the definite article 50
my intros got wordy this week - but it's an interesting blend of articles
https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/contemporary-israel/18449/a-terrible-price/
Hey, do you know what the Jewish Review of Books does? They review books! So, this is a book review by the famous writer Matti Friedman. If you don’t know him, find his article from 10 years ago in Atlantic about what the media gets wrong about Israel (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/), where he describes the narrative that Western journalists ascribe to (concerning Israel and Palestinians, for example) and that virtually all “news” had to be filtered thorough that lens. Even when one had to poke one’s own eye out to fit that lens. This review is of a book written by a major in the infantry (so it seems) about himself, his war, what he experienced and how he understood it. I have not read it, but I it is on my list of books to buy. It seems honest and….honest.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bk117hfixgl
You see, I’ve read a significant amount of Michael Oren. Heard him speak a couple of times and not always impressed. But it is hard to gainsay his opinions. I like his message, and he makes a great deal of sense. Would he have the resolve to follow through or would he buckle? I assume his well expressed opinions are a political move - I wish him well.
https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/literature/18459/delmores-gift/
I had not heard of Delmore Schwartz until this past year, when I listened to a series of podcasts by Ruth Wisse on American Jewish intellectuals of the mid-20th c., give or take a few decades. I mean, the first thing that hits one is his giggly incongruous name.
Delmore…Schwartz?!?! The name by itself, with no commentary needed, speaks of a certain moment in time. As does the man himself. I think I’d like to read this biography.
The Palestinians picked the wrong enemy. Up to half of the Arabs of Gaza would gladly go someplace else. They are ready to leave and no one would accept them. As opposed to Syrians, Turks, Libyans, Somallis, all of whom are welcomed as refugees. But not Palestinians. One must feel sorry for the Palestinians, for they chose an enemy so hated that the world would easily sacrifice Palestinian welfare for the sake of their ideology to destroy us. They picked a bad enemy.
https://quillette.com/2024/07/18/an-interrupted-genocide-7-october-gaza-israel/
Herf very ably draws us into the moment - or days, weeks, years - that I think we all felt when we comprehended the raw barbarity of what took place in the early hours October 7, 2023. No further words are necessary. There are those reading this perhaps who have seen the 45 minute film put together by the Israeli government, a significant part of which was drawn from the Go-Pro cameras of the perpetrators. Or you’ve seen the movie produced by Sheryl Sandberg, Screams Before Silence. Or heard testimony before the British Parliament. Or survivors who spoke. I wonder how we can make them lose, those who drew their actions more from Naziism than from Islam. How can we historically, cosmically defeat them? Or was their performative barbarism a victory of its own?
There was that moment when the non-democrat knew, in a flash, that John Fetterman represented them. He has become for me the image of the independent politician, free from party hierarchy, a populist who is willing to embrace the unpopular for reasons of - and he made the case for this simply understood by any good person - decency and morality. He won me over with his unmistakable (yes) integrity. Is he too authentic to become a successful popular leader? Will he be laid low by his own party? His own staff?
https://www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/the-destruction-of-history-for-a-lie-that-no-one-believes/
Why should one be surprised? So many scholarly publications have sold out their academic integrity on the stock market of popular “culture.” Anything that has the faintest tinge of Israel - and occasionally Jewishness - is anathema to societies and journals that were established to publish innovative thoughts in their discipline. These have become politicized - does one need wonder why the Jews again were chosen? Seth Mandel explores the epistemological paradox of archaeologists and scholars who on the one hand cannot deny the presence of Jews (Israelites) on this land in antiquity, but who on the other hand have to bow to Marxism and deny that the modern-day state of Israel has any connections to those artifacts. Rather the legitimate owners are Arabs who invade and conquered some 1300 years ago. Who never developed a specific national identity (which is anathema to Islam anyhow). For whom nationalism is a foreign Western idea, as opposed to their traditional tribal social structure. A “people” for whom the only idea that unites them is the destruction of the State of Israel - no national mission beyond that, no eschatological visions, no national destiny. Just genocide. Let thiese people be the artibers of what may or may not be excavated in the Jews ancestral homeland.
https://www.marginaliareviewofbooks.com/post/myths-of-supernatural-belief-in-a-secular-age
I really enjoyed this essay by Peter Harrison. On the one hand, he early on seems to want to knock Western perspectives on science from its virtually universal acknowledgement of ascendency in terms of articulating an understanding of physical reality. Must we assume that humans from antiquity, of similar cranial capacity and intelligence were unfamiliar with naturalism, the idea of regularity and predictability in nature? Yet their recordings of reality speak in terms of what we would call wonders and miracles. Perhaps there are other paradigms our brains can create that account for reality, or which change basic perceptions of reality. Yet, (here a retrenching is taking place) Western science has proved itself so amazingly useful when creating tools to make life better. And perhaps that material utility is in fact trying to tell us something about the truth of reality . And science itself - it has a message, but the more we learn of the wonders and miracles of science do we realize that reality might be dramatically different than how we had imagined it. Ah, don’t you love the melange of science, history, and philosophy?