toothbrushes, a pillow. A friend took a video of the ruins of her home, burned down to its foundations, with only a charred child’s soccer goal left standing. She wrote: It really puts things into perspective when you have one pair of socks and shoes.

Angelenos can be blasé about most of the environmental forces that buffet their lives. You get used to tremors—those moments when it feels as though the earth is trying to shrug humanity off its back. Searing droughts are followed by torrential rains that can turn a trickle in a culvert into a raging flood. A Mission Revival villa may be obliterated by a mudslide, and the family Shih Tzu carried off by a coyote. But this is different. Driven by the Devil Winds that howl in from the Mojave, fire is defiant, feral, and ravenous. And these fires, raging across the spine of the city, are the most terrible in memory.

I am finding it difficult this week to train my thoughts and writings on other issues, Jewish or not, given the scope of the devastation we are witnessing in California. My wife and I will be traveling there in February, to do our annual snowbird escape to Palm Springs, a desert oasis and another jewel in the Californian crown of geographical splendor and beauty. We heard just recently that the air quality there is not good, and masks are recommended. But our thoughts now are focused on the welfare of all Angelenos, and the hope that this nightmare will end soon, and the death and destruction will be contained.

Be safe everyone.

Brad out.

If you want to know how to help, here is a list of organizations that will gladly accept any donations:

American Red Cross

The Red Cross has deployed volunteers to provide food, shelter, and medical assistance to those displaced by the fires. Donations can be made here.

Baby2Baby

Baby2Baby is distributing essentials to vulnerable children and families, including diapers, food, formula, water, clothing, blankets, and hygiene products. Volunteers can assist by packing supplies at their L.A. headquarters.

Best Friends Animal Society

This group supplies essential pet care items and necessities for humans impacted by the wildfires. Donations are accepted via their website.

CAL FIRE Benevolent Foundation

The CAL FIRE Benevolent Foundation provides funding and support to firefighters and their families affected by disasters. Make donations here.

California Community Foundation

The California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Recovery Fund aids California’s neediest communities affected by wildfires.

California Fire Foundation

The foundation works with local agencies and community groups to assist those impacted by wildfires. Donations support survivors in L.A. County and across California.

Canine Rescue Club

This local network of foster caregivers is providing shelter for dogs affected by the wildfires. Interested volunteers can find more information here.

+COOP

Real estate broker and boutique owner Jenna Cooper turned her Beverly Boulevard store into a wildfire relief pop-up where those affected can pick up donated clothing and other items (7278 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles).

Direct Relief

Direct Relief is distributing free N95 masks to residents in Altadena, Pacific Palisades, and other areas impacted by smoke. Donations go directly to individuals affected by the fires and other California disasters.

Los Angeles Regional Food Bank

The L.A. Food Bank is partnering with agencies, religious groups, and nonprofits to distribute food and other essential items.

Salvation Army

The Salvation Army provides water, food, and emergency relief, as well as longer-term assistance to those impacted.

Set Active Clothing Donations

L.A.-based Set Active is accepting clothing donations. Residents can contact them via Instagram for drop-off details.

YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles

The YMCA is collecting donations of essential items for wildfire survivors at its Westchester and Koreatown locations.

World Central Kitchen

Chef José Andres’ relief organization is partnering with local restaurants and food vendors to provide meals for emergency workers and those displaced by the fires. Donations can be made here.

United Way of Greater Los Angeles

United Way has established a Wildfire Response Fund to support marginalized communities disrupted by the fires.

The Jew News Review – 2024 Year End Edition – “Oy Vey” Predictions for 2025

Shabbat Shalom! Hey!

And a special tip of the Kippah to 2024! As The Grateful Dead would say, “What a long, strange trip it’s been!” But, we will keep on truckin, hopefully without the help of reds, vitamin C and cocaine, although admittedly, I could use a few rations of each to help me capture the essence of the year in this post and help with my Oy Vey predictions for 2025.

Once again, as I did last year, and as tradition dictates, I turned to Artificial Intelligence to help me face the daunting task of summarizing the year. This year, I was rewarded by ChatGPT with the following: “2024: A Year of Resilience and Reckoning”.

Ok, I can work with that! Let’s start with Resilience.

I think most would agree that Israelis and Ukrainians have helped to define the Resilience category, with their ability to hang tough in the face of real existential threats. In the case of Israel, after suffering their worst blow since the country was established, they almost single-handedly and quite literally blew away Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, consequently enabling the downfall of the murderous Assad regime as a bonus. The much maligned Israeli Mossad organization pulled off the exploding pager operation, a terrorist killing caper that will surely inspire a new season of Fauda! And while Ukraine can’t claim to be winning against Putin’s agression, they have held steady in a war of attrition against a superior sourced enemy, and with the help of NATO countries, have survived another year. And then, let’s hand it to the orange man. He survived a few assassination attempts and returned to power, this time in an undisputed election, and begins his vengeance and retribution tour in a few weeks. Poor us. The question is, of course, will Democracy be resilient in the face of Donny-dumb-fuck’s clown show and his total disregard for our democratic institutions? Will we join the many other liberal democracies around the globe trending toward authoritarianism? Democracy may be heading into 2025 bloodied, but not bowed. I’m rooting for Democracy.

Moving on to the Reckoning category, we start once again with the orange man. A majority of this country voted for a treasonous, rapist for President. Writing that sentence is unbelievable. How do we reckon with that reality? We have already lived through four years of the orange turd. Can the country come to grips and manage through four more years of Donny-dumb-fuck and his sycophantic side-kicks? Will we go to war over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and annex Canada as our 51st state? Or will we all be dead before that happens due to Bobby Brainworm Jr’s stance against vaccines or his recommendation to toss back a glass of fresh bacteria in raw milk? Will there be a reckoning in America for a Medicare for All program before there are copy cat hits on the CEO’s of all our major private health insurance companies? With the rise of AI in 2024, people began to question the motivations of their digital assistants. Does Alexa have evil intentions? If she start’s asking you, “how was your day?”, should you be worried? Is there an AI reckoning coming in 2025? Record-breaking climate disasters highlighted the urgency for nations to meet carbon reduction goals and address systemic environmental neglect. Are we literally baked? Will wild fires in California and South America signal a climate reckoning? Or is it too late?

Perhaps “Resilience” and “Reckoning” summarize 2024 appropriately, or good enough for an AI algorithm. Or maybe Norm Jewison got it right, and like the Jewish people, we are teetering on the edge, like a fiddler on the roof, adapting the best we can in the midst of cultural change and adversity. And how do we keep our balance amidst this barrage of change and adversity? Tradition, tradition!

Traditions, traditions. Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof!

One such tradition is the JNR year end predictions for the coming new year, otherwise known as The Oy Vey List, which is published every year in the Jewish Farmer’s Almanac right next to those of Nostradamus and Baba Vanga. For those of you new to the JNR, The Oy Vey List is my best guess predictions of things to come in the new year that will elicit dismay, frustration, grief or just a good ole “Oy”. My 2024 prognostications were mostly a bust going 1 for 6, but remember, as the great philosopher Pumbaa once said, “you got to put your behind in the past”. So with that bit of wisdom now behind us, I am proud to present the annual JNR Oy Vey List for 2025:

Oy Vey #1: Moo Deng and Pesto make a movie – Moo Deng, a bouncy baby pygmy hippo from eastern Thailand’s Khao Kheow Open Zoo, became 2024 pop culture’s fascination with her exceptionally sassy attitude, adorable chubby face and many antics caught on camera. Then came Pesto, the exceptionally robust penguin chickhatched at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium in Melbourne, Australia. Towering over the adult penguins and his own adoptive parents as the biggest baby ever born to the Sea Life, people could not get enough of the larger-than-life ball of chubby and fuzzy brown feathers. In 2025, Marvel and Warner Bros get into a bidding war for movie rights on the two cute fatties. Warner Bros wins the bid, and produces “My Dinner with Pesto”, a remake of “My Dinner with Andre”, where Moo and Pesto sit across from each other in a Manhattan restaurant and reflect on the meaning of a chubby life or whether or not they should go on a regimen of Ozempic.

Moo and Pesto: Cashing in on their internet fame?

2. Oy Vey #2: Musk’s new AI product wins a Nobel Prize – Move over Bard, Gemini and ChatGPT. A new version of AI makes headlines by solving the climate crisis. The new product, developed by Elon Musk to compete with Open AI’s ChatGPT, is called EGO, and the platform develops a solution to climate change but then immediately patents it, leaving humanity to pay subscription fees to use clean air. Musk then becomes the first Trillionaire on the planet, and uses the proceeds to buy the planet Mars, the only venue large enough to house his EGO Head Quarters.

3. Oy Vey #3: Trump appoints Ye Ambassador to Israel – Ye, who last year converted to Judaism and changed his name to EY to reflect the Hebrew right-to-left spelling, also announced he will resume his latest concert tour, renamed “The Star of David Concert Tour” which features a 100 foot statue of Ey wearing blue and white Yeezees emblazoned, of course, with the Star of David. Trump, in typical fashion, praised Ey and his appointment, “Nobody brings people together like Ey. He’s a genius, folks—everyone says so. Plus, have you seen his sneakers? Fantastic. The best sneakers.” Ey later proposes replacing traditional diplomatic documents with NFTs, claiming, “Paper is outdated, and peace needs to be on the blockchain.” Critics, of course, question the decision, but Trump defends it with a post on X, “Ambassador Ey is doing BIG things in Israel. Never before has the Holy Land been this hip. Liberals hate it because they hate SUCCESS!!!” Meanwhile, Ye’s tenure concludes when he attempts to install a giant golden statue of himself in Tel Aviv, calling it “a symbol of unity.”

4. Oy Vey #4: JNR recognized as “Substack of the Year” – In yet another milestone for the Jew News Review, the JNR was notified last week that it has received top honors in the “Sharon, MA and Staunton, VA Jewish Blog” category, a very crowded and competitive category for sure. Editor and CEO Brad Goverman was thankful for the recognition and had this to say in response: “I am humbled at this milestone, and thankful to my thousands of followers. This means a lot to the brand and our SEO and offers many opportunities for link-building. I have once again been approached by several marketers of home lift chairs, erectile dysfunction devices, and Judaica.”

5. Oy Vey #5: Hollywood Announces “Wicked Pissah”: The Wizard of Oz Gets a New England Makeover – 2024 ended on a gravity-defying high note with the theatrical release of “Wicked.” The long-awaited movie adaptation of the Tony Award-winning show starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo pulled in $114 million on its opening weekend alone as millions flocked to see the first of the two-act series. My prediction for 2025: The second act is released in 2025, and it’s “Wicked Pissah”. The sequel to Wicked moves from the Emerald City to Boston, where Elphaba trades her broomstick for a Dunkin’ iced coffee and Glinda tries to bring sparkle to Fenway Park. The plot centers around Elphaba trying to “reverse the curse”—not the one on her, but on the Red Sox after another heartbreaking season. She becomes a legend when she flies over the Green Monster during the World Series. Musical numbers include “Popular (But Only in My Hometown)”, and of course, “No One Mourns the Wicked Bruins Fan.” Matt Damon makes a cameo, playing a talking clam who gives life advice in a thick Boston accent. “You can’t change the world if ya park the cah too fah from the bah, kid!”. Boston Globe critic Kevin Kelly called it a “wicked fun time” for Boston locals, but New Yorkers roll their eyes, claiming, “We already have Hamilton.”

Oy. That’s all for this year! If any of this nonsense should come true, remember, you read it here first on the JNR.

May all your predictions and resolutions come true in 2025 and may the new year be a healthy and prosperous one for you all! And as usual, let’s be careful out there!

Brad out.

The Jew News Review – December 25, 2024 – “A Christmas Carol”

Shalom. And happy holidays to all!

A tip of the kippah to my mom, Carol, who turns a sprightly 94 today. She’s a great mom, and a great role model, as she goes about her days taking care of others and living the values of tikkun olam and the spirit of Christmas. And of course, she is a faithful reader of the JNR! Happy birthday mom!

I’ve always wondered if she regretted being born on Christmas day, with the risk of that very personal birth date being lost in the hustle and bustle of one of the most celebrated holidays on the planet. Or, did it provide additional meaning to “her” day? Did marrying my Jewish father help return the focus (and all the presents) to just her and the decision on which Chinese restaurant would provide dinner?

While pondering those deep, philosophical questions, I did some quick research on the derivation of the word Carol. Turns out it comes from the French, Carole, which means a circle dance accompanied by singing. The word carol was first used in English in the 1300’s, most notably by none other than one of my favorite British writers, Geoffrey Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you start with his tale of the Wife of Bath, a tale whose protagonist many consider a proto-feminist character.

Although I consider my mother a strong female, I am pretty sure that in naming my mother Carol, her parents were not thinking about Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, but about the date on the calendar. And while it is clearly a day marked by the birth of the big guy, in our Jewish house it was always a day to celebrate mom. And while we did not stand around in a circle and sing songs about Christmas, we did have a tradition of watching Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, still one of my favorite versions of the classic Dickens story. And quite often on Christmas morning, my father would open the front door and while we all cringed in the background, he would channel his best Mr. Magoo’s Scrooge by yelling at the boy delivering the Boston Globe, “What’s to-day, my fine fellow?’ And then answering his own question, ‘It’s Christmas Day. I haven’t missed it. An intelligent boy. A remarkable boy. Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there — Not the little prize Turkey: the big one.’

Perhaps this year, with the first day of Chanukah falling on the same day as Christmas, there is a special irony in how Jewish songwriters became unofficial composers of Christmas carols. After all, Irving Berlin, a Jew, gifted the world “White Christmas.” And Johnny Marks, also Jewish, wrote “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” And Mel Torme wrote “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”, and Joan Javits and Phil Springer wrote, “Santa Baby”.

So, as the world settles in for holiday movies, eggnog, and caroling, or lighting candles, spinning dreidels, and piling plates high with latkes, this post honors my Mom on her 94th birthday.

Happy birthday mom!

The Jew News Review – December 21, 2024 – “Bibi, do the deal, then resign! And a new orange turd resistance strategy?”

Shabbat shalom!

A tip of the kippah this week to a group of leaders, Scott Galloway, Sheryl Sandberg, Sam Harris and Dan Señor, who will use their platforms to keep the hostages and their eventual freedom front and center. According to the Hostages Family Forum, “As the holiday season approaches, we’re confronted by the heartbreaking reality of 100 hostages who remain separated from their loved ones. The ongoing captivity in Gaza, including seven Americans, requires urgent international action. By amplifying these stories through influential voices, we hope to maintain global attention and pressure until a comprehensive deal secures the safe return of every last hostage.” And according to the latest polls, 72 percent of Israeli society is willing to end the war in order to bring back the hostages, which is the highest number since the beginning of the war. Netanyahu must see this too, and at the end of the day, if there is a moment to do this deal, that moment is now. Do the deal Bibi! And then please resign.

Now, onto a different topic.

Stepping into the wayback machine, here is a quick anecdote from my halcyon days at UMass Amherst, where I eventually graduated with a degree in English/Journalism. The year was 1978, and having a light course load, I found myself with a bit of extra time which I filled with various drug and alcohol induced moments of mayhem. It was probably during our weekly Wednesday liquid lunch at Mikes Westview Cafe (Mike’s wife made a mean meatloaf) that me and my friend and partner in crime, Bill Edelstein, crafted our idea to run for Student Government President as Co-benevolent Dictators. We ran against 10 other candidates, including “None of the Above”, and a real Yippie named Russel Swan, who’s running mate was a toy duck he would pull behind him at campaign events for his Swan/Duck platform. I am not joking. But, the Goverman/Edelstein campaign was a well financed and well organized machine with Edelstein smoking cigars and wearing army fatigues (and a Toronto Blue Jays cap) and speaking in what can only be described as “broken Cuban”, while I played the more serious traditional Co-dictator. It all sounds crazy, and believe me, it was more than that, but our real campaign coup was our decision to drop leaflets on the campus to promote our candidacy. We hired a plane out of Northampton Airport, printed 3,000 leaflets promoting “Goverman and Edelstein for Co-benevolent Dictators – In Us We Trust”, flew over the campus and dropped the leaflets on unsuspecting voters, but we did not account correctly for the wind, and most of the leaflets fell on an elementary school in Amherst, and, unfortunately for us, the Dean of Students house. Big oops.

Why am I recounting this tale of campus hi jinx? This might sound crazy, but I am trying to figure a new path for resistance to the clown show we are going to suffer through the next four years. While I am not proposing that we resurrect the Goverman -Edelstein platform, I do think that writer and military expert Malcolm Nance may be onto something when he proposes emulating the tactics of the French Resistance of WWII, something he calls FAFO, Focused Action, Focused Objectives.

The Resistance must organize into a unified machine but through simultaneous individual acts of defiance. Why? Your life as an American with rights may be in mortal danger. Some of us will end up in physical danger. Your way of life has already changed with compliant media and politicians genuflecting to Trump weeks before he is in power.

The only way out of this hole is to focus on carrying out single, unitary actions that achieve singular objectives simultaneously.

So, here is what I am thinking as one potential individual act of defiance. Let’s hit Donny-Dumb-Fuck where it hurts the most – his fat, inflated, and supremely delicate ego. Let’s get busloads to attend the inauguration, line them all up with their backs to the orange turd, and just as he puts his hand on one of his stupid junk bibles to get sworn in, everyone drops their pants and moons the moron. That would make for one hell of a news photo opportunity!

And I know what some might be thinking, that such an act would disrespect the institution and the ever important transfer of power. But, what goes around comes around. No-one has disrespected the norms and institutions of this great country more than the moron that this crazy country just voted for.

If you have any other FAFO ideas, feel free to send them my way.

On the news for the Jews, in addition to hopeful developments on the Gaza and hostage front, this week can be summarized as “a tale of two reports.” On the one hand, Andrew Fox, noted military expert, issued a report that is getting widespread attention in the middle east and beyond. Fox, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, served in the British Army from 2005 to 2021, completing three tours in Afghanistan, including one attached to the US Army Special Forces. At the transatlantic think tank, he specializes in Defense, the Middle East, and disinformation. He holds degrees in Law and Politics, Modern War Studies and Psychology.

Fox and a team of researchers published a report titled, “Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza.” According to the report, the Palestinian death toll for the Gaza war appears to include thousands of people who died of natural causes as well as incorrect figures — partly in an effort to inflate the toll of women and children.

Worse, international media outlets are too quick to accept the figures from terror group Hamas — usually without the scrutiny and rigor that are applied when reporting numbers supplied by Israel. The Hamas-run Health Ministry’s figures, the report claims, are being manipulated for propaganda needs.

The Gaza health ministry, under Hamas, “has systematically inflated the death toll by failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children and even including individuals who died before the conflict began,” the report said.

Of course, all war-related fatalities, civilian or otherwise, are horrible, and should be avoided at all costs. It is however, the dirty truth about any war and this one is no different. It is also true of war that atrocities and crimes against humanity will occur in due course. And, unfortunately, another report from Haaretz this week documented some particularly horrifying stories from IDF soldiers and commanders about indiscriminate shooting by the IDF of civilians in Gaza. This report is also getting a lot of attention in Israel, and does not help when the world is holding Israel to a higher standard and looking for ways to punish her. These accounts of indiscriminate killing and the routine classification of civilian casualties as terrorists emerged repeatedly in Haaretz’s conversations with recent Gaza veterans.

“Calling ourselves the world’s most moral army absolves soldiers who know exactly what we’re doing,” says a senior reserve commander who has recently returned from the Netzarim corridor. “It means ignoring that for over a year, we’ve operated in a lawless space where human life holds no value. Yes, we commanders and combatants are participating in the atrocity unfolding in Gaza. Now everyone must face this reality.”

Ugh. The war has dragged on for far too long. Israeli soldiers are tired, and many are demoralized. This shit has to end. Bibi, do the deal, then resign.

So now, without further ajieu, here is your weekly smorgasbord of superbly selected semitic stories from sources such as The Forward, JTA, The Times of Israel, Haaretz, Nosher, Kveller, and Jewish Boston to name a few.

This just in: Houthis hit Tel Aviv – A missile fired by Yemen’s Houthis exploded in a public park in Jaffa, south Tel Aviv, overnight Friday-Saturday after attempts to intercept it failed. Medics said 16 people were lightly injured by shattered glass, including a three-year-old girl, while 14 were bruised while rushing to shelters. Footage from the park showed a crater where the missile had impacted.
More on the war
1. With hopes for a ceasefire agreement before the end of the year still high, no further progress was reported from Thursday talks. (Washington Post)
2. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will skip a commemoration of the upcoming 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, in Poland, over fears that the country might execute an International Criminal Court warrant and arrest him. (Times of Israel)
3. Israeli settlers set a mosque on fire in the West Bank village of Madra overnight, and vandalized it, including with a spray-painted word translating to “revenge.” (Haaretz)
4. Residents of a Syrian village near the Golan Heights say Israeli troops are preventing them from accessing the fields they farm for their livelihood. (Times of Israel)
5. Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, criticized Pope Francis’ call for an investigation into whether Israel’s war in Gaza constitutes a genocide, saying his remarks trivialize the weighty term. (Reuters)
Who scored the first basket in the NBA? A Jew, that’s who! Friend of the JNR, Michael Stone, submitted this short film as an exclusive for the JNR. His oldest friend, Jeff Gurock, is a professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva (and also a former ass’t basketball coach there). He participated in this 8 minute tribute to the founding Jewish guys on the New York Knicks including Ossie Schectman who scored the first ever basket in the NBA!

https://app.frame.io/presentations/12a3f476-c397-403d-82de-f959aaab651c

Here and there
- More Mush from Human Rights Watch issued a lengthy report this morning documenting Israeli restrictions on water in Gaza since the war began, arguing that they constitute acts of genocide and crimes against humanity.
  - The group contends that Israel is going beyond its military campaign against Hamas and deliberately depriving Gaza residents of basic needs. It aims to prove intent largely based on public statements from Israeli officials.
  - The Israeli agency that handles water in Gaza disputed the report’s conclusions and said Israel was doing what it could to keep the water flowing.
  - Gerald Steinberg, a longtime critic of Human Rights Watch, reviewed a summary of the report and condemned it as “propaganda in the disguise of research.”
Academy Preview – None of the eligible Israeli films made the Oscar shortlists in the high-profile categories that were announced Tuesday in Los Angeles.However, the documentaries The Bibi Files, which covers Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial, and No Other Land, about an alliance between a Palestinian activist and Israeli journalist, were both chosen for the Best Documentary Feature shortlist. However, A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg’s Holocaust Buddy Movie is getting great reviews! The story of two kvetching cousins (Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) who reunite for a heritage tour of Poland after the death of their grandmother is according to one reviewer, “hilarious and heartbreaking by turns. Buoyed by supporting players who include Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, and Kurt Egyiawan, this gentle comedy makes a serious point about how grand tragedies and little hurts resonate for generations.”

That’s enough! Dayenu! Enjoy the holidays everyone! Stay healthy, resist, and as usual, let’s be careful out there.

Brad out.

The Jew News Review – December 14, 2024 – “Connecting with nature”

Shabbat shalom from Sedona, Arizona!

I am taking a break this weekend, rejuvenating mind, body and spirit among the canyons and spas of Sedona, Arizona. Maybe a vortex in the red rocks of this pristine wilderness will save me from this week’s news cycle, but I will be back next week with a new post.

Have a great weekend everyone! Be safe out there.

Brad out.