Good News: The Voice of Hind Rajab Did Not Win an Oscar

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I am still buried in my self-imposed deadline for a new book with the unhappy title: “The Utter and Absolute Palestinianization and Stalinization of American Feminism.” Would it were not so! If only the story were one of heroic dissidents standing up to Big Lies and intolerance, but that was not how it happened. That’s not where we now find ourselves.

Anyway--when I’m not agonizing over the book, I do try to keep up with the news of our times and with other people.

As to our European allies: Some have provided support of one kind or another; Europe has refused to join America’s military war against Iran, especially in terms of opening the Strait of Hormuz.

I’ll say this: Except for the UK under Churchill, these countries could not and did not defend themselves during World War Two. They needed America to save them. They do not pay the lion’s share of NATO or of the United Nations. Why should America keep funding these two entities? There is precious little reciprocity. The UN has done absolutely nothing other than legalize Jew hatred. (I know, I know--there are all kinds of reasons, but at this moment I am beyond fed up.)

Mayor Mamdani, the leader of my once fair city, talked about Gaza when he attended a meeting in honor of St. Patrick’s Day--and had no opinion whatsoever about whether Ireland should be united. What a guy! What a Johnny One Note kinda fella he is. All in for Shia Iran uber allies.

As to Hollywood: Glad that the Hind Rajab propaganda vehicle for Gaza did not win an Oscar. But we had to endure Javier Bardem’s “No to War” and “Free Palestine.” I am surprised and pleased that no one else used this moment of celebrity to call out for the extermination of Jews. However, they did wear those damned pins....

I have to admit: Other than Hamnet, I tried--I really did--to stream the winning horror movie, and the winning guy movie. I couldn’t sit through them, but that’s me: an opera and ballet lover, a True Believer in classic texts...part of a passing generation. Not hip. Not amused.

As to a passing generation: So many of my email contacts have gone and died. I refuse to remove their contact information. From time to time, I “visit” with them when I see their names. I visit, and I remember Stuff.

Oh yes: I had a very special guest from the UK here for the last week: Mandy Sanghera, OBE, my partner in crime in terms of rescuing girls and women. She went to so many panels and conferences connected to the UN, and she filled me in on it all. Most important to me: My Mandy met Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, the Academic Director of Israel’s Dina Project, and Mandy told her that she had an “American Jewish mother” (that would be me). Professor Ruth asked who that might be. Mandy gave her my name and asked whether Prof Ruth knew me or my work. “Yes, of course” was her reply. So happy to hear that. The Dinah Project has, so far, issued the best report on the sexual violence that took place on 10/7, the most careful, forensic, and feminist work possible. Actually, the only one of its kind.

I managed to speak to a great Torah scholar and ally in our 37-year struggle to obtain religious rights for Jewish women at the Western Wall--that’s Montreal-based Dr. Norma Joseph. We have not wanted egalitarian minyanim (quorums) but only the right for Jewish women to pray out loud in a group with a Torah in the women’s section. We were there for years (still are) before the Reform movement hijacked our struggle for their own ends.

Maybe most importantly, I read some of Tikva Frymer-Kenskys’s extraordinary, perhaps divine, and very scholarly work on pagan Goddesses—In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth—something I’d not done before. I was only familiar with her wonderful book Reading the Women of the Bible. Her interpretation of what was revolutionary about monotheistic Judaism is well worth the read.

I spent Shabbos reading a book written by a Bard college classmate, Guy Ducornet, which I’d really not read before from cover to cover. He focuses on Black American Jazz and on Ralph Ellison, whom we were both privileged to have as a teacher. Guy also became something of a friend to this legendary gentleman. More to say--lots more.

Have to stop. Sorry to leave you. Will return. Fear not.