Words of the Week: Taffy Brodesser-Akner

“This was a good book to read as I searched in my mind for other times that we cheer on terrorism except for when it’s happening to the Jews. This was a good book to read as the meme of asserting that the ‘questioning’ of Israel’s policies is not anti-Semitism morphed into something that was, by some parties, actually yes quite gleeful and strenuous anti-Semitism, until finally my sisters in Crown Heights began to beseech their male children to cover their yarmulkes with baseball caps and the world around me was heartbreakingly silent as Jews were cornered and threatened here in America for something going on very far away. This was a good book to read as my Jewish friends texted me that this would stop if we could just get Bibi out of power, and I wondered what they texted each other in 1935 as the streets in Europe overheated with pogrom energy and there was no Bibi and no Israel to blame.”

Source: Taffy Brodesser-Akner, “The One About Bibi Netanyahu’s Father and the Perils of Diaspora” (New York Times Book Review)

Words of the Week

“We too ask to be seen and heard; we ask for our experiences to be valued; we ask that we be allowed to enter progressive conversations with our whole selves to expand our learning and activism alongside our fellow Bulldogs.

If, after reading this, you’ve learned something new, gained some empathy, will be more thoughtful about the quickness with which you share a post that blames Jews, or if you’re now more curious to understand more about your fellow Jewish students — we say thank you for listening.

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