God Said What?!
Happy Friday and Shana Tova!
In our latest podcast episode we speak with Miriam Racquel Feldman about her book, “God Said What?!“, because you must have had the same question at some point in your life. Practicing Judaism was the last thing Miriam ever wanted. In fact, it was something she tried to escape, preferring instead to be a free spirit, and a citizen of the world. After repeatedly rejecting her Jewish roots, Miriam found herself reluctantly following the love of her life to retrieve him from an “orthodox cult”. But that is not the fate that awaited Miriam. But, you’ll have to listen to the podcast to hear the rest of the true story.
Of course, we also want to share some of the things we have been reading and listening to this week so please keep scrolling!
Things we read and loved in the last two weeks:
Israel:
Erin Molan , don’t you wish our presidential candidates spoke like Erin?
Israel Defends Itself—and May Save Western Civilization
What the Jewish state has done in the past year—for its own defense, but in the process and not coincidentally for the security of all of us—will rank among the most important contributions to the defense of Western civilization in the past three-quarters of a century.
Rabbi Steve Leder on the best way to respond to Anti-Semitism - be loudly, proudly Jewish by educating yourself, doing good, believing.
Yoseph Haddad, an Arab Israeli, shares the truth about Gaza in a brilliant speech. - if you care about humanity, listen to his words, if you care about human suffering, listen to his words.
Russia and Ukraine
In “The Deserter,” Sarah A. Topol reports the story of Ivan, a captain in the Russian Army who fought in Ukraine and then ultimately fled the war and his country with his wife, Anna. Topol spoke to 18 deserters while reporting in eight countries across four continents over the last year and a half; their experiences helped paint a vivid picture of the Russian war operation and its corruption, chaos and brutality.
Narrated by Liev Schreiber
Wait, What???!
Consciousness is capable of being in all places at the same time
How is this not getting more headlines? This explains a lot that we don’t understand but can feel in our bodies and in our lives, this actually explains everything.
In other words, it can exist everywhere simultaneously, suggesting that your own consciousness can hypothetically connect with quantum particles beyond your brain, maybe entangling with consciousness all across the universe.”
LIFE
We loved this conversation so much with Elizabeth Gilbert that we listened to it twice. DO NOT miss this walk into Elizabeth’s wise and sparkling mind.
USA
The Fantasy World of Ta-Nehisi Coates for the Free Press by Coleman Hughes
A disturbing deep look into the new book by Ta-Nehisi Coates and his extreme bias against Israel.
Not to the establishment of the Jewish state, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, or the First Zionist Congress but to his childhood in Baltimore. He recalls that he had “a vague notion of Israel as a country that was doing something deeply unfair to the Palestinian people, though I was not clear on exactly what.” He remembers “watching World News Tonight with [his] father, and deriving from him a dull sense that the Israelis were ‘white’ and the Palestinians were ‘Black,’ which is to say that the former were the oppressors and the latter the oppressed.” He recalls his father giving him a book called Born Palestinian, Born Black and appreciating that title.
Scott Galloway offers actual ideas for how to stop illegal immigration and it doesn’t come from protecting the border: we need to stop the demand by fining business owners and creating economic deterrence.
“When they were your age, they started a country, what the F have you done?” - Bill Maher
To the American public: we have a serious problem when “4 in 10 Gen Zers describe the authors of the constitution as villains”
Sorry, Harvard, maybe you should have protected all your students from the Wall Street Journal
“Southern schools have, by and large, better track records on free speech, according to rankings by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit civil liberties group which has defended faculty and students in cases regarding speech issues. This year, most of the top 25 schools are located in the South. The six schools with the worst ratings were in the Northeast.
Following student protests over the war in Gaza, some Jewish and Southeast Asian students declined to apply to some highly selective schools in the Northeast because the environment is so tense, said Rachel Rubin, co-founder of Spark Admissions, a private college-counseling company.”
Quotes of the Week
What We Are Reading
We are obsessed with The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
If you want to feel less alone or to understand how it feels for the Jewish community after October 7, get “ On Being Jewish Now, a collection of essays edited by @zibbyowens,
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Preparing for our conversation on The Small and Mighty with Sharon McMahon
Music Therapy
Will you please share our podcast and newsletter with one friend today?
PS: Here is a list of significant massacres of Jews in British Mandate Palestine before 1948: #timetostandupforisrael
These events were part of escalating Arab-Jewish tensions long before Israel's founding. .... Anti-Zionism= Anti-Semitism
- **1920 Nebi Musa Riots**: Arab rioters attacked Jewish residents in Jerusalem during the Nebi Musa festival, resulting in 5 Jewish deaths and many injuries.
- **1921 Jaffa Riots**: Arab mobs attacked Jewish communities in Jaffa and nearby settlements, killing 47 Jews and wounding over 140.
- **1929 Hebron Massacre**: Arab rioters slaughtered 67 Jews in Hebron, including women and children. Jewish homes and synagogues were looted and destroyed.
- **1929 Safed Massacre**: Arab mobs attacked the Jewish community in Safed, killing 18 Jews and injuring many more.
- **1936-1939 Arab Revolt**: During the revolt, Jewish civilians were targeted across the country. Hundreds of Jews were killed, including in attacks on buses, markets, and homes.