EO and me
This is about a Polish donkey who traveled through Europe, and also about growing up
We’re back!
If you are reading this, you made it through the first full week of 2023, and whether it was a good start or just a start, I congratulate you on that.
Next Monday, paid subscribers will get the first ET Read Home, a little list of books I recommend for right now. If that interests you, I have good news (the good news is that you can sign up to be a paid subscriber at any point, including now).
And now, onto news, views, and Jews.
THE NEWS
Max Seddon writes in the Financial Times, “if there’s one city that Putin’s war doesn’t seem to have changed much, it’s Moscow…It’s an illusion strictly upheld by the Kremlin — questioning it can land you 15 years in prison for ‘discrediting the armed forces.’ But that illusion couldn’t exist if Muscovites didn’t want to believe in it.” I recommend reading his full diary from Russia’s capital.
The New York Times article on the closing of Noma, the “world’s best restaurant,” has this great line from Finnish chef Kim Mikkola: “Everything luxetarian is built on somebody’s back; somebody has to pay.”
Speaking of restaurants! Mexico City restaurateurs are catering to the influx of “English-speaking digital nomads” by making the food less spicy, as I learned from this interesting Rest of World piece.
Ken Roth, the former head of Human Rights Watch, was reportedly denied a fellowship at Harvard’s Kennedy School because he was too “anti-Israel.” The ACLU and PEN America have condemned the decision. Roth has penned a piece about the experience for the Guardian, writing “If any academic institution can afford to abide by principle, to refuse to compromise academic freedom under real or presumed donor pressure, it is Harvard, the world’s richest university. Yet the Kennedy School’s dean, Douglas Elmendorf, vetoed a human rights fellowship that had been offered to me because of my criticism of Israel. As best we can tell, donor reaction was his concern.” A Boston Globe editorial calls on the school to provide an answer. (I guess this also could have been in this newsletter’s last section, but I am putting it up here.)
The Czech presidential election is tomorrow and I wrote about what it means for Czech politics in today’s Morning Brief for Foreign Policy.
MY VIEWS ON…
…going to the movies alone!
I went to see a movie in theatres by myself in the last week. I did this because the movie I wanted to see was only in theatres and was so only for a very short while, and I wasn't sure when it would be available via streaming, and I have a weird, flexible schedule right now and Neil said he didn’t mind if I went alone. I guess I could have tried to go with someone else, but I didn’t.
I went to see EO, the Polish movie about a donkey, the titular EO, who has accidental adventures. It was beautiful and surreal and joyous and also mournful. He goes from very high highs to very low lows and back again in a way that resonated with me, and maybe would with you, too. I cried at one point. I hated the very last scene. I came home and bought a sweatshirt with a picture of the movie’s poster on it.
I used to do stuff like this all the time, but I haven’t in a while. Partly that’s because I go to see movies outside my home less often since the pandemic hit three years ago, and partly it’s because I stopped moving from city to city and settled into life in DC and so normally do things with friends or with Neil.
It was sort of like traveling back to my early or mid 20s, showing up to the movie theatre, grabbing a small popcorn and soda, and sitting in silence in a largely empty room, for no other reason than there was something on the screen that I felt compelled to see. That was how I watched the Amy Winehouse documentary when it came out, and it was how I watched End of the Tour, the movie about David Foster Wallace and David Lipsky, too. I am sure there were others, but those are the two I remember most distinctly. I remember wanting to see both by myself, and wanting to process both on my own. And I did.
And that’s what I did this last week, too. I don’t think I’ll do it again for a while, though. I enjoyed the movie more than I did the experience of seeing it alone. Maybe it made me recall a time in my life when I was less settled and sure, and so reminded me, not entirely pleasantly, of the ways that I’m still unsettled and unsure.
But I think it’s also that, as much as I liked the movie, and am glad that I saw it, at this point in my life, one of my favorite parts of watching a movie is turning to whomever I am watching it with after and asking, “So what did you think?”
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
From JTA: “In 1923 in New York, a Yiddish play that featured the first lesbian scene on a Broadway stage was censored for being indecent. In 2023 in Florida, a play about the first play has been canceled for the same reason.”
The Forward reports that a group of Jewish lawyers wrote to New York Governor Kathy Hochul to urge her to withdraw her nomination of Hector LaSalle to her state’s highest court. The lawyers felt “called by our Jewish and American values to defend the rule of law, including the right to privacy and reproductive freedom, the right to associate freely and to demand better working conditions, and the right to justice in the criminal legal system,” they wrote.
Hanoch Milvitzky, a member of the Knesset from Israel’s ruling party, said during an official committee meeting, “I prefer Jewish murderers over Arab murderers. And in general, in the country of Jews, I prefer Jews over Arabs who aren’t loyal.”
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has banned Palestinian flags from public places.
Ron Kampeas reports for JTA that AIPAC’s focus at its conference this week is on how to elect “pro-Israel” candidates in 2024.
Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, was in Washington this week.
I thought this, by Anshel Pfeffer at Haaretz on Israeli democracy, such as it is, was worth reading.
From the Forward: “A number of prominent Conservative rabbis wrote a letter to the Rabbinical Assembly last year declaring their strong opposition to what some feared was an imminent shift in the movement’s position on intermarriage.” (For context, over 70 percent of Jews who are not Orthodox who got married between 2010 and 2020 married someone who is not Jewish. At the moment, Conservative rabbis are formally barred from officiating those ceremonies.)
I gave a talk to my own synagogue this past Sunday, which was surreal. Also surreal: I am going to New Orleans for the first time later this month, also to talk about Bad Jews. If you know anyone in that city who would be interested and is free on January 29, please let them know!
I came across this event on 700 years of Vilnius that YIVO is putting on. It’s free. It looks neat. I have registered to attend via Zoom and wanted to share news of it with you.
That’s it for now! Hope to see you back here soon.
-ET