Chicken Soup for the Zionist Infiltrator Soul, Part II

The left-wing group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), a major ally of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has unveiled a plan to combat hate and keep Jews and other minorities safe that doesn't rely on policing or traditional securitization measures. This is a project a long time in development by JFREJ, of course, flows from and follows on a larger philosophical skepticism many leftists have towards the police -- arguing that the reliance on guns and fortresses and policing is both ethically suspect and discriminatory against other groups (including Jews of color) for whom the police are not a force for safety but for threat).

The report has quite a few layers, but the basic idea behind it is familiar enough -- invest in cross-community engagement projects that undermine hate at its roots.

The report calls for investment in “intergroup collaborative projects” that would foster connections across lines of difference, overseen by district-based or community-based program managers. 

“From renovating a playground, to operating a soup kitchen, to tenant organizing, to planning a street fair, we should look at many local activities as potential sites of intergroup relationship building,” the report reads.

I'm not hostile to this approach. I think these interventions are, by and large, welcome. I will repeat a point I've made before, which is that in the short-term these proposals cannot replace but must coexist with more traditional securitization measures. Even at their most optimistic, programs like this stop antisemitic violence by shriveling antisemitic attitudes. But they have little to offer in terms of actually materially obstructing someone who does commit to make an attack. Had Temple Israel in Michigan adopted JFREJ's preferred approach a week before the attempted attack on its preschool, the result would have been a lot more dead Jewish preschoolers. (By contrast, the Colleyville case was an example of "all of the above" -- the synagogue both credited "traditional" police collaborations as directly saving lives when it came under attack, and credited its entrenched history of cross-community engagement for redounding in genuine solidarity and support in the attack's aftermath). Where proposals like this are framed as immediate replacements for the police, or worse, are presented as justifications for blaming Jews who do still think more traditional policing measures are necessary, they have the potential to do immense harm rather than good.

But the larger point I want to make is this: if JFREJ is serious about this as the preferred approach for undermining hate, then it has to take aim at "anti-normalization" politics. The latter is a direct threat to the former. One cannot simultaneously talk up the importance of "intergroup relationship building" as a means of undermining hate and then turn around and justify kicking the Israeli vendor out of the food festival because it's colonialist and thievery and an attempt to whitewash Zionist crimes. "Anti-normalization" campaigns are nothing other efforts to strangle potential nodes of cross-community engagement and collaboration, precisely because permitting them to go forward risks muddying up attitudes of uncompromising antagonism and humanizing the enemy population. Indeed, the very example JFREJ offers of collaborating on a soup kitchen together -- that was used by prominent anti-Zionist (and antisemitic) activist David Miller as an example of perfidious Zionist infiltration that must be opposed at all costs!

Of course Israel have sent people in to target that, to deal with that. Particularly through interfaith work … pretending Jews and Muslims working together will be an apolitical way of countering racism. No, it’s a Trojan horse for normalising Zionism in the Muslim community. We saw it in East London Mosque for example, where East London Mosque unknowingly held this project of making chicken soup with Jewish and Muslim communities coming together. This is an Israel-backed project for normalising Zionism in the Muslim communities.

Again, this isn't to say JFREJ's proposal is bad. It is to say there is an active political movement that actively opposes programs like this from the left. They present these "collaborative projects" as collaborationism; they focus their energy not on extending solidarity but on compulsory abandonment. To the extent these groups still mouth the words of solidarity, it is solidarity not as an offer but as a threat: "'safety through solidarity' -- or else."

My read on JFREJ is that they are not among the anti-normalizers, but also that they are reluctant to present the anti-normalizers as antagonists. They'd rather not talk about anti-normalizers at all; they vastly prefer their enemies to be among the traditional establishment. But to be honest -- that's a them-problem. Not every element of a campaign to combat hate will be as fun for JFREJ as explaining why the police suck. If this proposal is going to be taken seriously, then its proponents have to demonstrate that they're seriously committed to it even when it means calling out problematic figures on their own side of the fence. Does JFREJ have the stones to do that? I'm not sure. We'll see. I think there's a decent chance they get evasive and try to weasel out of taking a stand. But I hope I'm wrong about that, because I do think that their proposal is serious enough that it deserves serious advocates in turn.

Promotion

Yesterday, I was informed that the Lewis & Clark Law School faculty had voted to grant me tenure.

Also this week, Nathaniel's preschool wrote to tell us that he was ready to be moved up to the next age group.

Both pieces of news are, of course, very exciting, and very emotional.

For me, this has been the culmination of literally twenty-five years of work. I first knew I wanted to be a law professor in high school, when I had the good fortune of being on the debate team with a friend whose father taught law at Georgetown. It was soon very apparent that he had the job I wanted. He got to think interesting thoughts for a living. How cool was that! That's what I wanted to do!

Becoming a law professor was my ambition. And that was a big deal, because I didn't (and don't) really see myself as an ambitious person. For the most part, I'm a pretty content person. I'm happy with what I have. To really want something is fraught. You might not get it. And my pursuit of an academic job reflects that -- I went on the entry-level job market five times before I finally got a job offer. The preceding years were full of one heartbreak after another. I had jobs change requirements in the middle of the interview process. I had one school interview me on three separate years, advancing me to the final stage of the process twice, and then both times end up pulling the hiring line altogether days before the actual vote for budgetary or internal-politics reasons. I had schools in dream locations or with dream program setups where I was the runner-up. And I had years where I didn't get any callbacks at all.

It was maddening. I knew this was what I was meant to do. I knew this was the only job that would make me happy. And I knew that I was qualified. I had an outstanding academic record, a solid clerkship, legitimate teaching experience, and a lengthy publication record featuring articles in some stellar journals. None of this entitled me to a job, of course. But I knew I wasn't delusional in thinking I should have been competitive for one. People often stressed how much getting an academic job was a matter of luck. I know even more now that this is entirely true (I've said that serving on the appointments committee here at Lewis & Clark has been equal parts cathartic and retraumatizing, because peering inside the black box one gets a sense for how random and arbitrary this whole process can be). And while at one level that was meant to be comforting -- it's not you, it's the cosmos -- for the most part feeling like "well, I guess the universe hates me" wasn't comfortable at all.

Words cannot express how low I got in the midst of my years of unsuccessful attempts. In fact, I have a distinct memory of being absolutely miserable at the conclusion of yet another heartbreaking hiring cycle and swearing that, no matter what eventually happened or how things might play out in the years that follow, my future self would never say "but it worked out for the best."

I won't betray my past self's promise. Maybe I'd be equally happy if I had gotten an academic job the first time around and never went through this rigamarole. But what I can say is that I am incredibly happy, and incredibly lucky, and incredibly fortunate to be at this school and in this city, with these colleagues and living this life. At the end of the day, there aren't many people who can honestly say they're living their dream, and I am.

And speaking of dreams, let's turn to Nathaniel's own big promotion.

The message wasn't surprising. Nathaniel was by far the oldest in the "infants" room and was already walking (and starting to kind of say a few words). In fact, Jill and I had talked about broaching the subject of when he should be moved up just a few days before we got the email from school. Nathaniel was ready for new stimulation and new challenges. He'll go from being the oldest kid in his class to the youngest, which will be an adjustment, but it will also be how he learns. He's already had a few sojourns into the new "Cats" class (he's currently an "Owl") and has gotten along well with the older kids. They're going to ease him in over the next few days, but it's time to make the move.

Weirdly, I've felt even more emotional about this than my own tenure vote (though in the latter case, the lack of emotion may be due to no small measure of disassociation during the runup). One of the things I was most worried about in becoming a new father was sentimentality. For my entire life (childhood and adulthood), I've been someone who gets very sentimental about change. I don't like it. I get comfortable where I am, and don't want to let it go. I still have all my childhood stuffed animals in a box (and thought of losing them in any way still is the fastest way to spur an emotional breakdown). I was devastated when my parents sold my childhood home. I had a panic attack around seventh grade because I was scared of growing up. It's a whole thing. And the thing about raising a kid is -- they're non-stop change! They outgrow things, they move past things, they transcend things. Everyone says to get excited about the growth, but I knew myself, and my propensity would absolutely be to fixate on the loss. I was sincerely very, very worried about this.

The good news has been that I've done way, way better than I ever could have anticipated on the "adjusting to change" front. A huge part of this is attributable to Nathaniel, who has handled every major adjustment with aplomb. Bassinet to crib? No problem. Dropping bottles? Barely noticed. Going to daycare after staying at home with mom and dad? Easy-peasy. He's a remarkably mellow and resilient guy, which makes it easier for me to be resilient too. (one of his teachers once wrote a message speaking of Nathaniel's "quiet dignity", which is an objectively hilarious way to describe a baby).

Anyway, for whatever reason this "graduation" hit me a little harder than the prior transitions I've rolled with. He's growing up so fast (in fairness, this one doesn't just "feel" fast, it is fast -- he's only been in his program for three months)! And while I know he can't stay in the infants room forever, for someone like me, who's seen his baby thriving in his current position, it always feels fraught to move him somewhere new. What if he doesn't like it? What if he misses his old teachers? What if he gets scared? All the questions every parent worries about (and one thing I love about sending him to this school is that the teachers and staff have seen it all before -- they'll know what to do). I suspect that three weeks from now, when Nathaniel is all settled in and thriving as he always does, I'll feel fine.

Regardless, there is something special about sharing this big promotion together. He's taking his big step up, and I'm taking my big step up. How lucky I am, to get to experience this moment of growth from both vantage points.

Leader Cannot Fail, He Can Only Be Betrayed

Almost as soon as America began its latest round of military strikes on Iran a sizable number of GOP officials have sought to frame Trump's decision as coming at the behest of Israel. From the outset, it seemed obvious to me why the GOP was taking this approach -- "it gives them a ready-made escape hatch if things go south".* It is impossible for Republicans concede that Trump did wrong. But it is possible to argue that he's been misled or betrayed. And so it struck me as inevitable that "[w]hen, in however many months/years, the GOP tries to run from this calamity, the line they will take about where they went astray will 100% be 'we were dragged into this by the Jews.'"

One should obviously read the Joe Kent resignation letter -- which contends that the Iran War (and the Iraq War, and America's intervention in Syria) all occurred at the behest of "Israel and its powerful American lobby" -- in this light. It gives Kent far too much credit to treat him as an isolationist naif who foolishly believed the "Donald the Dove" talk. Kent has no history of non-interventionism (he has a well-known history of bigotry and neo-Nazi associations). But as petroleum prices skyrocket, global trade routes are snarled, and the war labors under massive domestic unpopularity, the number of conservatives looking for a parachute is rapidly rising even as conspiratorial antisemitism is rapidly becoming the dominant force in conservative politics. Kent's resignation is not principle, it is opportunism -- he's looking for how best to flee his sinking ship.

But how can one do that, without committing the one absolutely unforgivable sin in conservative politics? Well, if one reads the letter, it is very careful not to blame Donald Trump. He is still wonderful. He is still a great man. Alas, he has been coaxed against his better judgment into this disaster by (((them))). They lie, they deceive, and Trump was caught in the middle. This framing was inevitable; it's the only way to metabolize viewing the war as a disaster while retaining the MAGA cult of personality. After all, if Trump is a God-like figure, who could possibly sway him off the righteous path other than those practiced in deicide?

And of course, what goes for his lackeys goes infinite for Trump. He will never admit error and misjudgment. There always must be someone else to blame. And Israel, for a host of reasons, makes for a very attractive "someone". We're already seeing a marked shift in Trump's tone on Israel, criticizing the latter's strike on the South Pars Gas Field in Iran. To my ears, that's laying groundwork. The worse things get, or the more this war gets blamed as an anchor on the economy or GOP polling numbers, the more we can expect to see Israel become the prime villain in a stabbed-in-the-back narrative. Anyone who thinks Trump is incapable of or even reluctant to turn on his erstwhile friend and ally isn't paying attention. As always, the notion that Israel would come out ahead in a world where liberal democratic values were supplanted by ethno-nationalist authoritarianism was fanciful.

None of this, to be clear, means that Israel shouldn't be accountable for its own choices. It also made a choice to go to war with Iran, and it can't hide from responsibility for the ensuing fallout. Israel is responsible for Israel's choices, and America is responsible for America's choices. But of course, the defining feature of MAGA-era conservativism is a complete and absolute refusal to take responsibility for anything. It must be someone else's fault. And when the time comes to stop claiming credit and start assigning blame, you can be very sure that Israel and those associated with it (i.e., Jews) will be top of the list. It can't go any other way.

* As I also observed, it is less clear -- by which I mean it is entirely clear -- why certain Democrats also acceded to this framing, as if the prospect that Donald Trump might make reckless warmongering decisions was some sort of bizarre anomaly only explicable via external intervention.

Grieving Alone (But Not Entirely Alone) After Michigan

You might recall my post after the attempted synagogue massacre in Michigan, where I wrote that I had basically become numb to such attacks. Even though my baby attends a preschool program very similar to the one that was in session at Temple Israel, I realized that I had mentally "priced in" the possibility of such an assault. It didn't shock me; it barely affected me. I already knew things like that might happen.

There is a common line one hears from more humanitarian-inclined anti-Zionists, condemning attacks like we saw in Michigan on the grounds that they make the Zionist's point (that Jews will never be safe in the diaspora, that our only hope for security lies in an armed fortress of our own). Antisemitism hurts the Palestinian cause. I've always hated this line. For starters, I'm dubious of its truth as an empirical matter. The antisemites, after all, posit that antisemitic terrorism will not harden Jewish resolve, it will cow Jews into submission. Are they wrong? That's an empirical question, not an article of faith. More broadly, antisemitism is one of the most powerful tools of social mobilization the world has ever seen. It is not only not implausible that antisemitism might help those social movements which can successfully harness it, it would be weird if it didn't. The real question is whether anti-Zionists will oppose antisemitism even where it helps their cause. The jury is still out there.

But the more I think about it, the more I think this entire framing -- that antisemitic attacks in the diaspora are what push diaspora Jews to cleave to Zionism -- is slightly off-kilter. For me at least, it is not the attack itself that causes that sort of recoil. It's the response of the public to the attack.

Like a 10/7 in miniature, most people responded to the Michigan assault exactly appropriately -- with horror, grief, and condemnation. Good, and it's good not to overlook the fact that the humane majority was humane. 

But there was a small but vocal slice of individuals, often self-styled pro-Palestinian "progressives", who were insistent that the synagogue was a fair and justified target. And then there was another small but somewhat larger slice of individuals who bent over to explain why the first slice could not be called antisemitic -- uncouth, emotional, un-PC, anything but antisemitic -- and were in fact the primary victims of a smear machine which had the temerity to use the dread slur "antisemitic".

Far more than the attack itself, that's the response that makes me despair. I can accept (maybe I shouldn't accept, but I do) that bad things might happen to me as a Jew. But it is a horribly alienating sensation to feel certain that, if something bad did happen to me, a large chunk of political energy will be dedicated to explaining why I had it coming, to poring over my social media feeds to find "evidence" that I'm one of the bad ones, and to being aghast and appalled that anyone would be so gauche as to find any of this antisemitic.

The anti-Zionist counterproposal to policing and militarism and wall-building as a response to antisemitism is "safety through solidarity". Yet it is ironic that in spite of this rhetorical commitment, solidarity is the last thing they extend. Josh Yunis had a provocative post the other day, where he observed the following:

Antizionists (including antizionist Jews) like to observe – with a feigned helplessness, as if observing a passing cloud – the “inevitable” correlation between increased antisemitism in the diaspora and the actions of the state of Israel. But if we lived in a world in which antizionists were successfully making the case for their worldview, anti-Jewish hatred would decrease or remain steady in spite of Israel’s actions abroad. Antizionists would be springing into action, forming protective rings around synagogues and organizing multi-faith solidarity rallies after each new anti-Jewish atrocity, in which they proclaim that “in spite of our strong, even visceral disagreement on Israel, we want Jews of all kinds, regardless of their views on Israel and Palestine, to know that they are welcome in our communities.” (Surely by now, they’ve had enough time to internalize this lesson and organize such efforts.)

And yet: when was the last time you saw a self-identified antizionist show up at a vandalized kosher restaurant to help clean up its windows, broken in the name of a Free Palestine? Or clean the swastika graffiti off the wall of a synagogue? What we get instead from this camp is the usual dissembling, in which defenders of anti-Jewish harassment rifle through the dumpster for some kind of receipt that indicts this Jew and that Jew for having failed to sufficiently distance themselves from Israeli crimes.

The most compelling antizionist argument imaginable would be to point at the news and tell Jews, “see, even when Israel does horrific things, you are safe here.” But of course, the reverse has happened. It’s one thing for the movement to be doing the valiant work of trying to keep Jews safe, albeit unsuccessfully; it’s another entirely to not even try. Each new retreat to the same old talking point about the regrettable, but inevitable correlation between Israeli policy and antisemitism is itself evidence of a movement that isn’t really interested in trying. On the contrary, each new instance of anti-Jewish violence is trotted out not as a pained expression of their movement’s failures, of the need to do better – of asking “where did we go wrong?” (such hand-wringing questions are de rigueur for leftist Jews when it comes to Zionism) – but as a barely-veiled threat: here’s what happens when you don’t distance yourself from Israel – and you can expect a lot more of where that came from.

That possibility Yunis alludes to, of unconditional love and support, stands out because it is simultaneously so obvious and so fanciful. Of course one could do that. And of course it's actually the opposite happening. The energy here isn't actually around promoting solidarity, it's around justifying abandonment -- here's why you should shun synagogues, here's why you must expel Jewish organizations, here's why the Israeli food truck must be kicked out, here's why the Jewish lesbians can't march with us. The fact that I cannot even imagine any of these people "showing up at a vandalized kosher restaurant to help clean up its windows" -- that is what feeds the sense that the diaspora will never be there for us.

One of the first bad October 7 takes I responded to -- less than a week after the attack -- was a truly wretched essay by Gabriel Winant urging progressives not to grieve the Jews slaughtered by Hamas. Winant's argument was not exactly "these were settlers and colonizers and so had it coming." It was rather that grief over dead Israeli Jews is the fuel for Israel's genocidal machine, so we must resist our humanist impulses lest we feed the beast. My basic critique of the argument was that it was terrible causal inference -- the Israeli response to October 7 would not materially change by whether the broader world grieved or didn't grieve, so one might as well do the humanist thing and grieve. But I also wrote:

If there is even the slightest truth in Winant's framework, it is not that Israel transmutes grief into power. It's that Israel transmutes grieving alone into power. The impetus behind Zionism -- I've been in enough of these conversations to speak confidently here -- is not (just) that bad, dreadful things happen to Jews. It's that bad, dreadful things happen to Jews and Jews are the only ones who will ever care. The only people who will grieve dead Jews are Jews; the only people who will rally to the defense of threatened Jews are Jews; the only people who will feel empathy (or anything at all, really) towards frightened or traumatized Jews are Jews; the only people who will erect fortresses to protect Jews are Jews; and so ultimately the only people who can be entrusted to protect and ensure the lives of Jews are Jews. It is not grief alone, but grief alone, that fuels these instincts.

Taken from that vantage point, the scenes of collective global grief over dead Jews represent what might be the closest thing Israelis can get to a non-violent catharsis for their trauma -- the knowledge that Jews aren't actually alone, that others do care when we are pricked and bleed. If you want something that might actually sap the machine of violence and vengeance of some of its forward momentum, that's by far your best bet -- not enforced loneliness, but unconditional embrace and empathy in the moments where it is needed most.

As I said, the contretemps following Michigan felt like a miniature version of what we saw post-10/7. Thankfully, the Michigan attack was largely thwarted and had no casualties other than the attacker, but that also made the alienation from the aftermath come into sharper relief.  Once again, we're confronted with the fact that in our moments of intense pain and fear the response from a non-trivial segment of our peers will be to explain why we deserve it, and the response from another segment will be to bend over backwards to explain why the true victims are their friends in the first segment who are oh-so-unfairly being maligned. With regard to Winant, I argued that even if he personally wasn't quite saying "the Jews got what was coming to them," the appetite for his argument came largely from those who "desperately don't want to accede to the overwhelming power of 'Who can begrudge tears for those lost to violence?' [and who want] an excuse, an apologia they can wield to begrudge, begrudge, begrudge." The sheer amount of energy and enthusiasm dedicated to propping up that horrible point is itself proof of the problem.

Again, I don't want to exaggerate the prevalence of these sorts of responses -- they are and remain a distinct minority compared to most people responding with basic human empathy. But if one is looking for a causal chain that ends in "and here's why diaspora Jews still believe in Zionism", I think these responses are more germane than the attack itself.

I'll close with one more thought. When New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned antisemitic remarks from prominent Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa in the wake of the Michigan attack, he took some serious heat from the more irredentist wing of the pro-Palestinian movement who, of course, presented him as a traitor even as they mocked the idea that Mamdani's words would put him in the good graces of the "Zionists" (the possibility that Mamdani might not be doing this for credit, but because he actually believes it, is apparently beyond consideration). There were some Jewish voices that sought to poo-poo Mamdani's words since condemning Abulhawa's obvious antisemitism -- among other things, she's been promoting neo-Nazi "noticer" accounts and said no Israeli or Jew (she specifically clarified she didn't care if the two were conflated) should "feel safe anywhere in the world" -- was "the bare minimum". Arguable, but that's not the point. 

The point was that, although Mayor Mamdani clearly has substantial, deep-felt disagreements with many (if not most) Jews on a matter of deep personal importance to him, he was saying that those disagreements do not matter in the context of a larger threat to Jewish safety and equal standing. He was committing himself to the protective ring, he was saying that no matter what Israel does over there he won't compromise on keeping Jews safe here. That's laudable. That's meaningful. I disagree with Mamdani on some important things, he disagrees with me on some important things. But the reality is he's performing the actual hard work of solidarity -- extending even to those who aren't in his political camp, even to those who represent a very hostile audience -- and that really does stand out as deserving considerable credit.

The 1001 Faces of the Permacold

Nathaniel is in daycare, and I have a cold.

This is a sentence that is true today, was true the first week we sent Nathaniel to daycare, and has been true virtually every day in between.

I had heard about that permacold -- that as a parent you just spend the first X number of years of your child's life sick as he brings every single mildly transferable virus home with him. I had heard about it, but didn't quite believe it. Nathaniel stayed home with us for his first year, so he wasn't really affected, and so neither were we. It was all rumor and legend. And just as we miraculously missed the travails of having a baby who wouldn't stay asleep, maybe we'd miss this too. Maybe all the terribles of raising a little one are rumors and exaggeration!

Nope. This one hit. And the interesting bit about the permacold is that it makes you vividly aware of all the different types of colds one can have (because one is essentially speed-running them in a rapid and never-ending cycle). Sometimes you have a dry cough, and sometimes it's a productive cough. Sometimes you're congested beyond belief, and sometimes your nose won't stop running. Sometimes your throat is scratchy, and sometimes it's swollen. Sometimes your teeth hurt, and sometimes you snore just from breathing. It's not that any of these symptoms are novel or unfamiliar, exactly. It's just that normally they're spaced out weeks or months apart. To oscillate between all of them in 24 hour shifts is very disorienting.

And the bonus irony is that Nathaniel is basically unaffected by any of the diseases he vectors into the house. He coughs and sneezes and has a runny nose, but it never really bothers him all that much. It's mom and dad who are shambling around the house like the night of the living dead. Even when he gets sent home from daycare for something more serious, like pink eye or hand-foot-mouth disease, we're the ones who really end up suffering while his behavior barely changes at all. Objectively, I know that's far better than the alternative. Subjectively, it's tough not to feel a twinge resentful.

Jill was out tonight to see a play, so I got to put Nathaniel to bed (Jill and I share the nighttime routine, but the very last part of it is Jill's time). He hadn't gotten the best nap in (and the nap was late -- from 4:15 - 5:15), so I was a bit nervous. But I did my best solo version of the nighttime winddown process, and Nathaniel was very obliging. I gave him his kisses and told him how much I loved him, and he snuggled up against me and rested his head on my chest. I put him down to sleep, and he went right down, and all is right in the world -- no matter how much I cough.

Pricing In Synagogue Attacks

I first heard of the attack on the Temple Israel Michigan synagogue from one of my students after my morning class. The attack has been variously described as a "shooting" or a "car-ramming" attack; from what I can tell the terrorist had a ton of explosives in his car that he was hoping to set off via crashing his vehicle into the synagogue building. He was shot dead by security, and thankfully he seems to be the only fatality.

It's been reported that the synagogue also runs a preschool that was in session at the time of the attack. I, of course, am also the parent of a baby who currently attends preschool/daycare at his synagogue, under a set up that is very similar to that of Temple Israel. We also have security posted outside the building on a daily basis; we also have a gate set up one needs to "swipe" into (twice!) in order to access the interior of the building. 

It is very, very easy to imagine that our synagogue and our preschool could have been the target of this attack. In fact, the other day I was idly imagining (in the way parents do) just such an attack on my synagogue, in circumstances where Nathaniel was present. And what was striking to me about my thought process -- both in the imaginative space, yesterday, and in responding to the very real attack in Michigan, today -- was how numb I felt to it. It should feel terrifying. I should be terrified. But my reaction was alarmingly muted, as if I've just "priced in" the possibility of attacks like this. This is what it means to live as a Jew.

I don't know. I can't say I mourn not feeling overwhelmed by crippling anxiety and fear. But also, what does it say about me that I'm past feeling anxious and fearful? And this isn't, to be clear, a sound assessment of actuarial risk -- that would give me too much credit. It's something more quiescent -- an atrophication of any sense that security and safety is something I could ever expect to have for me and my family. That feeling -- or lack thereof -- well, I don't think it's a good thing.

David's First Math Problem

Last night, I had a math problem.

Sort of. Not really. I'm not saying it's a hard math problem, or an interesting math problem. It may be a profoundly weird way to look at a math problem, and the way I solved it may be a really silly and convoluted solution to the math problem. But it stuck with me until I just had to tackle it -- and I haven't done any real math in about twenty years.

Okay, let's get to it.

At an auction, the amount an item sells for is known as the "hammer price". But it is not necessarily the case that either the buyer pays, or the seller receives, the hammer price. Rather, there is both a buyer's premium (BP) and a seller's premium (SP) that is calculated as a percentage of the hammer. The buyer pays the hammer plus the BP; the seller receives the hammer minus the SP. In other words:

• Final buyer's price = Hammer + (Hammer x BP)
• Final seller's final return = Hammer - (Hammer x SP)

Imagine two different auction premium models. In the first, the buyer pays no premium (BP = 0), and the seller pays a premium of 50% (SP = .5). In the second, the buyer pays a premium of 30% (BP = .3) and the seller plays a premium of 20% (SP = .2). Assuming the final buyer's price remains constant, which model is better for the seller?*

The answer is obviously the second -- but not by as much as might appear at first glance. Since the buyer pays no premium in the first model, they'll pay a higher hammer price than in the second, which partially offsets the first model's higher seller's premium. It's just not enough. To give an example, for a buyer willing to pay $130 for an item:

• In model one, the item would hammer for $130 (130 + (130 x 0)). The seller would get half of that, or $65 (130 - (130 x .5).
• In model two, the item would hammer for $100 to yield the same final buyer's price of $130 (100 + (100 x .3)). The seller would get 80% of the $100 hammer, or $80 (100 - (.2 x 100)).

So model two is better than model one for the seller by a ratio of 16/13 (80/65 = 160/130 = 16/13).

That was not the math problem.

I looked at that number: 16/13. And I thought, that's an ugly number. It expresses out to 1.23076923077 -- yuck!** Moreover, it's an ugly number that, at first glance, has relatively little to do with the relatively nice numbers we saw in the inputs -- .3, .2, .5. Where on earth did 16/13 come from?

16/13, I knew, was not just the ratio that applied to the particular example buyer's price I chose ($130). It was the ratio for any buyer's final price fed into these two premium models. The seller's return would always be 16/13 times higher in model two compared to model one.

What I wanted was (and this was the math problem) was to write some sort of equation or proof that would spit out that ugly 16/13 number, not just for one particular buyer's price but generally.

Now all of this thinking occurred last night, in bed, right around when the daylight's savings time switch happened. It was pretty unproductive.

But this afternoon, I decided to actually take out a pen and paper and really see if I could do this. Here were my steps.

Fb = Final Buyer's Price

Fs = Final Seller's return

H = Hammer.

(1) Fb1 = H + (H x 0) = H

(2) Fs1 = H - (H x .5) = Fb1 - (Fb1 x .5) = .5Fb1

Since The Final Buyer's Price in the first model is just the hammer, we can substitute it in for the hammer in calculating the first model's Final Seller's Return. The Seller pays a 50% premium, so they receive half the Final Buyer's Return aka half the hammer price.

(3) Fb2 = H + (H x .3) = 1.3H

(4) 10Fb2 = 13H, divide both by 13 --> (10/13)Fb2 = H

Not as neat as the first model, but that also lets us express H as a function of Fb2.

(5) Fs2 = H - (H x .2) = .8H

(6) Fs2 = .8((10/13)Fb2 = (8/13)Fb2

(7) Fs2 = (8/13)Fb2 and Fs1 = (1/2)Fb1.

But by stipulation, Fb1 and Fb2 are the same (the buyer is paying the same final price in each model). Meaning:

(8) The ratio of Fs2/Fs1 = (8/13)/(1/2), multiply those by 2 and you get (16/13)/1, or just 16/13.

Tada!

And listen: maybe you're good at math. Maybe you do math all the time. I'm not and I don't. I did not enjoy math in school, and I have generally avoided math as an adult. Indeed, I've written about my complex relationship with my own math educational trajectory, which while not exactly a tragedy was not exactly a triumphant tale either. So I felt very good about being able to work this out, and to stretch some muscles that had lain dormant for quite some time -- even though to be honest I'm still not entirely sure why this particular hypothetical sunk its claws into me so.

Yay me!

* If you're wondering where these two "models" came from, model two represents the rough premiums charged by a standard commercial auction house, and model one represents a charity auction where returns are split 50/50 between the consigner and the charity beneficiary. My initial inquiry was to ask just how much the consigner is losing by doing the charity auction (with the answer being "they are losing, but not as much as they might think upon seeing that steep 50% seller's premium").

** In hindsight, while writing this post, I realized that just by flipping the ratio -- 13/16 -- it would be at least a little less ugly (13/16 = .8125).