Who's Afraid of Jewish Priorities?

The JTA reported yesterday that the Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella organization of local Jewish Federations, had removed several prominent issues -- such as gun control, LGBTQ rights, and voting rights -- from its list of "policy priorities". The relevant document now speaks in far vaguer generalities about "policies that ensure justice and equity" and promoting "resources to combat abuse and harassment." Many suspected the change came at the behest of conservative elements in the Jewish community annoyed that our umbrella organizations were tackling issues they view as politically controversial or contested. The document does continue to specifically list "support for Israel" as an ongoing policy priority.

For their part, JFNA officials claimed that the change was meant to permit local federations to be more "nimble" in their approach, and contended that it was "misleading" to suggest it constituted a backtracking on prior commitments to at least LGBTQ and gun control issues. Its decision to speak in terms of more "theme-based priorities" should not be seen as a denigration of the importance of specific issues like guns or gay rights (I actually have not seen, in any of the subsequent commentaries and apologies from JFNA spokespersons, an express mention of voting rights as a continued priority area).

I seem to recall a branch of Jewish public discourse that was positively furious anytime, say, "antisemitism" was left unnamed or held to be subsumed under some generic commitment to "equality". They would call that move "all lives matter-ing" the issue; perhaps we could refer to the JFNA's new approach as one of "all issues matter"? In any event, it seems quite evident that the move away from explicitly naming these issues as priorities is an attempt to decenter them, and that in turn is yet another example of mainstream Jewish organizations kowtowing to right-wing pressure even in the face of an obvious Jewish consensus.

For example, polls indicate that on the matter of guns, Jews have a perfectly robust consensus: 70% favoring a pro-gun control position versus 25% opposed. That 25% figure, incidentally, is about the same as the percentage of Jews who stake out anti-Israel positions that sharply deviate from what JFNA and like organizations would no doubt consider "support for Israel". To be clear, I don't have any objection to the JFNA representing the huge majority of Jews who do care a lot about "support for Israel" over the comparatively small minority that takes the dissident view. But the point is that the "consensus" around the two issues is identical, yet it's no accident which one the JFNA feels comfortable cutting loose. It is part of a long pattern and practice of Jewish communal organizations taking liberal Jews -- the Jewish majority! -- for granted, and thumbing us in the eye as expendable. Our issues can be thrown out, even if they carry huge majority support, based on mewling complaints from the right flank -- a privilege never accorded to liberal Jews objecting to more conservative priority areas.

The issues that JFNA decided they now want to soft-pedal for fear of upsetting delicate conservative feelings are policy arenas which are reaching a crisis point in 2022. After Colleyville and Louisville, can we really say gun violence is no longer a critical area? We're seeing a veritable torrent of state legislative action targeting queer and especially trans youth for ostracism and discrimination, a pattern that has only accelerated over the last year. And of course, on the question of voting rights, following 1/6 and the Supreme Court's laser-like determination to gut the Voting Rights Act, the basic precepts of American democracy may never have been under more direct threat in my lifetime. To deprioritize them now represents an appalling abdication of duty.

The broad point is this: when the JFNA decides to decenter and soft play issues like gun control and voting rights, they are not acting to promote "Jewish priorities". They are afraid of "Jewish priorities". They think "Jewish priorities" are too partisan, too controversial -- frankly, too liberal -- to fit within their comfort level. And so they make the decision to jettison them. That's them selling out the very people they purport to represent. It's outrageous, and they deserve every bit of blowback they've gotten over this.

I wrote a somewhat ... pointed ... email to my contacts at the Portland JFed making these points, and both urging that the local organization continue to be clear it will work in these policy arenas and communicating to the national office that it cannot keep selling out the liberal Jewish majority like this. I received a perfectly nice note back confirming that our local JCRC has and will continue to advocate in all of these areas (though demurring on calling out the national body). But it is important to keep the heat on (and I think it's notable that the JFNA clearly did feel some heat and responded somewhat defensively). These organizations have to come to understand that "Jewish consensus" is not "when the right agrees with the center".

UPDATE: The JFNA has released a new document which adds back in many of these priorities. One can still quibble with the details, and be annoyed at their initial skittishness, but it is a good thing they both felt and were responsive to community pressure on this axis.

The Bongani Masuku Case Comes To A Close(?)

Long (loooong) time readers of this blog may recall the case of Bongani Masuku, a former top trade union official in South Africa alleged to have engaged in hate speech against Jews in the course of condemnatory comments about Israel during the 2009 conflict with Palestine in Gaza. This has been a lengthy saga -- in 2009, the South African Human Rights Commission concluded that Masuku had engaged in hate speech; in 2017, that ruling was upheld by the Equality Court; and in 2018, that ruling was in turn reversed by an appellate court. Now, finally, in 2022, the Constitutional Court of South Africa -- the highest court -- has weighed in, unanimously concluding that one of the four challenged statements by Masuku does in fact constitute hate speech and ordering Masuku to deliver an apology (link to the opinion here).

Again, this is a complicated saga and some of the points I would make would be repetitive. But a few points are worth (re)emphasizing here:

• Some of the most damning statements by Masuku do not seem to be in the record the courts have been reviewing -- I'm not sure why (I assume it is for some procedural reasons regarding how the challenge was brought, not that the courts are just studiously ignoring them, but I'm not sure). For example, Masuku reportedly expressly said that his comments were meant to "convey a message to the Jews of South Africa", which seems quite germane to assessing whether his comments should be seen as targeting Jews.
• Likewise, I have no particular knowledge about South African law, and so cannot comment on whether this decision is correct or not as a faithful application of the current (or "best") reading of the relevant constitutional clauses and statutes.
• Finally, while I oppose "hate speech" rules on principle, South Africa has elected to take a different approach on speech than does American constitutional law. Given that, there is no reason why the Jewish community of South Africa should not be able to avail itself of these protections.

The Court analyzed four (but really two) comments by Masuku to see if they qualified as hate speech. The first was a blog comment where Masuku said:

1. [A]s we struggle to liberate Palestine from the racists, fascists and Zionists who belong

to the era of their Friend Hitler! We must not apologise, every Zionist must be made

to drink the bitter medicine they are feeding our brothers and sisters in Palestine. We

must target them, expose them and do all that is needed to subject them to perpetual

suffering until they withdraw from the land of others and stop their savage attacks on

human dignity.

(In the realm of "damning comments not discussed", during this blog discussion Masuku reportedly said that he had come to conclude that "Jews are arrogant, not from being told by any Palestinian, but from what I saw myself").

The other three all came during a pro-Palestine university rally (and the court analyzes them together, hence why I think it's perhaps more sensible to view them as one statement rather than three). There Masuku said:

2. “COSATU has got members here even on this campus; we can make sure that for that side [the pro-Israel side] it will be hell.” 

3. “[T]he following things are going to apply: any South African family, I want to repeat it so that it is clear for anyone, any South African family who sends its son or daughter to be part of the Israel Defence Force must not blame us when something happens to them with immediate effect.”

4. “COSATU is with you, we will do everything to make sure that whether it’s at Wits, whether it’s at Orange Grove, anyone who does not support equality and dignity, who does not support rights of other people must face the consequences even if it means that we will do something that may necessarily cause what is regarded as harm.” 

The Court ultimately concluded that the first statement (in the blog) was hate speech, while the other three are not. The deciding factor was the Hitler reference, which, the Court concluded, would reasonably be seen as targeting the Jewish community insofar as Hitler of course is famous for targeting Jews (and not specifically "Zionist Jews"). The other statements, by contrast, however hurtful or offensive they might have been, appear to be in the context specifically of opposing "pro-Israel" persons rather than the Jewish community as such.

Overall, I think this should be viewed as a pretty sizeable victory for the Jewish community. I might suggest that the fourth statement, too, could be seen as targeting the Jewish community insofar as Orange Grove is apparently well-known as a heavily Jewish neighborhood and its inclusion therefore seems to be specifically about referencing the Jewish community as Jews (that is, just as a Hitler reference is evocative of Jews, not Zionist Jews, Orange Grove is also associated with Jews, not specifically Zionist Jews). I think the Court's assessment of the second and third statements is fair enough; there is no doubt those words represent sharp blows thrown, but they expressly relate to persons who are by some form of action taking a side and are commentary on that side. One need not like or approve of them to think they fall within the bounds of protected speech.

But on the whole, the Court seemed quite thoughtful here. It recognized that words which on face might appear neutral or nonsectarian may, given social context, historical usage, or other considerations, nonetheless evoke hateful tropes; this was very important in avoiding what I thought was some too-quick moves by the appellate court to simply intone the truism that Zionism and Judaism are not synonymous and call it day. On this point, the Court said something that may well be worth framing:

Due regard to this context and history must be observed when dealing with expressions that are allegedly anti-Semitic, because many socially acceptable words may become a proxy for anti-Semitic sentiments. Focusing on the plain text and ignoring the objectively ascertainable subtext would be ignorant, inappropriate and antithetical to what our Constitution demands.

Couldn't say it better. 

In any event -- Masuku and COSATU have been very aggressive in fighting this case (and, I'll be honest, I expected them to prevail). It will be interesting to see how the court-ordered apology plays out. But it appears that, as a legal matter, the Masuku saga has finally come to a close.

What To Draw from the San Francisco Recall

A recall election targeting three progressive members of the San Francisco school board has succeeding by a thumping margin, with the pro-recall side taking around 70% of the vote. I was following this saga semi-closely (I never lived in San Francisco, but being just across the Bay I still paid some amount of attention). And while everyone is going to have their hot takes on this, I'll provide the hottest take of all by serving mine at room temperature.

I will say that I'm going to try to avoid a normative assessment about whether the decision by the voters here was good or bad. You're going to get a lot of either (a) "Even in liberal San Francisco...." or (b) "San Francisco views itself as so liberal, but when push comes to shove...."; you don't need me to adjudicate that for you.

Anyway, when you read stories about the recall, the narrative seems to focus primarily on three things: (1) the failure of the Board to prioritize reopening schools; (2) the Board's insistence on renaming a huge swath of schools whose namesakes were deemed historically problematic; and (3) the Board instituting a "lottery" for admission to an elite public high school which had previously used a competitive, test-based admissions regime (this reportedly aroused the anger of the city's Asian-American community, which had a large presence at the school that it thought would be reduced under the lottery system).

Of course, everyone wants to tell the story in such a way that it fits their political priors. If you are fulminating about the excesses of "wokeness", then the renaming controversy is going to loom large. If you are excited about the new flexing of Asian-American political muscle, the controversy over Lowell HS admissions will be a major factor. And so on.

My lukewarm take is that one should not read too much into this because it's really the confluence of factors, taken together, which was a bit of a perfect storm. For example, there are plenty of school renamings that go off without a hitch, but here the board's buzzsaw like approach targeting dozens of schools (often on thin-to-nonexistent research) really smacked of performance over substance (and we could ask -- performance for who? Who, exactly, wanted this -- or more accurately, this much of this?). The Board just clearly got too far in front of its shoes here; it wildly overestimated the demand and the appetite for this sort of endeavor (noting that "overestimated" is not the same thing as saying there is no appetite at all).

But even that would have been probably overlooked for the most part except that it was occupying much of the Board's attention instead of the seemingly more pressing matter of figuring out how to reopen schools. I have some amount of sympathy here because "reopening the schools" is a genuinely difficult problem and it's not something the Board could have just fiated into existence with a finger snap. That said, if you seem to ignore the most pressing public education issue of the year for the sake of a comparatively lower priority and you appear manifestly incompetent at addressing the thing which you've (wrongly) decided to make agenda item #1, yeah, that's going to piss people off. That reopening the schools is hard is a compelling argument that one needs to very clearly and publicly exert all your effort on figuring out how to make it happen; the worst thing you can do is appear to shrug your shoulders at the whole endeavor and say "you know what seems like a lot more fun than trying to get kids back into the classroom? Figuring out whether Dianne Feinstein should have her name on a building!"

So for me, the lesson to be learned is not "San Francisco voters reject wokeness", but it is very much that competence matters and San Francisco voters are not going to just blindly accept anything its elected pols do just because they drape themselves in the cloak of "wokeness". It has to be about substance, not symbolism. That goes for the school renamings too -- if one thinks it's all about symbolism and "sending a message", then maybe the execution doesn't matter so much. By contrast, if one actually views this issue as one of substantive import, then one should be willing to do the hard work of doing research and consensus-building and line-drawing. Arguably, one could say than San Franciscans want actual, good, thought out "wokeness", which they do not define (contra the semi-strawman version) as just pulling out a flamethrower and torching everything in sight.

But more fundamentally, the takeaway is that the basic, often dull, but bread-and-butter policy work of making sure the schools function has to come first. That's my big conclusion (and if one wants to say this is me just promoting my political priors, I don't judge you). A lot of good politics is the dry endeavor of just competently insuring that things work. The best political leaders do that and can innovate and inspire and push the ball forward. But the fundamentals have to be in place before one can build flair on top.

Get the foundation down, and you can do great work building on top of it. But if you elect people who aren't interested in the foundational work because they're mostly excited about some high-level ideological vision -- well, that can work if the underlying structure is strong enough that the system can manage itself on autopilot. But if you enter a time of stress or strain, like we are now in COVID, you need people at the helm who are both capable and committed to doing the slow boring work of making government work.

The DSA Seizes The Tankie Moment

The original "tankie" incident, the one that gave the term its name, came when the Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956 to crush a workers' uprising. "Tankies" were those leftists who followed Moscow's line in supporting the invasion, dutifully repeating Soviet propaganda about how this was "anti-fascist" or how it was responding to "American aggression", despite the fact that under any objective metric it seemed a straightforward form of imperialist aggression by a powerful state against the very democratic and labor forces that these same leftists claimed to stand in stalwart defense of. 

Most of us, of course, were not around in 1956 and so missed the opportunity to be original tankies. But all that's old is new again, and we now literally are faced with a seemingly imminent decision by Russia to once again send in tanks to invade southeastern Europe! And the Democratic Socialists of America have responded by showing just how excited they are at the chance to fly their tankie flag high. Their statement that regurgitates every predictable horseshoe-theory trope about why Russia is really the victim here, everything bad is America's fault, and "solidarity" means telling Ukraine it deserves what it has coming to it. Way to seize the moment, DSA! Who even cares that Russia is now itself a right-wing kleptocracy? It's adverse to American interests, and that's (apparently literally) all that matters.

It's a side issue, but I think there were some Jewish progressives who had some sympathies with the DSA, at least on matters of domestic policy, and were accordingly a bit rattled by the DSA's decision to go all-in on backing BDS in its most extreme and uncompromising possible form -- not because of the "trend" it did or didn't portend, but because it caused them (the Jewish progressives) to second guess their own instincts that were averse to BDS. If the DSA is a reliable guidestone to good progressive policymaking generally, what does it say that I'm bucking them here? It is, I imagine, a relief to remember that the DSA's foreign policy approach is consistently terrible, anti-democratic, and pro-authoritarian (see also: Venezuela), and that there is absolutely no reason to feel even remotely anxious or skittish if you end up on the opposite side of the argument from them.

Happy Birthday To Me!

My birthday (actual birthday, not blog-birthday) was today! Congrats on surviving another year!*

* Not quite the given it's been in years past!

Joy Counts for Something

"That kiss wasn't for pleasure, it was strategic and joyless."

Both Kevin Drum and Amanda Marcotte, in slightly different ways, think progressives need to learn to have more fun. Nobody likes a coalition of sourpusses. 

Now, at one level, the charge that progressives only speak in terms of the dark and dire is unfair. For example, Drum gives as one example of "grim and joyless" progressive politics the assertion that "Nobody is 'illegal.' We should welcome hardworking folks from south of the border. Unless you're a racist, that is." But this is a politics that can and often is expressed in positive terms (it has "welcome" right in the tag!). Celebrating immigrants and embracing them as full members of the community is the stuff of many a heart-warming viral video. Certainly, progressive immigration talk has its share of downer narratives ("children in cages"), but on the whole the framing is far more upbeat on the progressive side, where it is mostly celebratory and about inclusion and growth -- certainly as compared against dark GOP mutterings/bullhornings about stolen jobs and foreign invasions and great replacements.

At another level, anyone who spends time in a largely Christian society quickly learns just how many people do love a bit of self-abnegation. A little masochism goes a long way, and clearly there is pleasure to be taken (and people take great pleasure) in forms of performative self-flagellation that are the hallmark of at least some forms of progressive political behavior. The line between pleasure and grimness isn't quite as sharp as we think it is.

That said, I think there is something to the notion that progressives are maybe not giving joy the credit that it should get -- perhaps on the theory that anyone who has the temerity to express joy is disrespecting all the terrible oppressions and mistreatments that afflict various marginalized groups in contemporary society. But this approach just doesn't resonate with people who even or perhaps especially in dark times want to see and feel opportunities for happiness.

Take the Olympics. I'm on the record as a strong Olympics booster, even as I'm fully cognizant of all of the very compelling critiques of the Games: they're corrupt, they displace people, they're a fig leaf for authoritarian oppression, and so on. All of which is, indeed, true, and I don't deny the weight of those critiques. But sometimes it seems as if the persons making those critiques act as if there is nothing of weight on the other side of the ledger -- it's this parade of terribles on one side against meaningless frivolity on the other, such that only the truly self-indulgent or bubble-headed could possibly find value in it. No. No, no, no.  The Olympics represent a rare -- perhaps singular -- example of the entire global community coming together in one place for the primary and fundamental purpose of doing something fun and joyous. That is a great thing, and there is virtually nothing else comparable to it.

Recognizing that doesn't mean that there aren't important proposals for how to reform the Olympics to mitigate or eliminate its darker sides, it doesn't even compel one to weigh that good as superseding the aforementioned evils. But there needs to be recognition that the good, is a good; that the joy the Olympics creates can and should count for something, and one is not showing oneself to be a self-absorbed dilettante if one enjoys something meant to spark joy. The inability to recognize the joyousness of the Olympics -- to solely see it through the lens of the dark and the grim and the dire -- is not healthy, and for most people it's not relatable.

And After the Party...

Are you watching The Afterparty on AppleTV? You should if you can. A genre-bending murder mystery with a great comedic cast (how wrong can you go with folks like Ilana Glazer, Ben Schwartz, and Tiffany Hadish on the same set?), centered around the investigation of the murder of a pop star at his mansion during the after party he hosted for his high school friends following their 15 year reunion.

But I want to do something a little different: give my prediction of who the murderer is, based less on anything that's happening in the show, and more on pattern recognition for how murder mystery shows work. There aren't spoilers here per se -- unless I'm right, that is.

Anyway, my guess for the murderer is Mr. Shapiro, the science teacher.

Why?

Well, my first principle is that the murderer will not be any of the main characters. In a whodunnit type series, whose premise is alternating who among the main crew suspicion is cast upon, it's really hard to finally land on any of the main players without it feeling a little anti-climatic.

At the same time, the murderer has to be someone whose name has been mentioned and who has already been confirmed to be on scene when the murder happened. You can't just say "Surprise! There was an unknown stranger hiding in the closet the whole time!"

So ideally, you want someone who has been mentioned and confirmed to be present, but is otherwise forgettable. He isn't part of the group that comes to mind in the list of suspects, but once he is revealed as the killer you can't claim that the show is cheating.

Mr. Shapiro has, of course, been named. And though we haven't seen his face, it was confirmed that he was at the titular afterparty (having sex with someone in one of the spare bedrooms). It's been treated as a throwaway gag (he was also walked in on having sex with someone in one of the classrooms during the reunion itself), but it suffices to establish his presence at the scene of the crime such that he could be a suspect. That he hasn't been seen since -- that nobody seems to remember he was present at all such that he should be among the group of suspects the detective is interviewing -- only points further in his favor as the ultimate killer.

We don't have a motive yet, but that can be established later. Again, I'm just working off genre conventions here.

Anyway, I just wanted that prediction on paper because if it's correct I claim the right to call myself a legend. But again, it's a very good, very funny show and you all should watch it.

Our First Experience With Antisemitism (Except for All The Other Times)

This passage, about a Jewish couple in Tennessee whose attempt to adopt a three-year old child was rejected because they were Jewish, struck a chord with me:

In the initial report, Elizabeth Rutan-Ram said the foster care rejection was the first time she'd faced discrimination because she was Jewish.

Actually, she was called "Jew girl" in grade school. And her husband said other kids handed him swastikas. https://t.co/7K9RhTBYYq

— Philissa Cramer (@philissa) February 1, 2022

It strikes a chord because it is reminiscent of a phenomenon Albert Memmi explored in his Portrait of a Jew. Memmi speaks of how often Jews speak of never being truly "aware" of antisemitism until some particularly stark incident slaps them across the face. Until that moment, they will say, antisemitism was never really a "thing" in their lives. And yet, if you press them a bit, it turns out that this overt incident was not the first -- there were other incidents, perhaps many other incidents, but for whatever reason they didn't "count", and it doesn't occur to them to mention them or even think about them as antisemitic incidents. So after the initial declaration that the overt incident was "the first time", there comes the belated admission that well, I guess it wasn't the first time, not by a long shot, and what at first might have felt like a isolated, even freakish incident, really is just bringing to the foreground a lot of baggage which had been tucked away in the background.

We could all stand to wonder why this practice exists, and why it has existed for so long and over eras and locations where it seems nobody -- least of all the Jews -- should have had any trouble recognizing that antisemitism wasn't isolated or freakish (Memmi's examples were people like Herzl and Einstein).  What explains this pattern? Why is our first instinct, our deep psychology, to "forget" antisemitism has happened to us?

Safety Through Solidarity (Or Else)

In the wake of the Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis, two things became clear about the congregation's approach to its safety and standing in the broader community. One was that the Rabbi had deep pre-existing relations with the local police and groups like the ADL, whose support and training he credited for ensuring that all the hostages emerged alive. The second was that the Rabbi had been intricately connected to interfaith and community-building initiatives, and was widely praised for his work in that domain. The former might be thought of as the "traditional" approach to Jewish security; the latter related to what is sometimes called "safety through solidarity."

In the case of Colleyville, these two approaches worked in tandem with one another, and to that extent they represent a success story (insofar as we can call anything about Colleyville a "success"). A Jewish life that is self-consciously isolated from our neighbors and their concerns, that solely concentrates on building walls and fortresses and maintaining access to state power and SWAT teams, will be something stilted and shallow. At the same time, "safety through solidarity" simply does not have anything to offer to provide "safety" as against a Colleyville style incident, at least in the short- to mid-term. Both approaches can do certain things but cannot do others. So they compliment one another. There can of course be squabbles about what issue belongs on what turf -- we can, for example, disagree on whether particular antisemitic incidents are best addressed through criminal law enforcement (even if the Colleyville case is an obvious call). But in the main, the Colleyville congregation did not choose one or the other, and its two-track approach served it well. And anyone who takes from Colleyville that the synagogue should abandon the solidaristic part of its mission, that it now should only rely on the police and the guns and the walls and the fortifications, is I think badly missing the point.

However. There is a version of "safety through solidarity" that does not accept the validity of this two-track approach. Insofar as a synagogue choices to have relationships with the local police, and groups like the ADL, it is, the argument goes, consciously choosing to forgo the solidaristic route and should be condemned for it. Few were so crass as to make that argument directly about the Colleyville synagogue while the crisis was ongoing. But as memories fade (and they seem to fade quickly), people become more brazen in acting as if the only reason a synagogue would have these connections with law enforcement is due to a self-conscious decision to imbricate themselves into a system of White supremacy. A synagogue or Jewish community that elects to do that is a synagogue that is electing out of "safety through solidarity". It is instead one that is choosing unabashed and unapologetic harm to the communities that might offer "solidarity", and so can be spurned in turn.

In this register, the mantra "safety through solidarity" is not outreach. It is a threat. It is a threat because, again, "safety through solidarity" has no reply to Colleyville-style incidents. There was no real, realistic alternative in Colleyville other than the use of police. Colleyville illustrates decisively how these sorts of partnerships and initiatives and relationships are essential to Jewish safety; they cannot simply be "dropped". Outside cases like Colleyville, the security network that has been developed by groups like the ADL in partnership, yes, with law enforcement is not easily replaced even if we can imagine myriad ways in which it could modified or supplemented. And yet the demand is not to see reform or alteration, it is to see them dropped, dropped immediately, dropped without real replacement, and if they're not dropped then the synagogue has marked itself as an enemy -- if they're left to survive on their own, well, the blood is on them and their children.

Mantra notwithstanding, this is not actual "solidarity", this is ultimatum -- and it's an ultimatum that everyone knows cannot and will not be generally accepted. Ironically enough, when presented in this form, "safety through solidarity" becomes a vehicle for fraying bonds of solidarity that might otherwise take root (imagine if all the churches and mosques with which the Colleyville synagogue had been doing laudatory interfaith work decided to pull out because the congregation was tainted by its association with the ADL). And that is a nasty threat indeed -- the impossible dilemma between staying alive and staying in community.

A genuine solidaristic approach would understand the promises and limits of the solidaristic approach, at least over the foreseeable future. Even to the extent we disagree about the extent to which police are necessary, there has to be recognition that the choice by Jewish communal institutions to have these relationships with law enforcement is not reducible to simply "endorsing White supremacy"; the basic respect that undergirds any genuine solidaristic relationship demands at least that much. After all, there is no major racial, religious, or ethnic community in the United States right now that is primarily comprised of police abolitionists; it would be folly to make ACAB a litmus test before solidarity can be extended, and for the most part it is not a litmus test demanded before solidarity is extended. It is entirely possible -- and the Colleyville congregation is by all accounts a sterling example -- to build out bonds of solidarity and community under circumstances where there is tension and disagreement, to hash those disagreements out, to find areas where the ball can be pushed forward, and to think creatively towards new solutions to seemingly intractable dilemmas. But that process cannot be circumvented by ultimatum, and those who try are not I think actually all that interested in developing genuine solidaristic relationships.

There are very, very good reasons why the Jewish community tries to build up relationships with law enforcement agencies. There are very, very good reasons why the Jewish community has organizations like the ADL. Part of building up solidaristic relationships means understanding these necessities and these relationships. Once that happens, we can think about how their contours might be modified or altered -- they are not sacrosanct. The Colleyville congregation, by all accounts, is an example of a Jewish institution that seems genuinely committed to doing this work and doing it right, proof positive that one can build out solidarity while still maintaining the requisite relationships necessary in the event of calamity. They deserve immense praise for that, a model that can be emulated. But skipping that work and beginning with the ultimatum is not solidarity. It is a threat. And Jews are not wrong to hear it as one.

Sola IHRA Scriptura

A bit player in a certain Jewish drama which I otherwise will not name was the allegation that a given person had betrayed the Jewish people by suggesting that the IHRA definition of antisemitism could be improved upon. As a Nexus guy, I of course have a vested interest in not viewing IHRA as infallible (even as I also don't endorse the view that it is some sort of censorial disaster). But as a person who can read, it is very difficult for me to see how anyone could look at IHRA and think "yup, that's it. Nothing more on antisemitism needs to be said."

Yet I have noticed on more than one occasion the adoption of a decidedly un-Jewish sola scriptura attitude towards IHRA. IHRA's text is viewed as sacred and unchallengeable. This goes beyond a negative attitude towards efforts to supplant IHRA (e.g., by the JDA); any endeavor to try to interpret or improve upon it represents a threat to the Jewish community. IHRA alone can tell us all we need to know about antisemitism.

It is an interesting thing about sola scriptura that it frequently is paradoxically unconcerned with close  and careful readings of the text. The belief that the text contains all necessarily requires a fair amount of self-deception, since no text actually can contain all; hence, those who assert IHRA uber alles inevitably have to read a fair amount into, and out of, what IHRA actually says. At that point one might wonder why they bother professing that sort of commitment to IHRA -- why not admit the project of thinking about antisemitism remains live and open to further exegesis and interpretation? And the answer is that sola scriptura isn't really about the text-qua-text, it's about the text-qua-symbol. Sola scriptura texts are those which are held out as authoritative and unchallengeable, and that is the character that interpretive freedom threatens.

IHRA is, as I've said many times before, best characterized as having received a battlefield promotion to reach its current perch as the definition of antisemitism. Basically, the Jewish community, most prominently during the Labour antisemitism crisis, needed something we could point to that could be plausibly held out as authoritative; a criteria for saying "this is antisemitism" that wasn't reliant on a case-by-case "because we say so". To be clear, the reason this was a necessity was because in the relevant combat non-Jews were extremely reluctant, to say the least, to credit Jewish assertions about what was antisemitism (hence battlefield promotion). The need in question was, in essence, to say "don't believe me, believe this authoritative definition which existed independent of the current controversy." 

Obviously, pointing to a specific definition of antisemitism wouldn't eliminate contentious debates on the subject -- IHRA obviously didn't -- but it would channel them. Instead of a free-for-all battle over each and every antisemitism claim, we could reduce the debate down to two far more manageable questions: (1) do you accept the authoritative definition, and if so (2) does the controversy in question violate that definition? In this world, those who answer "no" to question one are straightforwardly marking themselves off as adversaries to Jewish communal consensus, not on an idiosyncratic case level, but on a core framing question. So the authoritative definition has a secondary virtue -- it can demarcate between those who are reasonably positioning themselves as friends to and allies of the Jewish community, and those who are adopting a confrontational or adversarial posture to it.

In terms of why it was IHRA, specifically, that became the definition, the reason really is no more complicated than the simple fact that it existed and it was available. And, under the circumstances, I don't begrudge its service. IHRA got thrown into a fire and did the best it could. But a main virtue being "it existed" does not lend itself to ideal theoretical or practical efficacy. One simply cannot read IHRA and think it comprehensively tells us that which we need to know about antisemitism. Its "core definition" is vague to the point of meaninglessness, its definitions are fine as far as they go but omit many crucial domains of antisemitism, and its essential caveat that we must "consider the context" before rendering a judgment is important but is not adorned with much in the way of telling readers what context ought point us toward one conclusion or another. All of these beg for more thoroughness and more fleshing out.

Yet one can understand, given its origin story, why many are reluctant to concede that IHRA can be improved upon. If IHRA is open to question, then IHRA's claim to be authoritative falters, and we risk falling back into the world where antisemitism claims are judged on a free-for-all basis -- and the ensuing fear that these judgments, infected as they are by general disregard for Jewish opinions, will be systematically slanted against the Jews (the proverbial "ally" who promises he will fight the "real antisemitism", but strangely seems to have never actually encountered that rara avis).

So IHRA becomes untouchable -- not as a text, but as a symbol. This has been a prevailing theme of what I've written about IHRA (and, in a somewhat different but related fashion, the JDA): they matter far less for what they say than what they mean, and that meaning has relatively little to do with a lawyerly reading of their texts. IHRA represents the ability to cleanly and confidently divide the world into allies and adversaries of the Jews; to know who one's friends and enemies are. And IHRA likewise represents an at least imagined respite from the constant bickering over antisemitism, over having to re and re-re-litigate every single issue and small point over and over again until death take us. These are not things the text can promise, but they are things the symbolism can promise -- if, again, IHRA is taken to be unchallengeable, unimprovable, and unalterable. It is, in this sense, a very jealous God indeed.

An Axe-less Billions?

* Some spoilers of prior Billions seasons*

Showtime did a special early release of the Billions Season 6 premier, thus giving us our first taste of a truly Axe-less series (Damien Lewis gave a never-say-never answer regarding a possible return, but didn't sound enthused). Can the show survive without one of its two leading men?

To be honest, it's really hard to say. On the one hand: Axe was an incredibly magnetic presence. Given how much I disliked Lewis in Homeland, it was astounding how well he played this character, and absolutely sold him as a true force of nature of the sort I can't easily think of paralleled on television. Paul Giamatti is great and Maggie Siff is an absolute legend, but Axe drives the story in a way nobody else does because Axe bends the world in a way nobody else did. Several characters -- most notably Wags, but even Wendy to an extent -- are almost impossible to imagine outside of Axe's orbit.

Meanwhile, Mike Prince is no Bobby Axelrod -- hell, he's no Rebecca Cantu -- and it's one hell of a void he's tasked to fill. Certainly, no other character has come close to equaling Axe as a foil for Chuck -- not Jock, not Connerty, not Dake (Taylor may be the closest, but they weren't really a foil for Chuck -- they always made for a more interesting partner-adversary to Axe). Moreover, I didn't find the end of Axe's arc to be particularly satisfying. On a character level, I can buy him retreating to Switzerland for awhile -- even a full season -- to lick his wounds. But would he actually permanently slink away in defeat? Not a chance. Of course, Damien Lewis isn't bound to perpetual service, so the show has to do what it can with what it has -- but in-universe the play of events doesn't fully work.

On the other hand: It is fair to say that Billions was starting to spin its wheels regarding the Axe/Chuck battle (my wife and I both affectionately characterized it as "will-they-won't-they", only with a decisive resolution rather than sex). There are only so many times one can set and reset the chess pieces between them, and as evenly matched as they are, they're both too smart for one to not eventually learn how to gain a decisive edge over the other. At some point, relying on their well-established personal defects stops being a character note and starts being a failure to grow. Taking Axe off the board allows for a new and fresh direction for Chuck as much as anyone. That Prince is not Axe means that everyone's relationship with Prince -- Chuck's including -- is going to be something somewhat different than what we've seen before.

On a similar note, as much as Axe's insane personal magnetism was a delight to watch, his departure may allow for some of the ensemble cast, particularly those on the finance side of the battle line, to shine whereas previously they were inevitably overshadowed. Taylor -- perhaps the only character who even attempted to assert themselves as an equal to Axe -- is an obvious candidate to emerge, but one hopes that some smaller but beloved players like Dollar Bill and Mafee (they are coming back, right?) and Bonnie and Victor might get some more love and care. (On Chuck's side, we've been long overdue for a major Sacker arc, but that's not immediately affected one way or another by Axe's departure).

In any event, I suppose we'll soon see. Billions has been one of my absolute favorite series' on television, and my hope is it will remain in that lofty tier. But Showtime series do sometimes have a tendency to overstay their welcome, and it's easy to imagine an Axe-less Billions being too-pale an imitation of its former glory.

Bay Area District Doesn't Adopt California's Model Ethnic Studies Curriculum

The controversy over Ethnic Studies in California continues apace, as the Castro Valley school district (in the East Bay) voted to sign a contract with the "Liberated" ethnic studies group of educators who had been responsible for the discredited initial draft of the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. When California substantially changed their draft and adopted the much-improved final draft of the curriculum, the "Liberated" contingent disavowed the project and set out on their own to independently promote their initial vision.

First things first: this is a bad decision, and the Jewish community (which spoke out against it) has the right to be upset. From one Board member's Britta Perry-like "I lived in New York!" exclamation for why he'd never vote for anything antisemitic, to the blithe dismissal of the inclusion of Jews in the framework because Ethnic Studies is "not about religion. It’s about the American experiences of those who are marginalized and displaced" (golly, what could Jews know about being marginalized and displaced?) this was not a shining moment for the Castro Valley school board. There is little question that the school district's decision is going to result in a curriculum that is hostile to the Bay Area Jewish community in a way that was obviously and easily avoidable.

What happened here? Some people, inexplicably,* are suggesting that Castro Valley's decision discredits the Jewish community's decision to rally in favor of the California model curriculum -- again, the curriculum Castro Valley just rejected and which the educators they hired have actively disavowed. There is something profoundly strange about having heard endless wailing from groups like ACES about how the model curriculum was barely an improvement over the "liberated" curriculum, how they were two peas in a pod, how they were basically different branches of the same tree -- and then those same groups expressing horror when a district adopts the "liberated" curriculum. I get why I'm upset, but why are they mad? I'd been arguing that there was a huge difference between the two approaches; they'd been saying they were essentially identical. Now they suddenly can understand the difference that we've been harping on for months? Welcome to the party!

In terms of what happened, well, that's actually pretty simple to answer. We already knew that the California ethnic studies bill did not alter the status quo where local school districts could choose their own curriculum, and that's what Castro Valley just did. The only failproof check against that would've been to make the model curriculum mandatory, but of course team "the model curriculum is a disaster" would never have supported that. The California Jewish Legislative Caucus claims that its amendments to the Ethnic Studies bill put up guardrails preventing groups like Liberated from implanting anti-Jewish measures into even local curriculum; we'll see if they hold up (I'll be honest in saying I don't think these guardrails are that robust).

In a circumstance where local school boards are empowered to make largely independent choices about their curricular offerings, there is always the possibility -- and arguably the inevitability -- that some will make distasteful or even bad and hurtful choices. If that risk cannot be dissipated entirely, it can be mitigated via presenting a credible "off the rack" curriculum that becomes the cheapest, path-of-least-resistance option for local boards. That doesn't mean all will adopt it -- but they're far more likely to adopt it if they know it has widespread communal support and backing. The months we spent in-fighting based on ticky-tack objections to the model curriculum didn't make the curriculum any better and didn't make it harder for local boards to make autonomous decisions -- all it did was make the model curriculum less viable as an expression of mainstream consensus support, and accordingly make alternatives comparatively more attractive.

It'd be too strong to blame the model curriculum critics for the decision by the Castro Valley board. They might have voted this way no matter what happened, and in any event they're responsible for their own choices. But there's little question that the model curriculum critics made it more likely that local boards will not adopt the model curriculum, and it cannot surprise us when groups like the "Liberated" curriculum swoop in to fill the ensuing void.

* Obviously it's entirely explicable, it'd just be rude to state the explanation out loud.

In Honor of MLK Day, Read MLK

One of the recurrent themes of the "anti-CRT" push by conservative politicians and activists is that they are merely upholding the legacy of Martin Luther King. Liberals counter by pointing out that Republicans seem to think MLK's entire legacy consists of one line from one speech, and that Republicans only like him because he's conveniently dead. But no no!, they say, MLK is the beacon of what racial relations in America should be! He is the antithesis of CRT!

So here is my suggestion for compromise: in every state which is currently enacting a "CRT" ban, school boards should develop a course that is simply and entirely devoted to reading the collected works of MLK. They can read statements like this:

“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”

And this:

Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro.

And this:

First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." 

And these:

The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism. The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.

[...]

“Again we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad.”

There are many more besides. It is a rich corpus of work, after all, more than sufficient to support a semester's worth of study. Reading them all together, from the "I Have a Dream" speech to the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to the "Three Evils" speech could spark such interesting discussions and give a more thorough foundation to the ideas and ideology of a man whom -- liberals and conservatives agree -- is one of America's great heroes.

You want to ban "divisive concepts"? I dare Republicans to try and ban the "Collected Works of MLK" class as "divisive".

UPDATE: Nikole Hannah-Jones basically just did this in speech form.

Scattered Thoughts on the Colleyville Hostage Incident

Like most Jews, I imagine, I'm still in a semi-state of shock about what happened in Colleyville, Texas yesterday. Part of that shock is precisely because I am not shocked. Things such as this happening -- well, it's not constantly in the forefront of my mind, but it's never far from the background either. The most important feeling is gratitude that all of the hostages emerged without injury, and gratitude to all of those who worked feverishly to bring about that outcome.

Beyond that, my thoughts are more ... scattered. On a personal level, my wife and I have just started house-hunting, and one element we're considering is whether we want to live in a "Jewish neighborhood". Portland is like many medium-to-large American cities that are not New York, Washington, or Los Angeles, in that there is certainly a well-established Jewish community here, but not a particularly large one. In effect, that means "a Jewish neighborhood" is really "the Jewish neighborhood" -- Hillsdale. There are Jews elsewhere in the city and suburbs, of course, but Hillsdale seems like the only area which is notably Jewish in the way that I grew up in Bethesda (think of the role St. Louis Park plays in the Twin Cities).

Of course, Colleyville, Texas isn't exactly what springs to mind as a Jewish hub either. Which gives a bit of gallows-humor silver lining to the week's events -- while there are advantages and disadvantages to living in a heavily Jewish area, Colleyville underscores that antisemitic terrorism can happen anywhere, so as a factor to consider in where I should plant roots it's pretty much a wash. What a reassuring thought.

On a more socio-political level, well, first things first -- I'll repeat what I said after the attack on a synagogue by a White supremacist in Germany in 2019 (and it disgusts me that I can appeal to precedent on this subject): if our response to White supremacist violence against Jews is not to call for expulsion of White people, or shutdown of White immigration, or restrictions on White civil rights, then the same holds true for Muslims. Ultimately, the key battle line that divided this terrorist from his victims was not Muslim versus Jew, or East versus West. It was between those who are willing to terrorize innocents and destroy families for ideological gain, and those whose politics are about safeguarding families and caring for their neighborhoods. And in that battle, anyone who uses this horror to stir up Islamophobia or any other form of hatred is fundamentally on the side of the terrorist.

Also in the realm of the obvious: it was already a disgrace that Deborah Lipstadt hadn't sailed through confirmation to occupy the role of antisemitism envoy, and I do not want to hear a word about "opposing antisemitism" from any Republican who has blocked her nomination. She should have been confirmed yesterday, and barring that she absolutely must be confirmed tomorrow.

Other things:

• This was an antisemitic attack, and I am flabbergasted that some people are trying to describe it in any other terms. Yes, it appears true that the attacker's immediate political motive was not something as direct as "I hate Jews" -- it was to secure the release of Aafia Siddiqui from prison. But anyone whose understanding of antisemitism is limited to that narrow horizon needs to wake up. The attacker did not choose a synagogue by throwing darts; he chose it because he believed the fundamentally antisemitic conspiracy theory that "the Jews" were in a position to control American policy with respect to the war on terror (it must be said that this sort of antisemitism is something that he appears to share with Dr. Siddiqui). And, conspiracy theory aside, the conscious decision to target Jews in their house of worship for whatever purpose evinces a conscious disregard for Jewish humanity and equal standing that could and should only be characterized as antisemitism.
• Already, we have seen in some quarters of the Jewish world disdain or even hatred directed at this congregation and this Rabbi because they are Reform Jews with avowedly liberal politics. This is not the first time these murmurs have been overheard, and with each passing year they grow louder. It is not something we can ignore for much longer, and it links up to other ways in which liberal Jews are constantly treated as second-class citizens within the Jewish world (whether at the Western Wall or in organizations like the Conference).
• Likewise, there is a direct line between the rhetoric presenting synagogues as the "enemy" who must not be "collaborated" with, and incidents like these. The former is not excusable political hyperbole, it is not an opportunity to engage in elaborate theoretical justifications and hem-hawing. It has stakes, and it has consequences, and incidents like this are among those consequences. I saw many people lauding the Rabbi of this synagogue for his strong commitment to interfaith work, a commitment which showcases the strength of solidarity and communal bonds. And they are right to do so -- but that work and that solidarity and those bonds of kinship are exactly what some people are trying to eliminate under the guise of anti-normalization.
• The Rabbi of this congregation was direct in giving credit to prior outreach and training with local law enforcement and groups like the ADL, which gave him and his congregation the tools they needed to survive this incident. These connections and these trainings keep Jews alive. It is one thing to envision other mechanisms for keeping Jews safe. It is quite another to act as if the only reason Jews have these connections and trainings is because we are eager comrades of the carceral state, and to point to these linkages as proof of our "complicity" in evil.
• The media is terrible at talking about antisemitism, because it doesn't know much about antisemitism. In fairness, this is not something unique to either the media or the subject of antisemitism -- most people don't know much about most things. But there is a tendency by many to believe that of course antisemitism is understood and covered fairly and comprehensively, and it isn't true -- a fact that is a commonality, not a divergence, from the travails endured by other communities facing other issues.

Ultimately, each time an incident like this happens it should confirm that dangerous antisemitism is a real thing and a real threat. That sounds like it should be obvious, but I don't think it is -- too much of our national conversation about Jews and about antisemitism treats it as an opportunity to take political cheap shots by poking at a source of trauma that is fundamentally viewed as a joke. I've seen too many cases where "antisemitism" -- and this includes people who purport to be fighting it as well as people who are downplaying it -- is treated as an opportunity for trolling more than anything else, because the participants don't actually think "antisemitism" carries any stakes. Will any Jews really be hurt, if we use a synagogue's ties to the ADL call for boycott; will any really be hurt, if we exploit a violent assault to pretend as if Jews are calling for a ban on Muslim immigration; will any really be hurt, if we keep the antisemitism envoy position vacant for a little while longer while we grandstand for the base? Either those who act this way think the answer is no, or they don't care that the answer is yes. Both options are disgraceful, and reflect the core disease that permeates every discussion we have as a country about antisemitism and Jewish safety.

I wish I could say things will be different this time. But I would put money down on nothing changing one bit.

UPDATE: One other thing I forgot to mention. The primary effects of terrorism on its victims are bad enough. But a secondary effect -- and often a secondary objective -- is to convert the openness of societies and institutions into vulnerabilities. Just as Dylann Roof was invited into the church he'd eventually massacre because they thought he wanted to participate in the Bible study, the attacker at this synagogue was invited inside because they thought he was a homeless man and wished to provide him shelter. It is tempting -- and a perfectly understandable temptation -- to respond to that exploitation by closing one's doors. But ultimately, that is a choice that gives the terrorists a posthumous victory, and we should do everything in our power to avoid that terrible outcome. I don't pretend that the choices between security and welcoming are easy or straightforward, but a Jewish community which does not remain open to member, neighbor and stranger is a Jewish community that is no longer recognizably Jewish.

Virginia's Newly Anointed Death Cult High Priest Prepares Initial Sacrifices

Death may be an inevitability, but the current Republican Party ethos appears to be to do everything in its power to speed the process along. Freshly minted Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has rolled out an initial series of executive orders, and I have to imagine that Thanatos is pleased. He repealed state masking and vaccine mandates, so COVID can get us in the short-term, and he withdrew from a major anti-greenhouse gas initiative, so climate change can kill us in the long-term. No matter which way you turn, the GOP is cuddling up with the Reaper.

Oh, and there's also the unavoidable "ban on critical race theory" (perhaps soon to be paired with mandatory lessons on Abraham Lincoln's famous debates with Frederick Douglass?). Admittedly not death-related, unless you count the death of civics education.

This is, to reiterate, the opening gambits from a Republican who squeaked into office in a purple-blue state by a 2% margin. It's as if Missouri elected a Democrat as Governor in an off-year and his first move in office was to abolish the police. The gumption is nearly unfathomable.

But this is the great thing about being a purple state Republican. The media -- and, admittedly, a certain cohort of voters -- is so thirsty for a "reasonable Republican" that if you just hold off on biting off a baby head during the campaign, they will decide that you represent the very essence of sobriety and moderation, and anyone who tries to tell otherwise is just fear-mongering (cf. Scott Lemieux: "The greatest act of incivility in American politics ... is to accurately describe a Republican’s publicly stated positions."). 

Then, once you enter office, you can bite as many baby heads as you want! And everyone will be so shocked, and sad, and surprised, that he is doing exactly what Democrats said Republicans will do because it's also what Republicans said Republicans will do.

Should I PlagueWatch It Revived, Quick Hits Edition

Last May, in a spate of foolish optimism, I retired my "should I PlagueWatch it" series. Now we're smack in the middle of the Omicron wave, and the Supreme Court has decided that this pandemic must last as long as possible because the Constitution, it turns out, is a suicide homicide pact.

I don't have the time to do full reviews of some of the shows I've been watching. So instead, here are some quick hits and ratings:

Industry: As a stopgap while you wait for Billions to come back, it's fine, but it's also one of those shows that conflates inscrutability with depth. A full season in and I still can't explain why the main character made 80% of her choices. B

Inside Job: Very funny, but which Qanon writer is going to treat it as documentary? A-

The Sex Lives of College Girls: Voted "most difficult to have a conversation about when you're in a public place populated by actual college girls"! Standard Mindy Kaling fare, taken to HBO, and it mostly works. A-

American Auto: None of the characters seem to possess a soul, or indeed, any interesting attribute whatsoever. This is the successor to Superstore? C

Abbott Elementary: Now this would be a worthy successor to Superstore! To think I watched Quinta Brunson back in her Buzzfeed days! A

Bridgerton: The Bridgerton family consists of one doe-faced blond and an indeterminate number of clones grown in a vat. That said, if you miss Downton Abbey but wished for more sexy times -- and lord knows I do -- this is good soapy fun. A-

Witcher: It no longer has the confusing separate timelines, but this was the rare show that was stronger when it was more "monster-of-the-week". B+

Nailed It!: Good-natured laughter at inevitable cake-fails is all anyone can ask for. A

Dispatches From SCOTUS' War on the American People: Clear Text Won't Save You This Time

Today, the Supreme Court invalidated the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's vaccine-or-test COVID mandate for large businesses. The opinions span 30 pages. They could and should be less than one. The relevant statute authorizes OSHA to issue emergency rules when necessary to protect employees against "grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards." COVID is an "agent", it poses "grave danger" to employees, and vaccines and/or regular testing are necessary to protect workers from their toxic and/or physically harmful effects. The statutory language is clear, the application is straightforward and that should be the end of the story.

Of course, things are never so simple with this Court, which rarely has missed an opportunity to play doctor at the expense of actual doctors during a pandemic. The Court's analysis in this field has been almost utterly unmoored from pre-existing legal precedent and is, at best, "justified" by policy disagreements with Democratic elected officials which the conservative SCOTUS majority elevates to the level of novel doctrinal creations on the firm legalistic basis of "because we can". Rarely has Justice Brennan's quip that "with five votes you can do anything" been so enthusiastically lived out.

I've actually been repeatedly returning to one of the most prominent cases from my tenure as a judicial clerk, a case I've talked about before -- Keiran v. Home Capital, Inc. Keiran was a Truth in Lending Act case that was simultaneously technical and quite straightforward. TILA gives consumers making certain transactions a right to rescind those transactions within a given period of time -- typically three days, but (where the seller fails to make certain disclosures) sometimes up to three years. The statutory text states that "the obligor shall have the right to rescind the transaction ... by notifying the creditor, in accordance with regulations of the [Consumer Financial Protection] Bureau, of his intention to do so." The relevant regulations likewise state that a consumer can "exercise the right to rescind" by "notify[ing] the creditor of the rescission by mail, telegram, or other means of written communication." The CFPB, for its part, also took the view that a consumer exercises their right to rescind by notifying the creditor.

And the plaintiff in Keiran did exactly what the statute, and the regulation, and the enforcing agency, said he should do: notify the creditor that he was exercising his right of rescission. Nonetheless, a majority on the Eighth Circuit (my judge dissented) decided that the clear text of the statute, and the regulation, and the opinion of the relevant agency, all should be ignored in favor of an additional requirement -- the plaintiff must file suit within the relevant statutory time period. What motivated the court to graft on this invented hurdle? Basically, applying TILA as it was written would make big banks -- and therefore, it seems, the Eighth Circuit -- sad. That seems harsh, but there really isn't much more to it: the Eighth Circuit panel thought that this statutory process made rescission too easy, and created devious opportunities for evil, ruthless homeowners to exploit poor defenseless banks by manufacturing clouds on title. So the text doesn't matter, and the regulations don't matter, and the agency opinion doesn't matter, and the purpose of TILA as a consumer protection measure doesn't matter. If big banks need to be saved, by golly, the courts are there to come to the rescue.

Keiran was reversed unanimously by the Supreme Court in the shortest opinion of the term -- an outcome I chalked up to the difference between good lawyering the Supreme Court and mediocre lawyering at the appellate court. I still think there's something to that, at least in relatively low-salience cases. But just as Keiran demonstrated at the appellate level, NFIB demonstrates at the Supreme Court level that where a judicial majority is hell-bent on reaching a certain outcome, they certainly aren't going to let little things like clear textual mandates stop them.

The Surprising War of ADL vs. Facebook

Am I the only one who's surprised by the intensity with which the ADL has been going after Facebook recently?

I want to be clear: For purposes of this post, I mean "surprised" in a wholly value-neutral way. I'm neither saying "about time" nor "this is out of control". One can make arguments either way about whether the ADL is right or not, and those arguments are worth having, but here I'm really just focusing on the descriptive character, because what we're seeing just seems very out of character for what we know about the ADL's standard operating procedures.

There are many strategies towards trying to effectuate social change. Some are more confrontational, others are more collaborative; some are more utopian, others are more pragmatic. Along that spectrum, I think it's fair to say the ADL tends to work mostly within established systems and structures rather than radically challenging them. Again, that's not a judgment -- there's a place for radical disruption and there's a place for negotiated advances, and it just so happens that the ADL tends to be more about the latter.

And that's why their campaign against Facebook stands out. Facebook is a tech heavyweight, the sort of entity with whom the ADL typically approaches in a more collaborative spirit, knowing full well that this will involve negotiation-with-the-devil compromises and suboptimal, half-a-loaf-is-better outcomes. Whatever when can say about the virtues and defects of that approach, the ADL is hardly naïve on the subject and is relatively comfortable in its own skin as an insider operation. And as I recall, initially that was how the ADL was relating to Facebook as well -- for example, bringing Facebook execs onboard its then-new Center for Technology and Society in 2017 specifically to help combat hate speech online.

But boy is that not their tenor today. Over the past few years, the ADL has been unabashedly presenting Facebook not as a partner to be reformed, but as a menace to be confronted head on. They've organized an advertiser boycott under the banner "Stop hate for profit". Their CEO has said of Facebook "I don't think ever before a single company has been responsible for so much misfortune." They've savaged Facebook for permitting Holocaust denial and for promoting manipulative political misinformation. It is, I think it's fair to say, a full-blown war, of the sort I cannot recall the ADL waging against any institution as prominent as Facebook. Again, this is just not how the ADL typically operates when relating to organizations of Facebook's size and stature.

So while the normative analysis of whether the ADL is right or wrong, or should be doing more or less campaigning like this, is plenty interesting, for the moment I'm just curious about how we got here. What is it that made the ADL break its normal boundaries? Just what happened during the earlier period of collaboration that seemingly made the ADL completely lose patience with Facebook as an even potentially viable partner? I bet there is a very interesting story here, and I'd love to hear about it.

The New Holocaust Minimization from Europe to America

It is a common cliché to claim that 21st century American antisemitism will follow the trajectory of 21st century Europe's, lagging only by a couple of years. I hear it most often in claims that the Democratic Party will inevitably Corbynify (I never hear the follow-up of what is supposed to be the American iteration of "... and then Corbyn is trounced in the general and summarily tossed from his leadership post"). Far less frequently is attention paid to how the American right can and will follow in the footsteps of its European peers.

On that note, I want to put two stories in conversation with one another. The first is a right-wing party in Romania under attack for dismissing Holocaust education as a "minor topic". The second is a Republican legislator in Indiana, State Sen. Scott Baldwin, taking flak for insisting that, under his proposed "anti-CRT' law, educators must and should take a "neutral" stance on Nazism.

The Indiana incident is hardly the first of its kind. From the outset, the anti-CRT push has undercut Holocaust education initiatives -- an utterly predictable consequence that thus far has barely even registered an iota of worry amongst Republicans who just a few months ago were holding themselves as the last hope against an incipient tidal wave of antisemitism (then again, it was barely a year ago when Republicans were still holding themselves out as defenders of free speech in education -- who can keep up?).

But it is worth putting these developments in America in conversation with what's happening in Europe, and why it is exactly that they find the Holocaust to be so disposable. For the most part, it is not that I think that the legislators in Indiana or Texas are secret Hitler admirers. However, I do think they may possess, and be acting on, a sort of annoyed indifference to the Holocaust's preeminence. Much like Republican frustration over how all political scandals end in -gate, there is frustration over how the main "shared" exemplar of pure political evil is a right-wing phenomenon. Sometimes this frustration manifests in absurd attempts to pretend that Nazism was "actually" a left-wing ideology. But another play is to seek to undercut the Holocaust as "just another" historical event, one that shouldn't receive undue attention or be subject to special condemnation. Who cares about the Holocaust when somewhere, someone is reading a book on how to provide support to LGBT youth? It's not pro-Nazi so much as it's anti- expending any resources to fight Nazism or inculcate the view that Nazism is bad. 

On the European side, the new far-right parties are not (yet) outright praising Hitler, but they're very much taking the view that we obsess too much over Hitler. Nazism is a minor blemish, an inkblot, a footnote in an otherwise glorious White European history, and bringing it up is just an obnoxious distraction from the "real" threats posed by immigrants, Muslims, and multiculturalism. And of course, the American right is increasingly lining up with these parties -- Steve King was just a touch ahead of the curve, but the snuggling up to Viktor Orban in Hungary has long since passed into the GOP mainstream. Why should the view of the Holocaust resist the trend? Indeed, the Indiana and Texas cases already show the GOP is happily galloping along with it.

A Quick Note on DEI Professionals and Antisemitism

This is a topic careening around my corner of the internet, and I've almost blogged on it a few times. Instead, I'll just share some quick and tentative thoughts.

(1) Anecdotal evidence aside, I entirely believe there are many DEI professionals who don't know much about antisemitism, and so are poorly equipped to recognize or address instances of antisemitism.

(2) The above can be, but I suspect is not primarily, due to latent hostility towards Jews or a belief that antisemitism "doesn't matter". 

(a) First of all, most people don't know much about most things, including but not limited to antisemitism.

(b) Second, in the American context, I suspect the professional development of DEI staffers tends to concentrate, for understandable reasons, on race and sex, with comparatively less (albeit not zero) attention paid to other potential axes of marginalization (such as religion, disability, indigenous status, and class). I also think that people wildly overestimate the breadth and depth of knowledge DEI professionals have -- which is not a knock on them, they have a hard job! -- in assuming that any gap in their understanding can only be a matter of willful ignorance (and that every other group is the beneficiary of their infinite fount of wisdom and energy).

(c) Finally, while some "generic" principles of DEI training might be cross-applicable to handling instances of antisemitism, I tend to view antisemitism and other forms of marginalization as sufficiently distinct such that one cannot simply deduce proper orientation to one via knowledge of another, and so it is not the case that one knows how to treat antisemitism by taking what one knows about racism and cross-applying.

(3) I do not, therefore, unduly begrudge a DEI professional for not knowing much about antisemitism -- so long (and this is an important point) as they know they don't know much about antisemitism and do not assume expertise they don't have. It's fine for people not to know things -- most people don't know most things. It's when people think they know things they don't that we run into problems -- this is why I actually really find the assumptions attacked in 2(c) dangerous. The problem of antisemitism in DEI isn't that people don't know much about it, it's that too often they don't know much about it but assume that they know plenty much primarily because they oppose racism and so that suffices to establish their anti-antisemitism bona fides (I've sometimes referred to this as treating antisemitism as a BOGO -- learn about racism, and you get credibility on antisemitism thrown in free!).

Putting all this together, and recognizing that DEI training time is a scarce resource and "become an expert on everything in advance" is not actually a viable proposal, the integration of antisemitism into DEI spaces may be better served by developing a culture of outsourcing -- recognizing that, outside a basic corpus of principles that everyone can reasonably be expected to know, that on-site DEI professionals may not have significant expertise in antisemitism and can, without being viewed as failures, turn to outside authorities (such as respected local Jewish organizations) for assistance if and when issues come up.