This year some Jews will use Tisha B’Av as a day to reflect upon the trauma of the ongoing pandemic. When cities across the world shut down this spring, the reality of social distancing and quarantine, accompanied by images of abandoned roads, empty subways and desolate public spaces, evoked the opening lines of the book of Lamentations, traditionally chanted on Tisha B’Av in many communities.
There’s a foolproof way of knowing election season is here—just wait for someone to make a Jewish money reference. The tighter the race, the more likely you are to hear something along the lines of “outside donors” or “Wall Street money,” or just the casual listing of top donors, all of whom happen to be Jewish.
Repetition mixed with monotony is not usually high up on Hollywood’s list of project themes, which is why Hulu’s Palm Springs was such a delightful surprise. The film stars Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and Cristin Milioti (How I Met Your Mother) as two apathetic California wedding guests who get stuck in a Groundhog Day-like time loop, forcing them to relive the couple’s special day over and over again. For a film that was shot in pre-coronavirus times, Palm Springs is surprisingly relevant.
Moment columnist since 1991, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, is a powerful voice for feminism in the Jewish world and beyond. Pogrebin, in conversation with Moment opinion and books editor, Amy Schwartz, discusses the state of feminism today and her dismay at how the miniseries Mrs. America portrayed her friend Gloria Steinem and represented the world of second wave feminism.
On July 12, #JewishPrivilege began trending. A ploy by far-right (and some far-left) Twitter users and bots, the hashtag was used to spread anti-Semitic propaganda, all too common conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the media and Holocaust denial, among other hateful lies.
My husband and I joke that it’s lucky we met in the pre-internet Dark Ages. We never would have matched on a dating app.
Louie Kemp recounts his lifelong friendship with Bob Dylan, who he met at Jewish summer camp, and which he wrote about in his book Dylan and Me: 50 Years of Adventure. Louie also talks about the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue that he produced, a concert tour featuring Bob Dylan and other performers like Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. Joining Louie is Kinky Friedman who performed in the Revue in 1976 and wrote the forward for Dylan and Me.
The outcome of the platform debate over Israel will give Biden a good sense of how the party views the issue and where he may want to stand in order to avoid conflict with the base.
