We’re back!
Housekeeping notes: This past Monday, paid subscribers got this month’s ET Ask Home, a monthly questionnaire. This month’s guest was Nicholas Tamkin, who is, as his last name suggests, my brother. And since it is somehow already going to be May, this coming Monday, paid subscribers will get ET Leave Home, a monthly travel recommendation.
With that! Onto news, views, and Jews.
THE NEWS
For MSNBC Opinion, I wrote about the “Jews killed Jesus” carveout in the piece of antisemitism legislation that was before, and failed to make it out of, a Senate committee this week.
I participated in a panel discussion at Georgetown’s Center for Jewish Civilization on antisemitism in these, our terrible times, which you can watch via this C-SPAN 3(?) recording of the event.
From Politico: “A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the immediate release of a Columbia University student who was detained by immigration authorities and targeted for deportation over his involvement in pro-Palestinian protests… ‘I am saying it clear and loud,’ Mahdawi said outside a federal courthouse shortly after U.S. District Judge William Sessions III ordered his release. ‘To President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you.’”
From the Guardian (by friend of the newsletter Tanvi Misra): “A last-minute supreme court intervention prevented Javier Salazar [a Maryland teenager] from getting deported, but the battle is far from over”
I loved this New York Times piece on watching production after production of Uncle Vanya and why actors and audiences alike keep coming back to it and am only a little mad that I didn’t write it.
And I also loved this New York Times piece on the movies of Yasujiro Ozu’s own cinematic language.
Speaking of cinematic languages: Today was Satyajit Ray’s birthday. Last year on my birthday I wrote, “The movies of Satyajit Ray (born yesterday!) are a gift, and, for me, one of the things about them that are so special is that they make me work for them. If you’re from Calcutta or if you didn’t grow up familiar with the culture of Bengal, you know that there’s stuff that you’re missing, and some of that you can get by looking it up, and some of it you’ll just never get. That’s okay. Art’s allowed to humble you.” I still feel that way.
MY VIEWS ON…
…turning 35!
I turn 35 tomorrow. Here are some reflections on the last year and the year to come and on growing older.
I am really glad that, after being very impressed by but not completely loving Dekalog, I went back and tried Krzysztof Kieślowski again because I found myself watching as much of his work as I could get my hands on, and that, at various moments over the last year, it carried me through.
Likewise, I’m glad I’m finally reading the complete works of Primo Levi.
I am really glad I got to take a last (for now) solo reporting trip last summer to Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, and Berlin, to remind myself both that I’m good at what I do and that there are people who I love and who love me all around the world and especially in Central and Eastern Europe.
Relatedly, and this is probably oversharing, but a thing that I realized recently is that what I was pretty good, but only pretty good, at what I did earlier on in my career (as a State/foreign affairs beat reporter), but am much better at what I do now, and I’d never have gotten to do this if I’d still been holding onto that.
A thing that I am still learning is that if you go to someone for something that they cannot give you, at a certain point, you are setting yourself up for disappointment and need to take a different approach. I think this is true in our personal lives—i.e., if you have a friend who cannot validate your feelings, that’s not what you should be going to that friend for—and in our political lives—i.e. if you have a politician who cannot do their job and stand up for due process, you should vote them out of office.
Things get worse in this country and world all the time. You still have to act as though they may get better, and that your actions can help get them there.
I always thought that I’d freak out about turning 35, and I guess I kind of am, but more than that I’m nervous and scared and excited to see how this year—growing older and (keynehore) becoming a mom—will change and reveal who I am. And in the meantime I get to take stock of my life and see that I have gotten basically everything I’ve ever really wanted, and gotten to do almost everything that I’ve wanted to do, and that, before anything else, I’ve been lucky. It feels like a jinx to write that and to publish it, but I don’t mean it as a boast. I mean that I can’t believe it. That this is how I’ve gotten to spend 35 years.
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
From JTA: “Right-wing activists rioted outside a Reform synagogue that was screening a joint Israeli-Palestinian ceremony on Israel’s Memorial Day, mobbing and harassing one woman as others exited under police protection.”
From Haaretz: “The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has begun firing appointees made by former U.S. President Joe Biden to the board that oversees the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, including former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.”
From JTA: “Today, [Croatia’s] government is an ally to Israel, born in the wake of the Holocaust. But at the same time, nationalist sympathizers of Croatia’s once-feared Ustaše are finding increasing traction for their rhetoric. Those who want to tamp down on pro-Nazi expressions say they are not finding meaningful support among lawmakers.”
-ET