I mean define secular. I went to Hebrew school until I graduated from high school, my family belonged to a synagogue, we did Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Chanukkah, and Pesach. We lit the Shabbat candles, etc.
I always wonder when celebrities do this type of stuff is whether it is out of true belief, a hope that it will make them popular, or a combination. I mean there is no reason to doubt that Ziegler might really believe what she put on social media about Israel or Gal Gadot but at the same time, the phrasing just seems really calculated.
According to my brother, teens having a party when the parents are out of town is something that doesn't seem to occur to teenagers in Asian countries. He keeps hearing stories through his wife's friends where some sort of mild to medium level naughtiness would be the end point if an American told it and there is never that. When the teens say that they are going to study in the library with friends, that is what happens.
On the other blog somebody described Gen Z as having an overwhelming desire to be good kids. This would certainly explain their strange prudishness. I heard that many of them don't even like sex in fiction that isn't explicitly pornographic.
They also didn't want to hold their nose at work with people that made them wretch. Many of them also seem to really believe that Israel is going to collapse any moment despite this being objectively mad as an opinion.
I agree with the age thing but there are better primary challengers out there or maybe not. Diane Feinstein's last primary challenger got caught doing racisms against African-Americans, Jews, and even Armenians in a hot mike moment after Feinstein was elected.
The Pro-Palestinian movement basically convinced itself that the only way to achieve true justice (TM) for the Palestinians is to completely destroy Israel. Algeria convinced them that this is possible even though Edward Said warned earlier that the Algerian situation does not match the I/P conflict and is a poor comparison. The growth of the De-Colonize whatever movement has not helped. Much of the Pro-Palestinian movement in the West is thoroughly wrapped up in this and is treating the Palestinians as proxies for the Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, and other groups deemed indigenous and by destroying Israel all indigenous people in the world will be avenged.
This is an incredibly stupid strategy that doesn't help the Palestinians at all because Israel exists, is affluent, and has a dedicated patriotic population who sees Israel as the Jewish homeland. Diaspora Jews agree generally with Israeli Jews on this. But the Pro-Palestinian movement would rather shoot itself in the foot so they can graffiti vulgarities against Israel on public property or protest like mad than do something effective.
Because her opinions on Israel are very different from the opinions of many of the residents of the district on Israel. Jamal Bowman got into trouble by using the term Zionist in very weird ways, embracing 10/7 conspiracy theories, and saying that Jewish majority neighborhoods are bad in a Jewish majority district. Same thing.
A 26 year old leftist influencer/TikTok presenter named Kat Abughazeh is attempting to primary Democratic politician Jan Schakowsky in the 9th District of Illinois. The Illinois 9th District is a very Jewish District, it contains Skokie, and has been represented by a Jew in Congress since 1948 with a brief two year exception in the early 1960s when their representative, Sidney R. Yates, attempted to run for the Senate. Ms. Abughazeh is Palestinian on her fathers side, was part of uncommitted, and has rallied against AIPAC on social media:
I've mentioned this previously but by formulating the protests around "Anti-Zionism" and "settler-colonialism, the Pro-Palestinian protests did nothing to help the Palestinians and prevented a lot of useful political alliances with Israeli and Diaspora Jews. Netanyahu isn't popular in Israel. There were massive protests against him since his coalition won the last election. He is on trial for massive corruption in Israel. The Israel-Hamas War did nothing to improve Netanyahu's popularity in Israel and his coalition is only held together by him regularly appeasing the most rightest members.
There was big potential to teaming up with anti-Netanyahu forces in Israel including the hostages families and Diaspora Jews. By framing the protests around "anti-Zionism", "settler-colonialism", and the legitimacy of Israel itself, the Pro-Palestinian protest movement made this impossible. They did nothing to help the Palestinians as well.
Happy Nowruz everybody. I was at my second Nowruz celebration with my partner last night. Yesterday was a Zoroastrian Nowruz. It's pretty interesting comparing and contrasting how one small insular ethnoreligious group deals with things compared to your small ethnoreligious group, especially when they occupy the same socio-economic niche:
1. The Zoroastrian approach to politics and society seems to be keep out and keep your head down. This is the complete opposite of the Jewish approach. Whether we are Ashkenazi or Mizrahi, left or right, Zionist or anti-Zionist, Jews dod not keep out and keep our heads down. Our approach is more like "just because we might be 1% or less of the population, doesn't give you a right to boss us around. Fish you."
2. Zoroastrians seem to have no need to update or modernize their religion while the modernizers, traditionalists, and everything in-between was fighting over the religion since the early 19th century.
The people screaming genocide were applying the very broadly defined Convention Against Genocide to the Israel-Hamas War. The problem is that the Convention Against Genocide, most likely to prevent wiggle room in the case of a trial, defined things like "(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group." Any war that is vaguely intra-ethnic in character and has civilian casualties can be therefore called a genocide. Hamas action on 10/7 were an attempted genocide under this definition.
In conflicts where outside partisan factions rage strongly like the I/P conflict, it wa inevitable that people would scream out genocide. I think this was a really ineffective tactic for the Pro-Palestinian side because it prevented useful alliances with anti-Netanyahu Israelis or Diaspora Jews but they seemed intent on making this about "anti-Zionism."
50,000 with 20,000 to 25,000 being Hamas soldiers seems fairly reliable. Hamas would obviously love to give a much bigger number and anti-Israel forces were predicting basically over a million dead Gazan Palestinans since the start of the Israel-Hamas War.
AP estimates the current death toll in the Hamas side of the Israel-Hamas conflict to be 50,000. Since this is Hamas, they do not distinguish between Hamas soldiers and Palestinian civilians.
India sometimes gets something like this. I'd argue that most countries do get a lessser version of what Israel gets from the Left. Muslim majority countries are give a big freaking exception to liberalism or if problems are acknowledged, it's all blamed on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Monarchies.
Being governed by idiots is the style of the time but America's long tradition of anit-intellectualism isn't helping here. Our far right is a lot more suspicious of book learning than other far rights.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
I mean define secular. I went to Hebrew school until I graduated from high school, my family belonged to a synagogue, we did Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Chanukkah, and Pesach. We lit the Shabbat candles, etc.
"
I always wonder when celebrities do this type of stuff is whether it is out of true belief, a hope that it will make them popular, or a combination. I mean there is no reason to doubt that Ziegler might really believe what she put on social media about Israel or Gal Gadot but at the same time, the phrasing just seems really calculated.
"
Anti-Hamas protest in Gaza:
https://www.memri.org/tv/beit-lahia-north-gaza-protest-anti-hamas-release-hostages-stop-war
"
Greenland is one of those places that Trump wants for his real estate empire.
"
We drank at the teen parties in my school. Some pot. For some reason, we were very quiet about who was fishing who.
"
You were in high school in the 1980s. There wasn't much if any ramen in the United States at the time.
"
If America was a parliamentary republic, we would be at snap elections at this point.
"
According to my brother, teens having a party when the parents are out of town is something that doesn't seem to occur to teenagers in Asian countries. He keeps hearing stories through his wife's friends where some sort of mild to medium level naughtiness would be the end point if an American told it and there is never that. When the teens say that they are going to study in the library with friends, that is what happens.
"
It wasn't all innocent glances at the soda fountain or dances at the sock hop.
"
On the other blog somebody described Gen Z as having an overwhelming desire to be good kids. This would certainly explain their strange prudishness. I heard that many of them don't even like sex in fiction that isn't explicitly pornographic.
"
There should be at least some strategy to the district choice.
"
I provided a link of her rallying against AIPAC on social media.
On “Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil, and Protest Expectations”
They also didn't want to hold their nose at work with people that made them wretch. Many of them also seem to really believe that Israel is going to collapse any moment despite this being objectively mad as an opinion.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
I agree with the age thing but there are better primary challengers out there or maybe not. Diane Feinstein's last primary challenger got caught doing racisms against African-Americans, Jews, and even Armenians in a hot mike moment after Feinstein was elected.
On “Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil, and Protest Expectations”
The Pro-Palestinian movement basically convinced itself that the only way to achieve true justice (TM) for the Palestinians is to completely destroy Israel. Algeria convinced them that this is possible even though Edward Said warned earlier that the Algerian situation does not match the I/P conflict and is a poor comparison. The growth of the De-Colonize whatever movement has not helped. Much of the Pro-Palestinian movement in the West is thoroughly wrapped up in this and is treating the Palestinians as proxies for the Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, and other groups deemed indigenous and by destroying Israel all indigenous people in the world will be avenged.
This is an incredibly stupid strategy that doesn't help the Palestinians at all because Israel exists, is affluent, and has a dedicated patriotic population who sees Israel as the Jewish homeland. Diaspora Jews agree generally with Israeli Jews on this. But the Pro-Palestinian movement would rather shoot itself in the foot so they can graffiti vulgarities against Israel on public property or protest like mad than do something effective.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
Because her opinions on Israel are very different from the opinions of many of the residents of the district on Israel. Jamal Bowman got into trouble by using the term Zionist in very weird ways, embracing 10/7 conspiracy theories, and saying that Jewish majority neighborhoods are bad in a Jewish majority district. Same thing.
"
A 26 year old leftist influencer/TikTok presenter named Kat Abughazeh is attempting to primary Democratic politician Jan Schakowsky in the 9th District of Illinois. The Illinois 9th District is a very Jewish District, it contains Skokie, and has been represented by a Jew in Congress since 1948 with a brief two year exception in the early 1960s when their representative, Sidney R. Yates, attempted to run for the Senate. Ms. Abughazeh is Palestinian on her fathers side, was part of uncommitted, and has rallied against AIPAC on social media:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4e35adc4d1f152e258c0f8c8d1a8ed40c86b35e9e08f7302659f5de70c5ecb2e.jpg
I have no idea why she considers herself to be a good match for this district. I am getting a lot of Jamal Bowman vibes from her.
On “Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil, and Protest Expectations”
I've mentioned this previously but by formulating the protests around "Anti-Zionism" and "settler-colonialism, the Pro-Palestinian protests did nothing to help the Palestinians and prevented a lot of useful political alliances with Israeli and Diaspora Jews. Netanyahu isn't popular in Israel. There were massive protests against him since his coalition won the last election. He is on trial for massive corruption in Israel. The Israel-Hamas War did nothing to improve Netanyahu's popularity in Israel and his coalition is only held together by him regularly appeasing the most rightest members.
There was big potential to teaming up with anti-Netanyahu forces in Israel including the hostages families and Diaspora Jews. By framing the protests around "anti-Zionism", "settler-colonialism", and the legitimacy of Israel itself, the Pro-Palestinian protest movement made this impossible. They did nothing to help the Palestinians as well.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
Delicious.
"
Happy Nowruz everybody. I was at my second Nowruz celebration with my partner last night. Yesterday was a Zoroastrian Nowruz. It's pretty interesting comparing and contrasting how one small insular ethnoreligious group deals with things compared to your small ethnoreligious group, especially when they occupy the same socio-economic niche:
1. The Zoroastrian approach to politics and society seems to be keep out and keep your head down. This is the complete opposite of the Jewish approach. Whether we are Ashkenazi or Mizrahi, left or right, Zionist or anti-Zionist, Jews dod not keep out and keep our heads down. Our approach is more like "just because we might be 1% or less of the population, doesn't give you a right to boss us around. Fish you."
2. Zoroastrians seem to have no need to update or modernize their religion while the modernizers, traditionalists, and everything in-between was fighting over the religion since the early 19th century.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/17/25”
The people screaming genocide were applying the very broadly defined Convention Against Genocide to the Israel-Hamas War. The problem is that the Convention Against Genocide, most likely to prevent wiggle room in the case of a trial, defined things like "(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group." Any war that is vaguely intra-ethnic in character and has civilian casualties can be therefore called a genocide. Hamas action on 10/7 were an attempted genocide under this definition.
In conflicts where outside partisan factions rage strongly like the I/P conflict, it wa inevitable that people would scream out genocide. I think this was a really ineffective tactic for the Pro-Palestinian side because it prevented useful alliances with anti-Netanyahu Israelis or Diaspora Jews but they seemed intent on making this about "anti-Zionism."
"
50,000 with 20,000 to 25,000 being Hamas soldiers seems fairly reliable. Hamas would obviously love to give a much bigger number and anti-Israel forces were predicting basically over a million dead Gazan Palestinans since the start of the Israel-Hamas War.
"
AP estimates the current death toll in the Hamas side of the Israel-Hamas conflict to be 50,000. Since this is Hamas, they do not distinguish between Hamas soldiers and Palestinian civilians.
"
India sometimes gets something like this. I'd argue that most countries do get a lessser version of what Israel gets from the Left. Muslim majority countries are give a big freaking exception to liberalism or if problems are acknowledged, it's all blamed on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Monarchies.
"
Being governed by idiots is the style of the time but America's long tradition of anit-intellectualism isn't helping here. Our far right is a lot more suspicious of book learning than other far rights.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.