Conservative lawyers say Trump can't be president. Poll reveals GOP's bald disregard for Americans' health & future. Sex-segregation on the rise in Israel. 1500 name the elephant in the room.
Newsletter # 144
POLITICS
*Could Section 3 of the 14th Amendment save us from the Orange Menace? According to a pair of staunchly conservative law professors who are active Federalist Society members and Constitutional “originalists,” the answer is Yes. If you’re up to reading their 126-page law review article, great. Otherwise, Matt Ford’s summary in The New Republic succinctly conveys the tantalizing possibility that the Constitution itself could “disable” DJT from running for president.
*Below is the entire text of Section 3. To distill the meaning of its run-on sentence, try reading in sequence only the words I’ve boldfaced.
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
*New Gallup poll shows huge gaps on major issues: 85% of Dems but only 30% of GOP voters say “government should ensure everyone has health care;” 81% of Ds versus 26% of Rs believe “protecting environment has priority over energy development;” nearly 85% of D’s but only 31% of Rs think “gun laws should be stricter;” 59% of Ds, but a scant 12% of Rs think “Abortion should be legal under any circumstances.” And despite the world’s raging wild fires, sweltering temperatures and flooded main streets, only 35% of ostrichy Republicans, as opposed to about 90% of us realists, say they’re “worried about global warming.” You may want to quote those stats to every Democrat or independent who thinks their vote won’t make a difference.
*Ohio referendum was a big win for abortion rights and democracy. Here’s what’s next in other states.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
* I’m the 838th person to sign “The Elephant in the Room,” an open Letter to the American Jewish Community about the situation in Israel/Palestine. (Had I know about it earlier I would gladly have been among the first.) While hundreds of thousands of Israelis have for months been demonstrating against erosions of their democracy, most Israelis continue to ignore the Occupation and show scant concern for the two-tiered justice system under which Jewish settlers in the West Bank enjoy the civil rights and personal security that Palestinians are denied. When this article first posted, the letter had 750 signatories. Today, it has more than 1500. Add your name here.
* The Freedom School operated by Combatants for Peace trains young Israeli activists to organize “to end the occupation and build an equal and just society for all people in Palestine and Israel.” Your support will nourish their efforts at peaceful coexistence.
*Israel’s coalition government has made plain its intention to increase sex segregation in public spaces as part of its plan to transform the country into a male supremacist Jewish theocracy based in halacha (Jewish law). Yiddish signs posted in ultraOrthodox communities such as Bnai Brak (above) already instruct men not to look at women in the street. No surprise there. Nor am I any longer amazed by the chutzpah of haredi men who blithely refuse to sit next to a woman on airplanes or by flight attendants who indulge the man’s “religious preferences,” shaming the woman in the process. Still, I was shocked when a woman in secular Tel Aviv was barred from a train car designated for men only. “Are you for real?”she asked. The men just laughed. ‘Wait for the next train,” they jeered as the door slammed shut. “You can sit in the way back.” Iran, anyone?
FALSE EQUIVALENCIES
*During a decades-long effort to deepen my understanding of the hundred year conflict between our two peoples, I’ve come to recognize the egregious misdeeds, lies, and crimes of occupation on the Jewish side of the ledger as well as the tragic mistakes, missed opportunities, and incendiary violence on the Palestinian side. But just as a Jew who calls all Palestinians “terrorists” skews the narrative beyond reclaim, the same is true when a Palestinian, notably President Mahmoud Abbas, equates the government of Israel, bad as it is, with the Third Reich. Likening any other system with that of Hitler’s industrialized project of Jewish extermination drains the language of barbarism of all meaning.
*Apropos of pernicious comparisons, guess which presidential campaign likened Jack Smith’s 45-page indictment to “persecution” “reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.” American Jewish Committee’s response was, Trump should “sit with a Holocaust survivor and let them share their story. Just listen. Then show them the respect they deserve and honor the memory of the six million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis by never making a comparison like this again.’” Great idea. I recommend it to everyone. But we all know the bully who shamelessly socializes with a Holocaust denier, telegraphs antisemitic dog whistles in his rabble-rousing harangues, and freely invokes Nazi analogies, is constitutionally incapable of respect or empathy for anyone. Which makes AJC’s statement empty rhetoric if not delusional.
* Congresswomen Illhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Pramila Jayapal are instantly labeled “antisemites” for criticizing Israeli policy or advocating for Palestinian rights. Meanwhile MAGA Man gets a flabby slap on the wrist when he spews toxic stereotypes about Jews, or attacks George Soros, unleashing a torrent of right wing death threats against the left wing Jewish philanthropist. Isn’t it past time for Jewish “leaders” to forswear the platitudes, stop papering over Trump’s hate speech, and start calling his antisemitism by its rightful name?
EDUCATION
*Good news from Arkansas (for a change). Last month, a federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a law that would have allowed school and public librarians, as well as teachers, to be imprisoned for up to six years or fined $10,000 if they provide “harmful” materials to minors.
*In 1948, this film was shown to U.S. high school students to help them recognize propaganda masquerading as truth. Its look, length, and sound clearly mark it as a product of another era. But can you imagine the film’s updated equivalent being shown in schools today? I can’t. It would be trashed as “woke.”
*A grandmotherly shout-out to Ben Shapiro, 26, a super-dedicated teacher of 10th grade history, who took off for Central America to produce this lively, well-researched video about Panama’s past and the saga behind the building of the Canal. When it comes to educational materials, nothing beats a visual presentation laced with humor and delivered by a creative, passionate, charismatic young teacher.
WOMEN
*This meme contains a subtle clue to why so many women feel misperceived, misunderstood, or unseen by the men in their lives.
BOOKS
*I’ve recently read and relished three books by authors who see women clearly and portray women’s lives with compassion, complexity, and literary grace, especially in the context of family and love relationships
Nessa Rapoport’s lyrical novel, Evening, untangles the Gordian knot of two sisters’ seemingly intimate relationship, teasing out a searing secret after one dies young and the other discovers an enigmatic note her sister obviously intended to be found. Published at the start of the pandemic, the book, buried by Covid headlines and neglected by most reviewers, deserves to be found.
Outside, the Sky is Blue, Christina Patterson’s tender, sorrowful, yet often amusing memoir, revisits the devastating impact on her priviledged tightly knit English family of her sister’s schizophrenia, her brother’s untimely death, and her own afflictions of body and spirit.
In A Big Storm Knocked It Over, her bestseller of 30 years ago, the late novelist, Laurie Colwin, paints the interior landscape of marital happiness more vividly than any modern writer I know and does it in deceptively breezy prose with profound thoughts for the taking and not one cliche in sight.
CHILDREN & FAMILIES
* The personal is still political. Torrey Scow didn't want to face the $1000 fine for skipping jury duty but the day she was due to appear in court she couldn’t get a babysitter, her husband couldn’t take off from work, and her mom wasn’t available. So she did what she had to do: showed up with her four children (including year-old triplets) in tow. Blogging about that day, she focused on how alone and exhausted she felt as she frantically tried to keep the three babies amused and under control. But missing from her account was any recognition of the larger issue — the shameful paucity of affordable child care in America and the burdens it imposes on parents. Comments by Scow’s followers, rather than generalize from her experience or connect it to their lives or those of other families, focused on what good mom she is and how cute the kids are. People magazine likewise zeroed in on the triplets, calling her 2-1/2 hour ordeal an “adventure” and glossing over the problem millions of similarly situated women deal with every day. Valorizing one mother’s coping skills and sentimentalizing her babies while ignoring the policy implications of her stressed-out day did nothing to relieve her child care problem or yours.
COMIC RELIEF
*”Unskilled Florida Man Regrets Missing Out on Being Enslaved.” New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz skewers Gov. DeSantis (R-FL) for implying that “being barred from forced servitude was a form of ‘white underprivilege,’ and that Caucasians who suffer from a resulting skills deficit deserve reparations.”
*I’m not usually into bathroom humor but an exception must be made for the brush that promises “Commander in Crap” will clean your bowl and “Make Toilet Great Again.”
*Share Esther Cohen’s joy in ordinary life. Subscribe to “Joke Mondays” or get her “Poem of the Day” free.
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
*Much gratitude to The Center for Jewish History for choosing SHANDA as their Summer Reading Pick. Thanks to Jane Snyder for her enthusiastic praise.
FAMILY BRAG SPACE
*So proud of daughter Robin Pogrebin who's moving to LA next month to cover West Coast art, architecture, music, theater and cultural institutions for the Times. Gonna miss her big time but already bought plane tickets for my first visit.
I’m an active conservative voter, with some opposing views. I thoroughly enjoyed your writing and appreciate your perspective even though I did not agree with some of it.
I’ve always been casually interested in the Jewish/Palestinian conflict and you certainly helped expand my perspective on that front. I enjoyed the read, thanks for sharing!