We’re back!
Housekeeping notes: Next week, paid subscribers will get ET Watch Home, a series in which I write about a different Czech New Wave film every month. Because May is the best month (or at least the month in which I was born), I am going to write the essay on my favorite Czech New Wave movie: Jiří Menzel’s Larks on a String. If you’d like to watch it ahead of time, it’s available on Amazon and, of course, Eastern European Movies dot Com.
Paid subscribers also get the premium version of The Election Tricycle, a weekly podcast I co-host on this year’s elections in the United States, United Kingdom, and India.
With that! Onto news, views, and Jews.
THE NEWS
This week on the Election Tricycle, we talked about the economy, stupid.
The New York Times has a report on how Elon Musk “has repeatedly used one piece of his business empire — X, formerly known as Twitter — to vocally support politicians like Mr. Milei, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Narendra Modi of India.”
Alice Munro, whom I will love forever, passed away this week. I encourage you to join me in honoring her life by reading her stories, like the excellent “Some Women.”
Relatedly, Eugene Levy’s list of Toronto recommendations is chaotic!
MY VIEWS ON…
…Slovakia!
There was an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico in Slovakia this week. Authorities have described the shooter as a “lone wolf.” Outgoing Slovak President Zuzana Caputova called the attempt an “attack on our democracy.”
An assassination attempt in Slovakia is obviously incredibly troubling. Dalibor Rohac wrote on how this will change Slovakia, and spoke about the shooting on NPR, too.
Fico, as I have written before, is a polarizing figure, one who resigned after the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and then, five years later, returned to power by appealing to pro-Russian sentiment and, in some cases, pushing conspiracy theories, smearing those against him as Soros stooges. He has intensified his attacks on journalists and the media, and tried to make changes to the country’s judicial system (including by closing the Special Prosecutor’s Office, which had asked Parliament to lift Fico’s immunity when he was out of power). And so also troubling, however, to my mind, is how quickly authorities were to blame political opponents and those who otherwise try to hold the Fico government to account.
According to the BBC, Deputy Prime Minister Tomas Taraba blamed Slovakia’s opposition’s “false narratives” while Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok accused the media of “sowing this hatred.”
Over at the Guardian, Lili Bayer reported that Ľuboš Blaha, the deputy speaker of parliament, told opposition figures, “this is your fault,” before saying to the media, “Because of you, the four-time prime minister Robert Fico, the most significant statesman in Slovakia’s modern history, is currently fighting for his life.” Again, a journalist was murdered in Slovakia six years ago.
The way to restore calm is not to villainize the opposition, or NGOs, and it is certainly not to continue to attack the people trying to help bring information on the country to its people. If, as Estok said, the country is on the brink of civil war, then the people in power need to help it step back from the edge.
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
This Baffler essay on Jewish and German identities in Germany is superb.
I found this, by Anshel Pfeffer, on Israel’s leaders balancing between seeing it as a home or a haven for Jews, to be thought provoking.
Jewish Currents translated a debate between Yiddish-speaking anarchists on what stance to take toward Zionism after attacks on Jews in Hebron in 1929. What is fascinating, to me, is how little has changed rhetorically in the last 100 years.
-ET