We’re back!
Housekeeping notes: It’s somehow already the end of February, which means that, next Monday, paid subscribers get March’s ET Leave Home, a monthly travel recommendation.
Paid subscribers to this newsletter also get The Political Cycle, a weekly podcast I co-host on politics in the US, UK, India, and the wider world, ad-free and directly to their inboxes from me (these posts will now unlock later).
With that! Onto news, views, and Jews.
THE NEWS
For the Forward, I wrote about Steve Bannon and a new twist on an old antisemitic trope.
This week on the podcast, we talked about US President Donald Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine.
This is a great piece on political prisoners in Russia today.
I hope you’ll read this piece by Mikhail Zygar on three years of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
I’m very excited for the new season of Andor!
MY VIEWS ON…
…counter programming!
I want to start by saying that I’m not telling you to tune out of or stop reading the news. As you can see from the sections above and below, I am not doing that. I think the idea that not following at least the broad strokes of what’s going on in the country and the world as self-care is self-indulgent and self-deluded. I am not telling you to stop paying attention to what’s happening around you.
I am, however, going to suggest that that’s not all you have to do, and that, while there is a cognitive dissonance that comes with tending to your little life and meeting up with friends and then flipping back to dystopia, the former can also help serve as fuel for the latter.
Here are some ways that I have been doing that:
Neil and I have been watching this show called Unforgotten on BritBox. In every season, they solve one cold case. It’s about the detectives, who mostly don’t change, and a rotating cast of characters, which does, and which makes up three or four families somehow linked to the long dead victim, each of which is hiding secrets in some way. There are six episodes and six seasons. We are almost done with season three and started maybe a week or two ago.
I’m in a movie club with some friends. Every week, someone puts up three different potential movies. We vote. We have a week to watch the winning movie and then talk about it over text. It’s a great way to watch movies you maybe wouldn’t otherwise and to expose people to stuff you love.
Obviously I am listening to a lot of Beyoncé in anticipation for this spring’s concert and because I always am BUT I also encourage you to listen to Anoushka Shankar and Peter Cat Recording Co — both make music that is at once complicated and soothing, which is ideal for these, our terrible times.
I’ve become obsessed with blueberry muffins.
And with appreciating the week of nice weather by taking the dog on slightly longer walks.
My parents were here last weekend. I had my in person book editing group meeting. I got coffee with a woman from my synagogue this week. A cherished friend is back from several weeks away and we met up yesterday evening. What I’m saying is that I forget, sometimes, how nice it is to talk to people in real, actual life, but it’s really quite nice.
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
The new big Pew study on religion shows that Jews are less likely to believe in God than other religious groups but more likely to belong to a house of worship than Americans overall (as a member of a Reform synagogue, this is not surprising).
The Forward has a report on what Germany’s elections, and specifically the success of the AfD, means for Jews.
Benyamin Cohen at the Forward wrote this lovely tribute to Gene Hackman and also to his dad, movies, Judaism, and growing up.
From Haaretz: “In his first live statement after his release from Hamas captivity, Iair Horn said, 'no one in the world should have to go through' what the hostages are facing, calling for the hostage deal to continue.”
Also from Haaretz: “Over 200 Italian Jews have signed an advertisement published on Wednesday in La Repubblica, one of the country's largest circulation newspapers, and the smaller daily newspapers La Stampa and Il Manifesto, calling on the Italian government to distance itself from U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed plan for a mass displacement of the population of Gaza.”
From the New York Times: “Marian Turski, a Holocaust survivor who returned to his native Poland after World War II to give voice to fellow victims of the Nazis and their collaborators, warning the world in writings and speeches about the dangers of indifference to racial and ethnic injustice, died on Feb. 18 at his home in Warsaw. He was 98.” I met him very briefly this summer and feel even more fortunate now than I did then to have been able to do that.
-ET
"Blueberry muffins for breakfast" by Steven Jackson Photography is licensed under CC BY 2.0.