We’re back!
Housekeeping notes: Next Monday, paid subscribers will get this month’s ET Ask Home, a monthly questionnaire. I’m excited for this one.
All subscribers to this newsletter also now 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. My co-hosts and I are trying to broaden its reach and sending it out to all of you is one way to do that. I hope you’ll give it a listen.
With that! Onto news, views, and Jews.
THE NEWS
For the New Republic, I wrote about the administration cynically using the issue of antisemitism to attack higher ed, free speech/assembly, and due process, how some Jews sincerely support this, and why they are wrong.
For the UnPopulist, I wrote on how uneven application of international law and rights abroad and civil rights at home pre-Trump helped pave the rhetorical road for this moment, and what those who believe in liberal values should do now (namely, work to apply them evenly).
I told the Duncan & Coe History Show what historical subject I would spend a bunch of money on if I had a bunch of money (not to tempt you too much, but I talked about the Jewish People’s Party).
From the Financial Times: “Vladimir Putin has struck a hard line over any deal to halt the fighting in Ukraine, even as he said he ‘supports the idea’ behind a US-backed 30-day ceasefire.” (Surprise!)
MY VIEWS ON…
…Purim!
Here are some things I like about Purim, even as its heroine, Esther, is having her name misused by the Heritage Foundation and their Project Esther to combat antisemitism by, as far as I can tell, cracking down on universities, students on visas, and the political left.
If you’re unfamiliar, here is the story of Purim as sent by me to the guests of my Purim party this year: “Purim…is the story of a king who had an evil advisor named Haman. Haman wanted to kill all the Jews because one, Mordecai, wouldn't bow to him. Mordecai then finagles things so that the king marries Mordecai's hot cousin, Esther, who throws one dinner party and then a second dinner party (our girl loved dinner parties) and reveals that she's Jewish. The king loves Jews now! The day is saved! (Then the king learns the importance of not just empowering the last person he spoke to to kill their enemies. No, no, just kidding — he says the Jews can kill their enemies. Anyway.)”
I like that this is fundamentally a story about someone who wouldn’t bow to a tyrant.
I often joke that it’s about the importance about a beautiful Jewish woman, but really what I like is that it’s maybe more feminist than even the story itself wants to be.
I think my favorite thing about it is that it’s a very human Jewish story. Some argue that God actually is there, if you read the text the certain way, or that the series of events couldn’t possibly be coincidence and thus are proof of God’s work. And everyone’s, of course, entitled to their interpretation. But since I am, too: I love that the story doesn’t explicitly mention God, or that God is the reason something happened or didn’t. It’s a story about people reacting to their conditions and rising to meet them. I guess another way of putting it is that, to me, this is actually the closest that we can come to holiness: when we deliver ourselves and one another from pain; when we refuse to accept wrongdoing; when we use whatever is at our disposal, be it intelligence or stubbornness or beauty or humor; when we work, together and alone, to try to make what is wrong right. And if others want to call that God in the story, that’s fine with me. I’m not even sure I disagree with them, because, to me, if there’s something for which we are praying, it’s that.
I like hamantaschen and wine.
I went to a Jewish preschool (this was the extent of my religious education as a child) and in kindergarten decided I’d go as Mordecai because all the girls, including my sister, were Esther, and I like remembering that I’ve always been who I am.
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
In MSNBC Opinion, Lila Corwin Berman writes, “Make no mistake, the Trump administration is using antisemitism as an excuse to obliterate Title VI, undermine civil rights and incapacitate higher education.
From JTA: The case of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian protester arrested by ICE officers at Columbia University over the weekend, has divided Jewish groups: Right-wing pro-Israel voices are praising the arrest as a blow to a terrorist sympathizer, while a range of liberal and progressive Jewish groups are slamming it as authoritarian and unconstitutional. On Monday, one more Jewish voice said Khalil should not be deported, at least for the time being: Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York.”
From the Forward: “Judge Jesse Furman, a Jewish federal judge who blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to deport a Palestinian activist, is now facing a wave of online attacks from far-right figures with massive followings.”
Also from the Forward: “The U.S. State Department is using a McCarthy-era antisemitic law to cancel visas of foreign students who it determines to be ‘pro-Hamas.’”
From the Guardian: “Israeli police have raided the leading Palestinian bookshop in East Jerusalem for the second time in a month, detaining one of its owners for several hours and seizing some of its stock.”
I’m not sure it’s fair that Jesse Eisenberg was awarded Polish citizenship and I wasn’t? My great-grandma left too early for me to be eligible but that seems like a mistake on Poland’s part? I’d be a great citizen of Poland! Poland: consider it!
-ET