And we’re back!
Hello from lovely Portugal! Alas, I cannot write “sunny Portugal,” as it mostly rained this week. But we have been walking around and eating good food and drinking good wine all the same.
Paid subscribers this week got March’s ET Ask Home, a monthly questionnaire featuring the same questions and varying cool characters, this past Monday. This month’s offering was from one of my favorite peers, who is also my friend, Brandon Tensley.
And now onto news, views, and Jews.
THE NEWS
After years and years of talks, the historic High Seas Treaty has been reached. According to the treaty, 30 percent of seas should be “placed into protected areas” by 2030.
I cannot even articulate how profoundly disappointing Biden’s “I believe in home rule, but” move against policy set by the DC city council was. Either we can elect leaders who decide what our policy is or we can’t.
After two nights of protests, Georgia’s ruling party has withdrawn its “foreign influence” bill. Protesters, however, vow to continue.
Kazuo Ishiguro will almost certainly not win an Oscar this weekend, but he should, and in the meantime you can read this piece about him.
For the New Republic, I reported and wrote a feature on how liberal American Jews are — and aren’t — grappling with what’s happening in Israel, what led to this point, and what comes next. I could have put this in the “Jews” section but I want you to click this link and so it is up here.
MY VIEWS ON…
…traveling with family as an adult!
I got to travel with my family a lot growing up. This was very fun, but also chaotic. When you’re a kid, you don’t totally understand what’s going on around you, even when you think you do. You’re greedier. You’re more stubborn. You get tired more easily. Everything is magical, but also some of the things I remember most vividly were the arguments my siblings and I got into.
I’m very grateful for all of those trips. But I’m just writing this to say that I feel very lucky to be on this trip. It isn’t that there aren’t still arguments (there are) or that we don’t get hungry and cranky (we do). But there’s something special about being on a trip with the people who raised you and who you grew up with and your husband and you’re all there because you want to be, and dynamics are different and you’re different, too, but you’re also the same, and you’re all fully conscious of how much the experience means, and how lucky you are to learn about Henry the Navigator and then get glasses of wine for less than three euros each and walk around the market.
I am so happy to be in Portugal, land of tinned fish and tiled buildings. And part of what is making the trip great is that the places are great. But mostly I wanted to say that I may never get to have an experience like this again, and that I’m glad I’m having it now.
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
What’s this? Elly Schlein, a profiled Italian opposition politician is Jewish?
Like me, Roger Waters is in Lisbon this month. Unlike mine, his visit has reportedly drawn criticism from the Lisbon Israeli Community. (Did I learn about this by searching for news of Lisbon? Maybe!)
Haaretz reports that, of the 18 settlers arrested for attacking Palestinians in Hawara last year, only one person has been indicted.
I should have put this in last week’s, but: I hope those of you who celebrated Purim had a very happy holiday. (I used to say Passover was my favorite Jewish holiday, but maybe it’s Purim? You eat cookies, you drink wine, you boo tyrants, you get one over on those more powerful than you via a dinner party, you are a hot Jewish woman. What’s not to like?) Relatedly, here is a nice piece on Kyiv Jews celebrating their second wartime Purim.
As a reminder, Kansas City gets a book talk visit from me later this month. Thank you to the reader from last week who flagged that the link I’d been using was broken! This one should work.
That’s it for now! Hope to see you back here soon.
-ET