Let it be know that I have been done with the Hollywood Jews and the power Jews for quite some time. (Or so-called). People in Hollywood are seldom ever connected to reality. What they would like is for everyone else to fight their battles for them so that they can continue being popular and not getting into trouble. So that they can carry on living in the lap of luxury and playing in the paddling pool of life at international destinations and fancy parties with supermodels and glamorous gay men, and all the while we can continue being their first line of defense and NOTHING ever changes for them. So please stop wasting energy trying to get them to do anything. Because they won’t. They will not. They will never invite you to their parties either. They just want you to do the dirty work for them, while they carry on pretending they care. That’s how Hollywood works.
We know who the few are who are atypical. Amy Schumer. Debra Messing. Michael Rappaport. That’s it! These are the people we have. Two of them showed up today at the rally in DC. Along with 290,000 other Jewish and non-Jewish people. It was the biggest gathering of American Jews in history. It didn’t need power Jews, or Hollywood Jews. It just needed ordinary Jews. Look at us all:
Still… quite awkward for all the famous American Jews who didn’t show up. Let’s stop begging them? Let our A-listers go!
You’ll notice that none of us Jews hide our faces with balaclavas and scarves when we’re out marching for peace because WE ARE OUT MARCHING FOR PEACE. And we have nothing to hide. We are the light. Non-violent, often seen crying in public, but also singing our prayers, and waving flags of peace. This is what decorum looks like. Try it?
The images are a salve, because most of the time we all still want to scream. At least I - and any Jew who is checked into reality does. Any Jew who doesn’t want to scream 24-7 is living in never-neverland.
For the rest of us, when dawn breaks every day it’s a reminder that the past several decades of relative ease were an anomaly. This is not the exception to the Jewish experience. This is actually the norm. The exception was the last 70-odd years. This nightmarish status quo is what our grandparents and great grandparents and all those before had to endure. Every waking moment now is a waking moment. The days are endless, as are the nights. Endless with arguments and despair and losses and shaming and belittling and aggression. Our anger – and we should be angry – is compounded by the heartbreak, the disappointment, the overwhelming sadness that the world hates us, obsesses over us, uses and abuses us. The solace comes in knowing ourselves, knowing who we are. And they should be so lucky to know.
I’ll repeat that: they should be so lucky to know.
The only experience I feel connected to is the experience that I can share with other Jews. I don’t know how to relate to anyone else, and while that is isolating, and odd, and in itself quite depressing, it’s also inescapable. I don’t get how anyone can’t feel what I feel. A feeling of walls closing in. A feeling of hell every time I go outside and see more antisemitic graffiti, and experience more sneering looks, and constant, ever-present threats. A feeling of total strangeness. How can anything feel normal?
Even at the rally today, the medical tent was found graffiti-d and vandalized this morning:
But as I - and the rest of us – am having all these feelings, I also recall my favorite Hebrew saying of all:
כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד והעיקר לא לפחד כלל
In English: “The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is to have no fear.”
We really are finding out how narrow that bridge is. But we’re still on the bridge.
While the march was ongoing, in Gaza the IDF began a pivotal operation in the ground offensive at Al-Shifa hospital. The IDF has continuously demanded an evacuation of Gaza’s main hospital, which - it has now been confirmed by both Israeli and American intelligence - is, indeed, the command and control center for Hamas. A serious war crime, by the way. Another instance of: we told you so. Still don’t believe us? Over to the Pentagon:
Here’s an inconvenient reality for antisemites: Hamas is committing the war crimes, not Israel.
Some more recently uncovered inconvenient facts for antisemites:
- there's safe passage in Gaza created by the IDF for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians
- Hamas continue to intercept ALL humanitarian aid – an issue the IDF is working hard to resolve
- Hamas's rocket launchers have been located next to UN school classrooms
Some over-arching inconvenient facts for antisemites:
- none of the pro-Israel rallies are violent
- Hamas are terrorists
- Israel isn’t going anywhere
Anyway as soon as the Al-Shifa news was reported the BBC immediately fucked it up, intentionally probably, by reporting that the IDF are going out of their way to target medical teams in the hospital, after Israel has done everything it can to clear the hospital of civilians, including providing incubators for newborn babies to safely transport them.
Once again, we are hearing from the BBC that they are now the HBC: Hamas Broadcasting Corporation.
Before we go, let’s just check in with my favorite Monty Python character that never was: AOC. AOC was not at the march today. None of the Squad were. Instead she found some rent-a-Jews last night to call for a ceasefire, because she really hates Israel more than she likes Jews. (By the way, none of the Jews at the march in DC were wearing talit or tefilin as props, because they were real Jews).
“Ceasefire means there is no military solution,” she says here. “Only a diplomatic and cultural solution. A relational solution!”
Wow. She must really miss the slam poetry nights at Boston University. AOC thinks that this can all be solved with a game of charades, or something. Or you know: let's just get Hamas together with Israel at a music festival. That will solv… Oh wait. That didn’t work, did it? Sidenote: why are these "Rabbis" davening to AOC? Apparently the new "amen" is "yas queen! [claps]". I have never been to this synagogue. Have you?
So… it is becoming more of a regular thing now that kind and reasonable people will inquire about my mental health. Let me just set the record straight. I’m doing just the same as we all are. But I’m pretty good at managing chaos. In fact, if you’re ever in a war, you’d want me around. I also haven’t had a drink in five months, as of today, so I am available to be a designated tank driver now, if the IDF needs a spare. In all seriousness, this newsletter is what I do to cope. This and also this…
Yeah that bag behind me really had it coming tonight. If you need an outlet, I would recommend punching a bag for 45 minutes. It works even better when you create a mental image of Jeremy Corbyn while you’re squaring off to the bag. Your bag doesn’t need to be Jeremy though. There are plenty antisemites to choose from. Much love.
It's obvious Hamas has used this hospital as a command center for years and under the watchful eye of the UN. Isn't that a war crime? I'm being facetious. To defend Hamas is irrational. Why is Hamas fighting Israel? What is Hamas defending? Who would defend a hospital? If Israel wanted to kill everyone in the hospital, they would just blow it up. Why would they have arabic speaking medics, incubators and medical equipment with them? The citizens of Gaza would all be better off if Hamas were gone. If Israel wanted to destroy Gaza and kill all the Palestinians they could have done it from the air. Reading and watching the endless condemnation of Israel over civilian deaths, journalist deaths, calls for a cease fire, while no hostages have been released, and lectures about an equivalence of their military response, can only be driven by a pure distain for all Jews. Hamas, along with many other groups, have made their intentions to rid the planet of all Jews well known. All the kimonos are wide open now.
Just an amazingly stark contrast at the Israel rally yesterday. Star Spangled Banner was part of the agenda. Haven't seen that at ProPally rally, have you? Almost as many US flags as Israeli. Clearly message of hope peace and unity vs the agitated hateful deceitful propaganda fest a couple weeks ago.
ProPally speakers were all muslim antisemites, Erakat, El Kurd. Trashed DC and defaced monuments.
Pro Israel speakers were multiethnic and multireligious Schumer Jeffries Johnson Herzog x2. We get a pass on Van Jones bec wtf. The only defacing was done by ProPallies after dark.
This is not close. There is clearly a right side and and wrong side.
Bring them home now.