Men attacking women & girls. Orthodox billboards slam NY Times. Tom Friedman begs Biden to save Israel. Harvard reinvites Ken Roth. Cartoons for smart people.
Newsletter #131 Jan 19, 2023
WOMEN
*The Handmaid’s Tale goes live in the “Show-Me State.”
*Who’s paying attention to the other pandemic?
*While the world is focused on Covid, another international pandemic rages undeterred: the physical and sexual assault of women and girls. There’s no vaccine against it but there is a cure: Strict enforcement of laws insuring women’s safety plus a seismic cultural transformation that refutes male supremacy and quits equating masculinity with dominance, power and control of women’s bodies.
*Nick Kristof fills in the gruesome details of what happens when men rape children and get away with it. See “How to Help Girls Enduring the Unendurable.”
POLITICS
* As we gear up for 2024, don’t forget that despite strong headwinds (pushback from Dem outliers, a crazy G.O.P., toxic right wing media, and challenges posed by inflation, climate catastrophes, and war in Ukraine) Biden got stuff done.
JEWS
*“Baseless charges of antisemitism do not belong on billboards–or anywhere else.” Nancy Kaufman explains why it’s dangerously irresponsible for Orthodox Jews to accuse the NYTimes of antiSemitism in response to the paper’s carefully-documented reporting on the alarming educational deficits and moral failures at some Yeshivas.
ISRAEL
* Rain & lightning (above) didn’t stop more than 80,000 people from joining last Sat. night’s Tel Aviv protest against the antidemocratic, anti-peace, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Supreme Court policies of Israel’s new government. (Weirdly, despite its remarkable turnout, the event got scant media coverage in the U.S.) Demonstrations are planned for tomorrow night all over Israel. If you’re any where nearby, please show up.
*More than 90 UN member states protested Israel’s punitive sanctions against Palestinians after the PA appealed to the World Court to redress Israel’s occupation. Among the sanctions, Israel froze Palestinian construction rights, collected $39 million of Palestinian tax dollars and gave the money to families of Jewish terror victims, and denied VIP licenses to Palestinian officials.
*Tom Friedman says Biden must press Bibi to save Israeli democracy.
*Because of his prior convictions for bribery, fraud & breach of trust, Aryeh Deri, leader of Shas, the Orthodox party that holds 11 seats in the Knesset, has been disqualified by Israel’s Supreme Court from serving as Health & Interior Minister. If Netanyahu accepts the court’s ruling, Shas would likely pull out of the ruling coalition and Bibi’s government would fall. If Bibi defies the Court to save his coalition — and his skin (don’t forget he’s still on trial for corruption) —he’ll trigger a constitutional crisis. Stay tuned.
* Hillel Halkin doesn’t just agonize about the new Israeli government but “more forebodingly” about young Israelis being “more extreme and dismissive of democratic values than their elders.” A quarter of all nonreligious and half of all religious Israelis between age 18 and 24 say Israel’s Palestinian citizens [emphasis added] “should be denied the right to vote! Yet why should this surprise us? The main contact with Arabs that most of these young people have had has been while serving in the territories as soldiers. Some of them may be disturbed by having to act there as the masters of a people who have no rights, no freedom of movement, and no one to protect or defend them except a corrupt Palestinian Authority that has little power itself. Many, however, accept this as the natural state of affairs.”
*Kenneth Roth, who ran Human Rights Watch for 29 years, was denied a fellowship at Harvard’s Kennedy School allegedly because major donors found objectionable HRW’s reports criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. On Wed, on Americans for Peace Now’s webinar, Roth described his experience in detail. Yesterday, the Kennedy School reinstated Roth.
CARTOONS FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE WORDS
Fun piece Leddy!