We’re back!
Housekeeping notes: This coming Monday, paid subscribers will get this month’s ET Watch Home, a monthly movie essay. Each month, I write about a different Czech New Wave movie and its director. This month’s movie is Jaromil Jireš’s The Joke.
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
I’m writing a third book! It’s on Holocaust remembrance in pop culture, politics, and foreign policy—how it impacts them and how they, in turn, impact how we remember—for Bloomsbury Academic. It’s due in the fall of next year. Wish me luck, strength, etc.
For Slate, I wrote about Rep. Elise Stefanik and those who spread antisemitism while purporting to fight it.
For the Forward, I wrote against whitewashing Jewish history, a thing that does not help fight against—and in fact misunderstands the work of—antisemitism.
For the New Republic, I wrote about Ritchie Torres, Israel, and the future of American Jewish politics.
This week on The Election Tricycle, we broke down the EU election results with special guest Zselyke Csaky.
I thought that this NYRB essay on B.R. Ambedkar and realizing democracy and equality in practice as well as in law was totally extraordinary.
I also liked this by Ravinder Kaur on rule of many versus rule of one in India.
“The fight for IVF is far from over,” reports HuffPost.
A new study found that elephants, who are the best, call out to each other using individual names.
MY VIEWS ON…
…teams I am rooting for in the Euros in the order in which I am rooting for them.
The Euros start this week. I love the Euros. It’s soccer, but with countries, ie even better.
Earlier this week, ESPN ranked the various team kits. I don’t really agree with their ranking, but it did give me an idea for this week’s newsletter: Ranking countries participating in the Euros according to how hard I, an American, am rooting for them.
Here, from “I am not rooting for that country” to “I am rooting for that country,” along with my own questionable reasoning, are my picks:
Albania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey: I’ve never been to any of these places. Sorry to these countries.
Portugal: I loved visiting Portugal but I do not like Ronaldo.
Croatia: If they wanted to be higher up on this list, they shouldn’t have included a “Nazi-supporting, fascist singer” in the celebration of their strong 2018 World Cup performance.
France: Can you imagine if France wins this whole thing on Bastille Day and then goes into hosting the Olympics?
Spain: I just feel like they’ve won this thing enough times.
Belgium and the Netherlands: This would be fine, I guess.
Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Romania, Scotland: These are all very different places that probably shouldn’t be lumped together but I feel similarly about all of them in this competition.
Italy: My mom’s dad was from Sicily so it goes in the top half.
Georgia: I once spent five weeks there. Half of my Master’s thesis was on Georgian dissidence in the Soviet period. I translated a play from Georgian into English back when I took Georgian and with the help of my Georgian teacher. And also I like Georgian wine.
Switzerland: It is (or at least was?) one of the world’s most ethnically diverse soccer teams. Sixteen of the 26 people on the team were of a “migrant background” in 2021. Also, my favorite bar to go to during the daytime on the weekends is doing some kind of collaboration with a Swiss restaurant, and if they do well, that means we get more innovative menu offerings.
Slovakia: My great-grandma on my mom’s side was Slovak.
England: My dad’s a big fan of team England and also, outside of the United States and India, this is where most of my subscribers are.
Poland: I’m going for a second time this September. The current government has devoted itself to reestablishing rule of law in the country. I’ve been on a big Kieślowski kick. My birthday is Polish Constitution Day. Also, the only foreign language into which Bad Jews was translated was Polish.
Ukraine: If a part of you isn’t pulling for Ukraine in nation-based sporting events right now, we are not the same.
Czechia/the Czech Republic: Did you think I was running a series for paid subscribers on Czech New Wave movies and taking online Czech for beginners on the weekends for fun to turn around and not root for the Czech national team? Please. Prague is my favorite city. What’s that? You’re arguing that that fact is “not relevant” and it’s “weird that I’m a Czech groupie”? Go make your own list.
Germany: I’ve rooted for the German national team since 2012, which was right before I moved to Germany for the year. Also, Mesut Özil used to be my favorite player. Now granted my actual year in Bremen was mixed and Özil later quit the national team citing racism, but I will still root for it. At its best, it represents a new, multicultural Germany and German patriotism (a welcome counter to, say, the party that performed well in the European Parliament elections), and I think it would be kind of fun if they won while they were hosting.
Anyway, that is how I hope this goes. Mostly, though, I hope everyone has a nice time with their friends while playing their sport and representing their country.
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
A new play examines and celebrates Asian Jewish America.
“The home of the director of the Brooklyn Museum was vandalized late Tuesday night,” reported Judy Maltz for Haaretz.
Etan Nechin has a thoughtful piece unpacking liberal American Jewish reluctance to speak out against the Israeli government.
The Forward has a wild story about how Mexican President-Elect Claudia Sheinbaum’s mom was not just the daughter of Holocaust survivors, but a survivor herself.
I still need to visit Agi’s Counter.
-ET