Third party lunacy. RFK, Jr. & Cheryl Hines. Gorsuch & Kissinger. Reagan & rifles. Zionists & The Nakba. Yentl & Trans kids. Gays & "abomination." 8 Over 80. Fathers & babies.

Newsletter #141

POLITICS

* A third-party “unity ticket” may sound intriguing but it will just siphon votes from Biden and put Trump back in the Oval. Kinda like Nader sucked 97,400 ballots from Gore and gave us Shrub (Bush, Jr.)

* Speaking of Juniors, forget about the “magic” of the Kennedy name. RFK, Jr., who claims to be a Democrat, is running for president on conspiracy theories and crazy talk (i.e., he said Fauci’s vaccine mandate was worse than the Holocaust because you can’t “hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.”) In 2022, his wife, actor Cheryl Hines (Larry David’s wife in “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), said Bobby’s “anti-vaxx, Nazi Germany views were reprehensible and insensitive.” Since he became a candidate, she’s standing by her man and her fans are outraged: “She used to be funny. Now she’s just a joke.” With a quarter million followers on social media, she’s no joke, she’s “an influencer.”

GUNS

* Topping the list of grotesque images in American gun culture is the above ad from Daniel Defense, a Texas arms dealer. It shows a little boy with an assault rifle and a famous quote from Proverbs: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it” Days after the ad posted, an 18-year-old in Uvalde, TX mowed down 19 children and two teachers with that model weapon. Everytown for Gun Safety has asked the FTC to investigate the company’s marketing tactics.

* Reagan, patron saint of the GOP, said no one needs a machine gun.

SEX AND GENDER

Cognitive dissonance: If “guns don’t kill people,” how do books make kids gay?

*Last month, the MFW gave its Peggy Charren Free to Be, You and Me Award to Rebekah Bruesehoff, 16, a trans activist working “to build a world where trans kids don’t have to be brave or inspiring, they can just be free.”

* Jewish Currents, the cutting edge magazine on politics and culture, posted Jett Allen’s funny/touching visual essay,“Yentl Meltdown” in which the cartoonist graphically describes his evolving reactions to Barbra Streisand’s movie version of “Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy,” Isaac Bashevis Singer’s story about a Jewish girl in early 20th century Europe who dresses in boy’s clothes so she can study the Talmud, a sacred text that was forbidden to women.

*Don’t miss former Kentucky GOP Rep. Jerry R. Miller’s heart-wrenching testimony about his trans grandchild. He shouldn’t have to do this. We shouldn’t have to call him courageous for doing this. But, in this time of judgement and hate, we do.

*The bible calls sexual intercourse between men “an abomination” akin to bestiality, sodomy, and incest. Six weeks before Herschel Siegel, 25, (above) took his own life, the Orthodox graduate of Yeshiva University posted on Instagram: “‘Abomination’. The only defining aspect of my ‘inherent self-worth’. . . . triggered a profoundly deep, not-entirely-healed trauma within me: …my very EXISTENCE as a gay, Jewish, Male was an abomination.” Whether the Torah prohibition contributed to his suicide or not is being debated in his Orthodox community. Mordecai Levovitz and Jennifer Marks, both friends of his, each wrote op-eds in The Forward suggesting that the anti-gay halacha (Jewish law) helped push Herschel over the edge, while Simon Italiaander rationalized the impact of the “abomination.,” largely on the grounds that despite his homosexuality, Hershel was loved and accepted by his family and friends. To me that’s like saying, as long as a Black person was loved by his nearest and dearest, he needn’t be adversely affected by the clause in the U.S. Constitution that counts a slave as three-fifths of a man.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE

* It’s still hard for many Jews to admit that Israeli statehood came at the cost of profound Palestinian suffering and displacement. The Hartman Institute podcast, “Can Zionists Speak About the Nakba? (Arabic for “catastrophe”), is an earnest, substantive, albeit Jewish-centered, colloquy among scholars Donniel Hartman, Yossi Klein Halevi, and Elana Stein Hain. But after listening to these Jews of conscience wrestle with the wrongs committed by Israelis in 1948 during their War of Independence, I thought a better title might be “Can Zionists Speak Honestly About the Nakba If It Makes Jews Look Bad?”

* The Third Narrative website, which skews toward young people alienated by Israel's rightward tilt, features a provocative yet nuanced essay by its co-editor, Ralph Seliger, “Rep. Tlaib, the Nakba and Israel’s Independence,” about the Palestinian-American Congresswoman (D-MI) who, though allegedly antisemitic, supported a Jewish candidate for president and recently expressed empathy for Israeli settlers.

ABORTION

* An early portent of Neil Gorsuch’s vote to repeal the Constitutional right to abortion is telegraphed by the Kissinger quote the future justice chose in1988 for his Columbia College yearbook. (I checked; it’s real.)

*June 24 will mark a year since the Court’s Dobbs decision. If you’ve spent the last 12 months feeling pissed and powerless, here are two things you can do to help change the status quo: 1) ramp up the pressure on state and federal legislators to beat back abortion bans; 2) fund poor women’s travel to abortion-friendly states.

MUSIC

* Nasia Thomas, above, sings “Nothing Like the Girls at Home” with gorgeous gusto. The single comes from the hit show “The Belle of Tombstone,” the untold story of Josephine Sarah Marcus, the Jewish wife of Wyatt Earp, and other women of the American West.

BOOKS

*Frankly Feminist: Short Stories by Jewish Women from Lilith Magazine is a richly immersive anthology whose 44 contributors include some favorites of mine, Amy Gottlieb, Jane Lazarre, Anita Norich, and Nessa Rapoport.

PURE JOY

*Baby and big brother revel in their unstoppable laugh fest.

*A 93-year-old performs the routine she danced 70 years ago, minus only the back flips.

* Six-time world boxing champion, Sugar Ray Robinson cuts a rug with Gene Kelly

*When a shy little boy returns to his old school, his classmates’ reaction is priceless.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY

* I’m besotted by the poignantly tiny hand reaching toward the music in Ralph Gibson’s silver print photo, “Guitar Player and Bassinet, 1963.” Also by the fingers of the baby in this short full-color video. And the baby in this similarly endearing video. But the stars of these intimate films are the men whose sweet devotion bodes well for their children.

*HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to every dad who changes diapers, feeds, bathes, and reads to his kids, lavishes them with hugs and comfort, and celebrates their individuality even when they behave in ways that don’t conform to the traditional sex roles he himself grew up with.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION

*It’s been a busy few weeks. May 21, Andrew Silow-Carroll published an in-depth interview with me about Shanda for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

*On May 31st, I was one of the “8 Over 80” honorees at the annual gala of The New Jewish Home, a remarkable full service health care system for older New Yorkers “of all faiths, ages, races and genders.” The great thing about being feted by this institution is I didn’t have to prepare an acceptance speech. Instead, each honoree was introduced to the 400+ crowd with a professionally-produced film about some aspect of her or his life. Because I love walking around my city, a videographer followed me from Central Park to the Village for a peripatetic show-and-tell tour of every building I’ve lived in during the past 60 years. See video here.

* In keeping with the theme of NJH’s celebration, I put together a "Table of Amazing Women," friends of mine, aged 80 to 93, who are still going strong. Top row, l-r: Arlene Alda, Annie Navasky, me, Jane Bevans, Jane Gelfman, Muriel Fox, Sarah Kovner, Judith Schlosser. Bottom row, l-r: Gale Robinson, Phyllis Wender, Roberta Gratz, Ruth Messinger. (photo by Ann Billingsley). Julia Gergley wrote a charming piece about our table for the NYJewish Week.

*On June 6, the English language edition of Haaretz published Ben Samuels assessment of my “more than six decades of activism on the front lines of women’s rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

* On June 8, Dani Shapiro, the bestselling author, and amazingly perceptive interviewer, hosted me on her podcast “Family Secrets.” The episode, entitled “World Class Liars,” was one of the most meaningful conversations I’ve had yet about Shanda.

*Schedule of my upcoming talks here.