Good afternoon!
What happens when a pre-pubescent non-Jewish kid reads a revolutionarily risque Philip Roth book about a frustrated MOT? Sentences like, “There are a lot of words in Portnoy’s Complaint that I didn’t really get, like shtupp and schlong and shmutzig and punim. I don’t know what they mean, but they’re really fun to say!” and “What’s a ‘vaselined upright?'” [The Millions]
Jeff Goldberg talks some center-left, apprehensive sense about Iran, Israel, the US and the bomb in The Atlantic’s cover story. Negotiations, sanctions and pressures are happening, but Goldberg’s expected endgame? A probable Israeli air strike this year. [The Atlantic]
Chicago comedian Ray Hanania, a Palestinian Christian who writes for the Jerusalem Post, praises the Jewish community (besides the ADL) for defending New York Muslims’ right to build an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. Then he asks: Why don’t American Muslims defend Jewish American rights? [Jerusalem Post]
The Forward runs an interesting profile on Jewish students interning in Washington over the summer, and the efforts they made to come together as a cohort. Out of 20,000 total summer interns in the capital, 6,000 were Jewish. That’s 30 percent of the interns, out of two percent of the total population. [The Forward]
This is a few days old, but still important: Tony Judt, a pre-eminent history professor, left-wing Jewish critic of Israel and controversial proponent of a bi-national state for Israelis and Palestinians, died on Saturday from ALS. Let’s hope that his work will inspire more civilized voices on the conflict, no matter their stance. [New York Times]
