Shabbat shalom!
We are currently an hour into our flight to Palm Springs at an altitude of about 25,000 feet and a ground speed of about 470 mph. I have literally flown millions of miles in my lifetime, yet I still get a kick out of the whole flight thing and still find it amazing that these tubes with wings can get airborne. Due to an earlier than desired departure, I didn’t get much sleep last night, hence, this week’s offering may be short on substance and clarity.
As the news across the globe gets increasingly more complex and dangerous, I keep hoping that something positive will happen to shake us out of this unrelenting Groundhog Day. Perhaps a “heavenly hamburger” chokes to death a certain orange turd, or, Vlad the Putin falls out a window to his ignominious death, or Hamas martyrs themselves by committing a mass suicide. All three would be ok with me, but alas, not likely.
More likely is our further descent, I fear, down the rabbit hole of this wacky Wonderland we call reality. In the first episode of the film trilogy The Matrix, lead character Neo was given the option of taking a red pill, which would enable him to understand what was actually occurring outside the illusion created by the Matrix, or a blue pill, which would allow him to return to experiencing only that illusion. Morpheus says "You take the blue pill... the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill... you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
Deep enough already. It’s getting awfully dark down here, maybe time for a blue pill?
In an ironic twist of color schemes, it seems that the MAGA nuts and conservative crowd have overdosed on Blue pills, and are living in an alternative Matrix. Their latest dalliance with the absurd comes in the form of a new conspiracy theory whereby Taylor Swift has somehow teamed up with George Soros as some kind of government plant that led Fox News host Jesse Watters to speculate that Swift might be a Pentagon "psyop" — an asset used for psychological operations. What’s even more bizarre than this sheer lunacy is how weirdly anti-American it is. Swift is a self-made billionaire and her jock boyfriend Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce are the sort of wholesome success stories we normally celebrate. And it’s football for cripes sake!
So, why on earth are these unhinged loonies obsessed with Swift and her boyfriend? Why would a deranged person suggest that Kelce, a jock from Ohio, is a shill for George Soros because he did a vaccine ad? What pill induced Vikram Ramaswamy to say the Super Bowl is rigged in favor of the Chiefs in a plot to aid Biden? Imagining these very mainstream figures are part of a “psy-ops” strategy to take over the world for Davos vampires is off the charts looney and not something even the Mad Hatter would contemplate. But here we are. Cue up Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane:
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know
Remember what the Dormouse said
Feed your head
Feed your head
Now, what about the news for the Jews across the Jew S of A and the world? Here is your weekly compendium and carefully curated collection copied and pasted from credible sources such as The Forward, JTA, Haaretz, Times of Israel, and others:
Latest from the war …
Hamas officials in Gaza pushed back after a Qatari spokesperson said the group had reacted positively to a proposal for a cease-fire and hostage release deal, saying they had yet to come to an agreement.
The United Kingdom is considering recognizing a Palestinian state, its foreign secretary said, as a way to push for a two-state solution. Separately, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggested that the Biden administration is developing a plan to recognize a new, demilitarized Palestinian state
More than 800 government officials across Europe and the U.S. released a public letter of dissent against their countries’ support for Israel in the war. Some 80 signatories are American, with the largest group coming from the State Department.
Biden signed an executive order that will punish four Israeli settlers who have led or participated in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Seven workers at a Turkish plant owned by the U.S. company Procter & Gamble were freed after being taken hostage for nine hours by a man protesting against the war.
Protesters continued to block humanitarian aid trucks from entering Gaza after access to two border crossings the group had previously targeted was restricted, moving their demonstrations to the port of Ashdod.
For God and country | War reignites fringe movement to resettle Gaza: Some 2,000 people flocked this week to a conference in Jerusalem for the loudest and most high-profile event yet to rally support for resettlement. The crowd included influential rabbis, relatives of people murdered or abducted on Oct. 7, soldiers killed in combat since, and busloads of yeshiva students, many who said they hope to raise their future children in Gaza. Susan Greene, our correspondent on the ground in Israel, reports from the scene. Read the story ➤
5 things to know about the UN group whose sole mission is to aid Palestinians: Allegations that a dozen employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, better known as UNRWA, participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks have led the U.S. and other countries to suspend donations to the agency, which provides humanitarian aid to Gaza. The U.S. provides $300 to $400 million annually to UNRWA, and has already sent $121 million since the war began. The Forward’s Beth Harpaz dives into the group’s controversial past and the impact it’s had in the current war. Read the story ➤
➤ Throw away your ABBA records - More than 1,000 Swedish musicians are asking for Israel to be excluded from the annual Eurovision Song Contest, which Sweden is hosting in May. Israel has won the competition four times since 1978, most recently in 2018.
(New York Jewish Week) – Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside Columbia University on Friday, in protest of the suspension of campus pro-Palestinian groups as well as an incident last month in which students were allegedly sprayed with a foul substance. At least one person was arrested at the rally. The rally on Friday was led by Within Our Lifetime, the prominent pro-Palestinian activist group in New York City that endorsed Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and has frequently called for Israel’s elimination. It took place with the university locked to the public, in a sign of how the campus climate has continued to sour.
Federal authorities arrested a man who allegedly threatened a Massachusetts synagogue, telling the congregation in a voicemail, “If you can kill the Palestinians, we can kill you.”
Israeli special forces went undercover as hospital staff — the men in fake beards and the women dressed in Muslim garb — to enter a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin Tuesday morning. They killed three men suspected of planning a terror attack against Israel. On social media, some are saying that the video from the spycraft-filled incident reminded them of the popular Netflix series Fauda.
Time to buckle up! Have a great weekend everyone! And hey, let’s be careful out there and watch out for any rabbit holes!
Brad out.