Falling on the Reputational Grenade, Part II

The other day, I had the thought that, sometime in the next four years, we will likely see the first legal filing by a government lawyer that will include some AI-hallucinated citations. Leaving aside that this is already happening with private firms (including sizeable ones) and so it only seems a matter of time, we also are entering the realm of overconfident and underqualified tech bros ransacking their way through Washington. AI-generated legal briefs are exactly the sort of "optimization" I can imagine Musk and his DOGE youth pushing out onto the bureaucracy, with predictably farcical results.

Generally, courts have responded rather mercilessly to lawyers who've submitted AI-generated hallucinated cases. Their reputations are ruined, and the underlying case is permanently discredited. And that thought got me thinking -- what would happen if an enterprising government lawyer decided to sabotage their own case by deliberately inserting AI-hallucinations into it?

Imagine the birthright citizenship case -- already viewed as a legal non-starter, with the usual conservative guns-for-hire flailing about trying and failing to whip up an even halfway plausible mechanism for circumventing the constitution's clear text and history. In court, the DOJ files a brief citing some late 19th century caselaw that seems to endorse a narrower view of the citizenship clause than currently prevails ... but it turns out that the citations are all made up.

Such a move would detonate the Department's credibility. As a form of internal sabotage, it would be devastatingly effective -- but (in here's the rub) only if the public didn't know it was sabotage. If the ruse was revealed, the plan doesn't work (having one's own attorney deliberately sabotage your case is not the sort of thing held against the client). But if the public remains unaware, the attorney who made the "mistake" would have committed career suicide twice over -- first, in putting his name on a defense of whatever neo-fascist Trump policy is before the court, and then second being a public laughingstock by "defending" it via inept use of generative AI.

During the first Trump administration, I wrote about actors who were knowingly wrecking their reputation by working in the Oval Office on the (probably correct) theory that if they didn't do it, someone worse would. They knew that history would view them as a villain, and accepted that judgment in order to avert greater evil. The above example is a perhaps even more extreme case -- a sort of reputational suicide bomber. The attorney would sabotage some great evil, but at the cost of everyone for all time thinking of him as Trump's most incompetent lickspittle.

We saw recently a longtime DOJ attorney, Ed Sullivan, agree to file a motion to dismiss the Eric Adams indictment, reportedly to avert a complete and total purge of the Public Integrity Unit by one of Trump's cronies. The order to dismiss the Adams case had already led to widespread resignations over what was transparent quid-pro-quo corruption -- trading non-prosecution in exchange for Adams' cooperation in enforcing Trumpist immigration policies. Sullivan reportedly agreed to fall on the grenade so as to spare his colleagues; this has in turn generated a roaring debate over whether Sullivan was right to do so or should have forced Trump's lackey to fully reenact the Saturday Night Massacre. I don't here make any judgment on which side of that debate got things right. But we're going to see more difficult questions as those on the inside consider how to resist abuse and forestall catastrophe. And while we like to imagine that the "right" choice at least comes with the perk of being viewed heroically, the more interesting choices may be ones where it is precisely one's reputation that must be sacrificed in order to truly avert the greatest evil.

The Dangerous Weave of Historical Maximalism

The principle that it is wrong to slaughter civilians -- going house-to-house with the express agenda of gruesomely murdering the men, women, and children you find there -- is seemingly so obvious it seems impossible imagine it must be "taught". Surely, it is a principle we all understand at some intuitive, base level. And yet, history is replete with such murders and massacres -- in all parts of the world, in every time period, amongst persons of every social strata and political proclivity -- a history that somehow must be compatible with our knowing, at some deep level, that it is wrong. As a species, we are good at murder. But we're experts at rationalizing it.

It's important to know history. But arguments from history are dangerous things. History offers a near-infinitely rich and diverse series of threads, from which one can weave virtually any tapestry one desires. For a species that excels at rationalizing brutality of the worst forms, this should concern us, for all of us can easily be seduced by a historical narrative that eases us back into apologia, justification, or even celebration of unthinkable atrocities. 

The experience of the past few weeks has been, to a large extent, the witnessing of folks -- sometimes our colleagues, sometimes our friends -- weaving tapestries of death in real time. There is little more depressing than reading Facebook posts and op-eds and blog posts by people you know and, on most days, like, and watching them work through the process by which they become apologists for massacres.

None of us should be too confident in our immunity from the pattern. Indeed, there's a degree to which this danger is most prominent for the well-informed, the educated, the "experts". There's research that suggests that education increases ideological polarization, because every bit of knowledge -- every book you read or conference you attend -- is, or can be, the raw materials through which one can support and fortify one's own preferred narrative against challenge or refutation. It is no accident, I think, that many of the worst voices on Israel and Palestine are "the professionals" who've steeped themselves in the debate for years -- the PhD students, the organizational warriors. It's not just that the debate itself is so toxic that it can't help but have a corrupting effect (though it is that). It's that the process of learning more, if one isn't careful, paradoxically becomes a mechanism to hate better and more righteously than would otherwise be possible.

One can easily tell a historical tale through which Israel is naught but a savage European colonial imposition, to which any form of resistance is necessary and appropriate. Tell this narrative frequently and loudly and univocally enough, and it degrades one's ability to call atrocity "atrocity", potentially beyond repair, as we saw over the past few weeks:

Suddenly forced to decide whether, in the wake of occupation and besiegement, a Palestinian response of "a systemic campaign of house-to-house kidnappings, rapes, and executions" is a valid one, we saw far, far too many individuals unable to say "no" (or at least, say it with any level of decisiveness). This failure stems directly from the tempting broth that assures us that, if the provocation is severe enough and the injury severe enough, no amount of "response" could ever be disproportionate. And so we see that, if you refuse to let yourself think that anything could be "too far", there's no end to the depths of hell you may find yourself apologizing for.

But to be clear: others can tell other tales, wherein Israel is naught but Jewish decolonization and liberation, for which any measures are justified to valorize and defend (there's a story, I've said, where revanchist Zionism is what happens when Fanon wins in a rout); or where Palestine (in quotes) is itself a colonial invasion which cannot be permitted to exist and must be extirpated by any means necessary. All of these tales weave history differently, and all of them (this is important) pull from portions of "reality" (neither the colonial or decolonial elements of Zionism are simply made up), but in their maximalism and extremity they are seductresses back to the pattern of atrocity justification.

That I used some version of "(de)colonialism" in all of those stories is no accident, but not because I think the concept of "(de)colonialism" is inherently diseased. To the contrary, we speak in the argot of the times, and so it is unsurprising (albeit not especially revelatory) that today's maximalist narratives will try to bootstrap them onto those terms which seem most vibrant in the potential for justifying radical action (and what are atrocities if not radical?). In different times and contexts, the argot will be different, and once again that very polysemous character of history is part of what enables it to so easily serve as raw materials for justificatory atrocity. Monsters justify the infliction of atrocities via many words -- "decolonialization", "self-defense", "averting genocide", "patriotism," "turnabout", "just deserts", "liberation" -- and their usage neither discredits the words, nor does their use of the words mean we must credit their atrocity.

So what do we do, when confronted with this vast, untamable polysemousness of history and ideology? One choice is to try to assert, with evermore earnest, desperate, or self-righteous vigor, the One True Story (Zionism IS ethnonationalist colonialism, Palestinian nationalism IS exterminationist antisemitism) that can supply the threads necessary to weave our tapestries of death; that can explain why it is okay (or understandable, or a tragic necessity, or commensurable tit-for-tat) to machine-gun concert-goers or to torch olive trees, or to permanently deprive millions of Palestinians citizenship rights on the land where they live, or to eradicate the one political space on the planet where Jews have control over their own destiny. That so many find that path appealing is, I think, precisely because of the destination it promises -- the seduction of being able to hate and murder and pillage and deface and expropriate and have it all be justified.

But that is not the only choice. We should know history well enough to respect it, and respect it enough to know that it cannot truly be mastered for the service of any one political cause. Historical maximalism is, ultimately, a corruption of history, and for that reason it will never persuade anyone not already primed to be persuaded. In cases of protracted group conflict, what one inevitably gets is dueling maximalists; two sides both utterly convinced of their righteousness and ready to scorch the earth on the path to heaven. 

Precisely because the path of historical maximalism promises everything, it can ultimately offer nothing: "a moral race to the bottom" that is inevitably a path towards death. Acknowledgment of the pluripotent strands of history can be the means through which we resist maximalism and extremity, resist the siren's call of boundless violence, and instead reform around a pragmatic humanism whose very lack of complete self-assuredness serves as a bulwark against our instinct to rationalize atrocity.

One does not need to behead infants near Sderot. One does not need to set fire to Huwara. These are choices, as is the choice to serve as apologists for them. They're choice made inside a weave of history that sings out with the false promise that they are justified or inevitable or in some way not as bad as we know, in our heart of hearts, they truly are. 

It is a terrible thing, to watch people you know and love and care about submit the temptation of history and ideology to defend brutality in the service of maximalism. I hope more people make better choices.

Keeping Perspective on July 4th

As you may have seen, a federal judge in Louisiana has issued a sweeping injunction prohibiting all manner of communications between the Biden administration and social media companies which seek to tamp down on misinformation and conspiracies. In the first paragraph of a sprawling opinion, Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee with a history of indulging the most extreme right-wing Republican theories, characterized the allegations as "arguably involv[ing] the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history."

Since it is the Fourth of July, I feel compelled to observe that we used to have in this nation laws which prohibited teaching Black people how to read. These prohibitions existed side-by-side with laws forbidding anti-slavery advocacy. I daresay that such laws represent a more "massive" assault on free speech than government efforts to convince social media outlets not to promote dangerous misinformation in the heart of a deadly pandemic (or, for that matter, seeking to persuade media outlets not to publish classified material they come to possess -- notwithstanding their clear First Amendment right to do so under the Pentagon Papers precedent. Which is to say, government tries to convince media actors not to publish things all the time, and absent actual coercion it is of no First Amendment concern).

The little King Georges who now dot the federal judiciary would do well to learn a little history (if such history can still lawfully be taught in Louisiana) and keep a sense of perspective.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXV: The Titanic (Again)

This series has, perhaps unsurprisingly, already covered the Titanic (twice). But given the recent news, it's perhaps equally unsurprising that this conspiracy has gained new life. Now, we can blame the Jews for sinking the Titan (to prevent people from learning that the Jews sunk the Titanic, naturally).

Far-right conspiracy theorist Stew Peters is pushing a conspiracy theory that the OceanGate submarine was purposely sunk “to keep people from visiting the Titanic wreckage” because doing so would supposedly reveal that the Titanic “was sunk by a newly created” Rothschilds-connected Federal Reserve and not an iceberg. Numerous Republican politicians and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have appeared on Peters’ program.  

Peters is a white nationalist who frequently encourages violence against his perceived enemies. He has pushed a multitude of conspiracy theories, including those related to QAnon, COVID-19, Pizzagate, flat Earth, the moon landing, and the Uvalde and Sandy Hook mass shootings. 

Despite his toxic history, numerous politicians have appeared on his program, including Reps. Paul Gosar, Bob Good, Pete Sessions, and Andy Biggs; and Kennedy. 

It's always the people you most suspect. And you just know that any list which can be summarized as "numerous Republican politicians and Robert F. Kennedy Jr." is going to be for something amazing.

How Long Will The Second Redemption Last?

If you asked me to summarize the contemporary conservative legal mantra, it would go: "We had to suffer through the Second Reconstruction; so you're going to endure a Second Redemption."

There's little doubt in my mind that we are in the era of the Second Redemption: a fundamentally anti-democratic backlash against racial equality and progressivism more broadly that has captured elite institutions (particularly the federal courts) and seeks to entrench minoritarian political power as against liberal political priorities. In particular, the Supreme Court right now is not just conservative, it acts basically as the Republican Party's anti-democratic goon squad for the precise purpose of decoupling conservative political power from democratic accountability.

The cast of cases that fit this mold is sprawling. You have the cases that hoist nigh-insurmountable barriers to popular progressive priorities (Bruen, Citizens United, Parents Involved) , those that overturn prior precedents which had secured rights and projects central to the liberal project (Dobbs, the Harvard/UNC affirmative actions cases), and -- most worrisome to me -- the cases which directly undermine the very structures of representative democracy that reflects the popular will (Shelby County, Rucho, Brnovich, the "Independent State Legislature" cases). 

That conclusion felt quite the downer, and so it got me to thinking how long the Second Redemption is likely to last. Of course, the whole purpose of the Redemption -- first and second -- was to insulate itself from political recourse, so it is far from guaranteed that even wildly unpopular judicial machinations will be abled to be countered by "democratic" responses. Nonetheless, I am generally of the view that politics is cyclical -- periods of democratic progress are followed by backsliding and regress, which eventually yield to renewed progress again. The big question is simply how long the cycles last. And while there's obviously no guarantee that the Second Redemption will mirror the timeline of the first, it does offer at least a point of reference.

The original Redemption refers to the successful reclamation by White supremacists of political institutions in the American south that had temporarily been integrated during Reconstruction. Its beginnings are typically dated to 1877, and generally had succeeded by the 1890s. However, the "Long Redemption" -- if by that we mean the period in which the Supreme Court was generally a force for anti-democratic retrenchment as against progressive political initiatives -- continued for quite awhile after that, and probably should not be deemed over until the "switch in time" of 1936.*

1877 to 1936 -- that's nearly sixty years. Well, that's not too comforting, even if it does suggest that eventually the reign of the witches will pass. But then the next question is, "how far along are we in the Second Redemption"? Put differently, when did the Second Redemption begin? Many legal commentators have dated the beginnings of the earnest judicial backlash to the Second Reconstruction (typically dated roughly from 1945 - 1968) as starting in the 1980s with the Reagan administration (though some would place it even earlier, in the Nixon administration). If that's the case, we may be pretty far along in the process!

Of course, what settled for a conservative backlash in 1980 is positively tame compared to what's happening right now. But the Long Redemption was not a slow crest followed by an equally slow decline. Some of the most reactionary justices and judicial decisions were present right up to the end of the line (Justice McReynolds could give even the most racist 19th century SCOTUS justice a run for his money). There's good reason to think that anti-democratic forces in elite institutions will be at their most extreme and fight most fervently when they sense that the end may be nigh.

We can only hope.

* While 1936 is more often viewed as a dividing line for the Court's economic jurisprudence -- the abandonment of Lochner-ism and the accession to New Deal programs -- it also tracks when the Court started to pivot towards more concern for racial minority rights. Carolene Products, whose "footnote 4" became the ur-text of the liberal judicial approach to civil rights, was decided in 1938. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, which augured the changing of the tides against school segregation, was decided that same year.

A Synagogue in New Mexico

You may have seen the story bandying about the internet: "A tiny New Mexico Jewish community is trying to buy back its historic synagogue building". The community in question is Las Vegas, New Mexico -- what I affectionately dub "the other Las Vegas". I have an affectionate dubbing because, as it happens, there was a possibility that I'd be moving to that town of that 13,000 souls 88 miles away from Albuquerque.

My last year on the job market, before I ended up accepting a position at Lewis & Clark, the position I was "furthest" along in was a political science/legal studies job at New Mexico Highlands University, which is located in Las Vegas. I was far enough into the process there that I started to research facts about the city in question (such as its distance from the nearest large city and -- of utmost importance to my wife -- the distance to the nearest Target). I also looked into the city's Jewish community in history, where I learned many of the facts the rest of the internet picked up over the past few days -- the historic synagogue (the oldest in New Mexico), and the fact that the synagogue is no longer in Jewish hands following the gradual diminution of the town's Jewish population.

I don't have any substantive commentary to add. It was just an interesting bit of overlap between the current news and a near-miss in my life, and the unique challenges and history of being Jewish in a town that may have Jewish history, but does not have many in the way of Jews.

The Legacy of Trump Appointees Who Resigned Now

Many people are wondering how we should assess the legacy of Trump appointees who now, finally, have resigned from his administration. How much should this stand serve to rehabilitate them in the eyes of history? Is it meaningful, or is it too little too late?

My view is simple: If you resigned today, I agree you are absolved from responsibility for whatever Trump does in his last twelve days in office. Your moral liability for the preceding three years and eleven months (or however long you were in the administration) remains unaffected. If Betsy DeVos wants to start the clock running from the time she tried and failed in the push to invoke the 25th Amendment, I'm fine with that too.

How Leila Khaled's Second Hijacking Attempt Was Foiled

This is a gripping account from the pilot of El Al flight 219, which Leila Khaled and a partner tried to hijack in 1970. Khaled had already successfully hijacked an Israel-bound plane in 1969, and in this attempt they shot and severely wounded a flight attendant and pulled the pin on two hand grenades, seriously threatening the lives of remaining passengers and crew. The pilot's quick thinking (he had previously served in the Israeli air force) managed to allow Israeli security officers to regain control of the plane (though they were aided by a stroke of pure luck -- Khaled's grenades never went off).

Incredibly, I found out recently that a professional colleague of mine was on this very flight, along with her daughter. As she tells it, they were sitting a row behind Khaled when the hijacking began.

It's worth noting that Khaled not only has never repudiated her prior acts of terrorism, but she continues to extol them as the epitome of virtuous resistance. There are, in history generally and the Middle East specifically, plenty of people with dim chapters in their past who've gone on to do salutary or even heroic things. Khaled, though, as best I can tell, is remembered primarily -- by both her admirers and detractors -- for her role in terrorizing innocents, and has never really evolved politically beyond that.

Should I PlagueWatch It?: Gentleman Jack

I remember seeing ads for Gentleman Jack when Game of Thrones was ending, and being intrigued. The show is about the real-life Anne Lister, and 18th century British landowner who dressed in masculine clothes and lived relatively openly as a lesbian and is often cited as participating in England's first (non-legally sanctioned) same-sex marriage to her partner Ann Walker.

But I never did see it then, and it was only the rapidly dwindling stockpile of television brought upon by the lockdown that finally caused me to watch it (seriously: I think I've seen every good episode of Community -- which is most of them -- at least a dozen times at this point). Should you join me? Some quick thoughts to help you decide:

• The early episodes (and, as I recall, the advertising), leans pretty hard into a "she's a badass landlady! Look at her collecting rents from the tenants without mercy or tolerating any nonsense!" framing. This is a bit odd to watch in the present political moment.
• It is a sign of how far we've come as a society that this series could even be made -- not because it features a lesbian relationship, but because even ten years ago I think it would've been seen as homophobic the way that she "recruits" (she may even use the word) Ann Walker to be her lover.
• Yes, the two characters are named Anne and Ann. It's not that confusing. Usually. But keeping all the other side characters straight is a nearly impossible endeavor.
• My reaction towards Ann Walker generally took the following arc, occurring over two episode cycles: "Damn, that woman is messed up." "Oh wow, she's had a really tragic life though." "But damn that woman is messed up!" "Oh my gosh, there's just an endless reservoir of tragedy for her isn't there?"
• The show also features Gemma Whelan, aka Yara Greyjoy, as Anne's far more conventionally feminine sister Marian. It's very interesting to see Whelan play a character that is about as far from Yara as possible. But the show does something I very much like in resisting the cliched juxtaposition of the liberated, modern Anne against the straightlaced, intolerant, conservative Marian. They clearly have a somewhat antagonistic relationship, but it seems to have almost nothing to do with Anne's sexuality. Moreover, it is made evident at various points that Marian is in many respects more liberal than her sister -- particularly with regards to class issues and respectful treatment of servants. In all, Anne's family is shown to be pretty well accepting of her.
• My head canon is that this show is the prequel to Downton Abbey, and I refuse to be dissuaded on the point.

Jill and I are a sucker for a good period drama, preferably one without gratuitous violence, and Gentleman Jack scratches that itch. Is it transcendent? No. But it's worth a watch if you're into the genre.

Best Epic Rap Battles of History (By Season)

Look, we're all bored here, so let's award the best Epic Rap Battles of History for each season.

Season One

Winner: Albert Einstein vs. Stephen Hawking
Honorable Mentions: Dr. Seuss vs. Shakespeare, Napoleon vs. Napoleon

The season that started it all. Honestly, though, I think only Einstein vs. Hawking can compete with the stronger entrants in later seasons. The creators -- reasonably enough! -- were still finding their rhythm (get it?).

Season Two
Winner: Michael Jackson vs. Elvis
Runner-up: Rasputin vs. Stalin
Honorable Mentions: Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates, Cleopatra vs. Marilyn Monroe

Now we're cooking. The kid who plays young Michael Jackson was superb, and carries his battle to victory. The Rasputin vs. Stalin (vs. Lenin vs. Gorbachev vs. Putin) battle was strong almost top-to-bottom (only Gorbachev was a bit of a sour note for me). Jobs vs. Gates was a ton of a fun (remember those Mac vs. PC ads?). And Cleopatra vs. Monroe was a superb all-women battle with some truly vicious disses. Freddie Mercury's performance over Frank Sinatra was also a stand-out, but he won so convincingly the battle was actually too one-sided to make this list.

Season Three
Winner: Isaac Newton vs. Bill Nye
Runner-up: Edgar Allen Poe vs. Stephen King
Honorable Mention: Bob Ross vs. Pablo Picasso 

It's tough to top getting Weird Al in one of these (though if Neil deGrasse Tyson had actually played himself -- which I've heard he was willing to do -- it would have been even cooler). Stephen King has one of the best closing lines in the whole series. Bob Ross vs. Picasso is relatively light, but consistent all the way through. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. their namesake Renaissance Artists was good, but the performance was a little short. I also suspect I'm virtually alone in thinking that Miley Cyrus beat Joan of Arc (and pretty decisively, frankly).

Season Four
Winner: Stan Lee vs. Jim Henson
Runner-up: Western Philosophers vs. Eastern Philosophers
Honorable Mention: Ellen vs. Oprah

If you forced me to pick my absolute, all-time favorite, I'd probably go with Lee vs. Henson -- but it'd be torture. If you asked to pick me single favorite verse, though, it'd be Walt Disney's intervention in Lee vs. Henson -- and it would not be close. It's brilliant from start to finish (and, to be clear, compliments very strong work from Lee and Henson). As a political theorist, I found the philosophy battle hilarious. Ellen vs. Oprah is also a very good, evenly matched battle (and one of the few "clean" ones on ERB).

Season Five
Winner: George R.R. Martin vs. J.R.R. Tolkien
Runner-up: Gordon Ramsay vs. Julia Child
Honorable Mentions: Tony Hawk vs. Wayne Gretzky, Ash Ketchum vs. Charles Darwin

This was an absolutely loaded season -- I think clearly ERB's strongest overall. Tolkien's final verse where he works in all the titles of the Lord of the Rings is just masterful. I'm a dedicated Gordon Ramsay fan but Julia Child completely kicked his ass. Tony Hawk's incredible first verse is matched by Wayne Gretzky's brutal last verse. And Darwin has one of the great one-liners of all-time calling Ash "Mighty Morphin' Michael Vick." All that talent means a ton of tracks I love don't even make it onto the honorable mentions list here: (Daniel Craig) James Bond vs. Austin Powers, Ivan the Terrible versus various "the Greats", Wonder Women versus Stevie Wonder, and Winston Churchill versus Theodore Roosevelt are all superb.

Season Six
Winner: Guy Fawkes vs. Che Guevara
Runner-up: Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg
Honorable Mention: Ronald McDonald vs. The Burger King

This was a shaky season on the whole, but Fawkes vs. Guevara is one of the best in the entire series -- a distinction based primarily around the dead-on Che Guevara portrayal (who knew he also looks exactly like Jon Snow?), but certainly with an impressive toe-to-toe performance from Fawkes. Musk vs. Zuckerberg has a wonderful subtle gag running through it in that Mark "I don't even fucking blink" Zuckerberg in fact never blinks during the whole video. The McDonald vs. Burger King rap sneaks into honorable mention, but not due to either of the titular characters -- Wendy steals the show. Wendy's the company actually tweeted about the rap, which is a bit gutsy given their mascot's line about how she's "exploiting you both like you were growing my tomatoes."

Will Liberal Zionism Be the Bundism of the 21st Century?

Born in 1907, Isaac Deutscher was one of the more prominent Jewish Marxist intellectuals of the 20th Century. Prior to World War II, his commitment to Marxism caused him to oppose Zionism as antithetical to the cause of international socialism. After the Holocaust, however, he lamented his prior position, writing that "If, instead of arguing against Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s, I had urged European Jews to go to Palestine, I might have helped to save some of the lives that were to be extinguished in Hitler’s gas chambers."

I'm inclined to think Deutscher was a little too hard on himself. It's not just that nobody can predict the future. It's that many political positions, plausible in the particular historical moment they were adapted, turn out to lead to dead-ends or calamities -- not because of an intrinsic rot in their views, but because of the unpredictable contingencies and choices and events far outside the individual capacity or reckoning of any one person to influence.

There are ideologies that are wrong "in the moment", such that we can justly judge harshly someone who adhered to them without demanding clairvoyance as to the ultimate route of history. But the Jews, such as the Bundists,* who opposed anti-Zionism in the early 20th century because they believed instead that Jewish equality should be fought for "here" rather than "there", are not I think culpable in this way. They believed that equality and security for Jews could come via liberalism and humanist values in any state. Zionists believed they could only be guaranteed in a Jewish state. "In this controversy," Deutscher wrote, "Zionism scored a dreadful victory, one which it could neither wish nor expect." One understands Deutscher's feeling of guilt. But I don't think it was wrong for Deutscher, sitting where he was in 1927, to argue for what he did. His political vision was plausible and defensible. He was entitled to fight for it. But many plausible and defensible political visions, which people are entitled to fight for, do not come to pass -- and this was one of them. History's weave took a plausible, defensible position like Bundism and wrecked it.

Bundism effectively was killed in the Holocaust; only today is it seeing the tiniest stirrings of resurgence in the West. But I wonder if Liberal Zionism -- which I'll summarize as comprising the ideas that a Jewish state in Israel (a) is legitimate as a means of instantiating self-determination for the Jewish people; (b) is compatible with and obligated to secure full democratic and political equality for non-Jews in the state of Israel; and (c) should co-exist side-by-side and peaceably with a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza -- will be this century's Bundism.

I don't mean that it will collapse in a historical calamity as grave as the Holocaust (pray not). What I mean is that, like Bundism, Liberal Zionism is I think a plausible, defensible vision which simply may not survive history's weave. Certainly, those who've always opposed Zionism in any form (and often reserved especial contempt for the liberal variety) have been quick to sing of Liberal Zionism's demise, and to deride those who purported to think of it as anything but a masquerade for oppression. But those of us who genuinely held to Liberal Zionism as our vision of the future are today gripped with an unprecedented wave of pessimism and despair, as we find it harder and harder to see a viable path forward to actualize all its commitments. We can squabble all we want over who is to "blame" for its infirmity -- Israeli maximalism versus Palestinian intransigence; Bibi versus Abbas; Trump versus Obama; Arafat walking away at Camp David or Kushner pulling the rug out with his "peace plan" -- but Liberal Zionism's vitality as an achievable political future seems to be shriveling with every passing day.

And so we're left wondering what our legacy will be in a world where a core political commitment of ours simply ... failed. Probably (hopefully) not in such a cataclysmic fashion as Bundism did, but failed nonetheless. Deutscher was left to wonder what might have been different had he not chosen a failed path. Liberal Zionists may well have to ask ourselves similar questions.

History always feels inevitable in retrospect -- we know, after the fact, what the "right" and "wrong" choices were. But as I said, I'm inclined to be more charitable. That a political vision failed does not mean it was baked into the political universe that it was always doomed to fail. Humans make choices; political action always depends on the choices of others and so carries the unavoidable risk that they will choose in such a way as to close off even plausible, defensible paths. The Bundists lost, but they were not shown to be fools or villains -- and they were entitled to at least view their failure as a tragedy.

Perhaps Liberal Zionism will lose too. If it does, those who held to it will not be fools or villains, and we will be entitled to view our failure as a tragedy. And who knows -- like Bundism, Liberal Zionism may see its own resurgence sometime far into the future. Stranger rebirths have happened.

* Deutscher himself did not join the Bundists either, being uninterested in its attachment to Yiddishism.

Post-Thankful Roundup

I was thankful on Thanksgiving, but now the holiday is over and I'm back to being misanthropic.

* * *

The Chronicle of Higher Education profiles Kate Manne (congrats on her baby, by the way!).

I'd find these complaints about how the right is rewriting Mizrahi history to suit its political agenda more compelling if the left hadn't completely abandoned this arena for years (with occasional exceptions for hopelessly idealized histories that are equally political, just with different motivations).

A new survey on British antisemitism is out and making waves. I think several of their methodological choices are questionable, to say the least, which prevents me from endorsing its conclusions without reservation. That's unfortunate because there is some interesting data in there, but it's occluded by the authors' own manifest ideological biases. I might write separately on this.

Shocking-not-shocking, part one: A Jewish member of the McGill student government was given an ultimatum to either withdraw from a trip to Israel or resign (she's doing neither, and daring the body to impeach her). Shocking-not-shocking, part two: A non-Jewish student government member going on the same trip was weirdly overlooked and given a pass.

Ohio legislators introduce bill threatening life imprisonment for any woman, girl, or doctor who has or performs an abortion. "Abortion", here, includes not reimplanting an ectopic pregnancy, which is currently not medically possible.

Anti-Vaxxers make headway in Samoa; dozens of people die of measles in Samoa.

Is there a word -- presumably, a German word that's four words smashed together -- for the distinct feeling of anger one gets at a person or object precisely because one knows one can't reasonably be angry at that person or object? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Has Elvis Left the Building?

I'm wondering if we're reaching the end of the days where Elvis is a relevant cultural landmark?

Las Vegas, for example, still has Elvis impersonators and Elvis wedding chapels. But is he a meaningful figure for the next generation? Even kids of my era knew Elvis -- through our parents, yes, but many of us grew up listening to the "oldies" station and so knew all the songs of that era pretty well by heart. Today? I'm dubious. I'm sure kids these days know who Elvis is, and probably can do a good "thankyouverymuch" impression. But he's probably fading as a phenomenon. Even to me, he already feels pretty quaint.

Some of this, of course, is the inexorable march of time. But it is interesting to see which songs from that era have staying power and which don't. The obvious place to look is which songs show up in advertisements. "Happy Together" by The Turtles is a great example -- a solid but not transcendent hit which nonetheless seems destined to stay a part of our cultural life for years to come. Which of Elvis' songs fall in the same boat? I don't have one jumping to the forefront of my mind.

And looking ahead: how long before we're wondering the same thing about The Beatles? And then Michael Jackson?

A Month of Black Jewish History

At the start of February, a Twitter friend of mine -- Shawn Harris -- issued a challenge: for the entire month, write one post a day on some aspect of Black Jewish history. I interpreted that broadly -- to include everything from historical articles, to academic essays, to simply linking to the profiles of Black Jewish writers whose work I've enjoyed or learned from over the years.

My thread begins here. But I also thought it might be worth collecting the month's worth of posts in one spot, on the blog.

A good chunk of the entries were simply promoting Black Jewish figures. That included some prominent academics and writers, like Lewis Gordon, Julius Lester, and Jamaica Kincaid, Rabbi Capers Funnye of Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, as well as personal friends like Jake Grumbach (soon to be an assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington) and Twitter connections like Blewish. My last entry of the whole month was dedicated to Shawn Harris herself, in honor of her inspiring the thread in the first place.

For others, I linked to a particular essay that had spoken to me -- this included Adam Serwer on Tamika Mallory and Louis Farrakhan, Stacey Aviva Flint on the Movement for Black Lives platform, Tema Smith on Ilhan Omar, and an omnibus collection of Black Jewish reflections on MLK Day. My book recommendation, MaNishtana's "Ariel Samson: Freelance Rabbi", and academic article recommendation, Carol Conaway's "Journey to the Promised Land: How I Became an African-American Jew Rather Than a Jewish African American", also fall into this category.

One entry that particularly tickled me was this interview with rapper "Young Gravy" -- mostly because I was the guy who suggested doing such an interview to the Forward's culture editor in the first place. Other musical entries include rapper Nissim Black and the spoken word poetry of Aaron Levy Samuels.

Black Jews are Jews. That is the case inside the Jewish community and outside as well. On the former, consider this profile on Ilana Kaufman, focusing on her work trying to further foster the elevation of JOC voices in American Jewish leadership positions, or Shekhiynah Larks on doing "Birthright while Black". On the latter, here's Michael Twitty saying the Shehecheyanu while accepted the James Beard award, and a list of Black Jews nominated for NAACP image awards.

The Ethiopian Jewish community is by no means the only part of Black Jewish history, but it does matter. My first entry in the whole series was on the efforts of Ethiopian Jews to help serve their European compatriots during the Holocaust. Other entries focused on the Ethiopian Jewish community include this one by Haftam Yitzak-Heathwood on racism against Ethiopians in Israel, and profiles of Pnina Tamano-Shata (the first Ethiopian Israeli women to be elected to Knesset), "Miss Israel" Titi Aynaw. and Mehereta Baruch-Ron (former Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv). There also is a vibrant Jewish community and history in Africa outside of Ethiopia, as this conference sought to emphasize.

It's important to not overstate "conversion" as an element of the Black Jewish experience, but certainly that is an important of some Black Jewish stories. Here's the conversion arc of former NFLer Calvin (now Yosef) Murray.

And finally, for my birthday, I stretched a bit and plugged my own article: White Jews: An Intersectional Approach, which is forthcoming in the Association for Jewish Studies Review.

What Are Jews?

Thirty years ago, the great feminist Jewish writer Evelyn Torton Beck wrote that "if the concept ‘Jew’ does not fit the categories we have created, then … we need to rethink our categories."

She was echoing an observation by Albert Memmi, who lamented the "sociologists' lack of imagination" in their insistent efforts to slot "Jews" into a familiar and well-trodden social category schemas.

For it sometimes seems that any answer to the question "what are Jews" doesn't quite work.

Are we a religion? Yes, in part -- but certainly not just that. There are and have always been many Jews, fully recognized as part of the Jewish community, who have no particular religious or spiritual orientation whatsoever. The attempt to delimit Jewishness as "just a religion" almost always is an attempt to degrade or delegitimize Jewishness as a collective identity in favor of an individualistic, atomized spirituality where people "just happen to be Jewish" as they might happen to be Catholic or Protestant.

Are we a race? Surely, at times Jews have been racialized -- most notably by Nazi racial scientists. But why should we so eagerly accept their conclusions? Moreover, the argument that Jews are a "race" doesn't rest easily with acknowledgment of racial diversity within Judaism. Are Black Jews not Black (because their race is Jewish)? Or are they not truly Jewish (because their race is Black)? Or if we accept that there are Black Jews and Latino Jews and Persian Jews, what am I? "Just Jewish"? How come I get the neutral descriptor? What makes my Jewish identity more central than theirs?

Are we an ethnicity? Much of the same issues with "race" seem to apply, and most of the usage of "ethnicity" around Judaism typically is more fine-grained around Ashkenazi versus Sephardic. But even there, it has been observed that these are minhags -- there are a great many African-American Ashkenazi Jews, after all -- so why should Ashkenazi be defined in terms of ethnicity, as opposed to liturgical community?

Are we a "nation"? Clearly we've often defined ourselves that way. But doing so seems to walk straight into a dual loyalty charge -- after all, isn't my nation American? Is there are difference between "Jewish" the nation and "Israel" the nation?

Sometimes I dodge and just say Jews are a "people", which works -- but only because it is so self-consciously vague. What is a "people"? What am I even trying to communicate in describing Jews that way?

Recently, I heard someone say that the best way to describe Jews is as a "civilization". A civilization can include people of an array of different racial or ethnic backgrounds, under a multitude of different political authorities. It might have an associated religion, but it can admit a diverse range of manners of practicing it or living it out. A civilization has distinctive art, culture, history, politics -- and not just one thread of these, but many. There is Jewish art, but not just one style; Jewish history, but not just one narrator; Jewish culture, but not just one form.

Is it a perfect fit? No. But if it doesn't fit, the problem might not be with the Jews, but with the categories which fail to fully account for the Jewish case. And for me, I'd much rather preserve the ambivalent, fuzzy contours of the Jewish civilization than I would attempt to shoehorn Jews into a category that wasn't built for us to occupy.

Falling on the Reputational Grenade

There is an interesting story to be written about a certain type of Trump administration official, with the following characteristics: They recognize the Trump administration is a moral catastrophe. They recognize that their participation in it will wholly ruin their reputation -- if history remembers them, it will be as a collaborator with evil. And yet they work in the administration anyway because, they believe, that if they don't do it, somebody worse will.

I suspect people like this exist -- Mattis could be one, though I don't have any interest in debating particular names and I certainly don't want to suggest that this is a common attribute of Trump administration officials.

But it's a fascinating possibility, isn't it? We talk a lot about people who sacrifice their safety or even their lives out of a sense of duty. But the idea of someone knowingly sacrificing their reputation -- wholly cognizant that they will be viewed as (at best) a schmuck and that it will be in a large sense well-deserved, but acting anyway because (they think) they're averting some greater evil -- that thought intrigues me.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume L: The Titanic

It's the 50th iteration of this series! When we began, way back with the Fukashima disaster, could anyone have imagined we'd find fifty random world events that people blamed on the Jews? (answer: yes, effortlessly)

On this special day, we explore blaming the Jews for The Titanic. The ship, not the movie (obviously, we get the movie by default since, you know, Hollywood. I'll leave it to the commenters to decide whether the 1997 Oscar Best Picture is something to be blamed or credited for).

Anyway. A Canadian Arabic-language newspaper has an account of why the Titanic was built, and why it sank. You might be surprised to learn that neither "luxury passenger travel" nor "icebergs" factor into the narrative:

The Jewish Freemasons built the giant Titanic ship and charged it with the fictional costs, only to kill three businessmen, who built it with a magnificent construction, to drag them on board, and then sink them into the ocean floor and bury the secret with them for ever. The [businessmen were against] the idea of ​​creating the Federal Reserve! They loved to be rid of them in order to pave the way for the new world order. 

This is the sort conspiracy theory that really riles me up. I mean, it's one thing to accuse Jews of murdering powerful global actors as part of a plot to retain dominance of the international financial system. It's another thing to have us take such a manifestly inefficient path towards the goal.

Do you really think that there aren't simpler ways to kill three businessmen than constructing the largest ship the world had ever seen, then sinking her during her maiden voyage? Think of how wasteful that is! You're an antisemite -- you're supposed to think Jews are stingy.

I can accept baseless conspiratorial hatred, but I will die before my tribe is charged with sloppy craftsmanship. There are lines, people.

Jackie Robinson's Other Break of the Color Barrier

This was an interesting bit of trivia I didn't know about. In 1944, 2nd Lt. Jackie Robinson -- yes, that Jackie Robinson -- was court-martialed after refusing to move to the back of a bus on a Texas army base. The army had recently desegregated army buses on army bases, and so Robinson knew he was entirely in the right when he refused to move back. Nonetheless, he was taken into custody and interrogated by a superior officer who was none too keen on the "uppity" Robinson.

Robinson was charged with insubordination, but in part thanks to excellent representation and in part thanks to sterling testimony by his battalion commander, he was acquitted of all charges.

First Rule of Jews Is ... Don't Talk About Jews

Carrie Rickey has a fabulous article in the Forward documenting Hollywood's history of casting non-Jews to play Jews (alongside the famous propensity of Jewish actors to change their name in a goyish direction -- paging Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz). I was a bit surprised it didn't mention the most recent example of this -- the non-Jewish Rachel Brosnahan cast as the lead in the exceptionally Jewish Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I did recall reading at least a few murmurs of discontent about this, though the general vibe among the Jews I know is that it's a great performance on a great show.

Anyway, the paradox Rickey identifies in her article is that many of the Hollywood moguls who resolutely refused to cast Jews in Jewish parts (and often tried to avoid Jewish themes altogether) were themselves Jewish. What gives? The answer is that these Jews were convinced "that movies about Jews would incite anti-Semitism" -- they wanted at all costs to avoid the sense that they were tribalistic, or insular, or that Hollywood was (as it was in the antisemitic imagination) a "Jewish" front. One upshot of this was that the people freest to produce movies about Jews were the non-Jews. Another, of course, was that non-Jews were considered less objectionable or dangerous choices to play what Jewish roles there were.

There's actually a parallel to the academic world here. Academia in the United States has certainly had a robust Jewish presence, but for many years these Jews almost never wrote on Jewish topics (see here for how this played out in Anthropology). Jews were in fact specifically counseled to avoid such matters, lest they be seen as provincial or tribal. And so for the most part, we wrote on other things. Even now, when there's been a flowering of "identity" research in academia (e.g., "ethnic studies"), Jewish Studies have lagged considerably behind -- again, a fact belied by the raw numbers of Jews in academia (on that score, we continue to be just fine). I can tell you I've been counseled on more than one occasion -- albeit with varying degrees of explicitness -- to downplay or cover the Jewish elements of my research agenda. So this is ongoing.

#NeverAgain Means Constantly Packing Enough Firepower To Bring Down a Tank

Some of you have no doubt seen Rep. Don Young (R-AK)'s suggestion that the Holocaust wouldn't have happened had the Jews been armed.

On twitter, responding to a similar claim, I observed that the Warsaw Uprising (where some Jews did have guns) belies the notion that Jews simply having guns would have meaningfully obstructed the Nazi genocidal machine. To which the reply was -- well, clearly they didn't have enough guns. Which, given that the NRA's response to any gun violence is "there should have been more good guys with guns in the room", isn't that surprising.

Now, in a sense it is right to say that the reason the Warsaw Uprising failed is that the Jews didn't have enough firepower -- that is, enough firepower to singlehandedly defeat a modern state's war apparatus. But I think we should hone in on the precise claim being made here. When the NRA says "we need an armed populace to defend ourselves from potentially genocidal government", it can't be talking about a couple people with handguns in their house or even some AR-15s. The only way this logic works is if they think every social group in America should have at its disposal enough advanced weaponry to take out a tank battalion along with its air support.

That power is, should, and must be vested in states -- which means there is no alternative response to the risk of (domestic) state violence and oppression other than inculcating that state with liberal and rule-of-law values so that it can both have the capacity to defend itself against external threats while not using those capacities to oppress others. This is a far more plausible lesson to draw from the Holocaust compared to a world where we hand out Stingers and Hellfire Missiles as Bar Mitzvah presents.