best friends beshert

Beshert | Bestie In My Building, Part II

When I wrote my first Beshert piece, it was during happier, more carefree times. I’d just met my bestie after living in the apartment above hers for a lonely year. And then came COVID-19.  When Washington, D.C. went into lockdown, we decided that she’d quarantine with my family. We both worked from home and made our own hours. Every afternoon, like Lucy and Ethel, we sat on my blue velvet couch and screamed at the TV, a pair of middle-aged women cracking jokes through our fear as we watched the world spin out of control. It was like watching a never-ending apocalyptic movie. We weren't glamorous, nor camera-ready. We skipped social niceties like getting seriously dressed. We never knew what day of the week it was because we had nowhere to go but the couch.  We knew...

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Fear and Loathing in Los Angeles

By Steven Philp It is a common fiction that Jews control Hollywood. Yet there are few more adamant about this misrepresentation—and no one less happy—than Orthodox Jew and conservative columnist Ben Shapiro. According to his new book Primetime Propaganda the producers, writers, and actors based in Los Angeles are, instead, a group of liberals using television to promote a “radical” agenda. Friends counters traditional family values, Happy Days took a stance against American engagement in Viet Nam, and M*A*S*H pushed the merits of pacifism. In an interview with The Independent, Shapiro promises that his book will illustrate how people in the industry have attempted to “shape America in their own leftist image.” The 416-page exposé utilizes interviews with approximately seventy media professionals; this includes what he characterizes as “gotcha” moments, in which those interviewed admit to...

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