Today is Tisha B’av, the Jewish day of mourning which commemorates many past tragedies, beginning with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s an occasion with much to teach us, but whose lessons are often misunderstood. I wrote about one of them: yair.substack.com/p/other-people…
"National tragedy, in the traditional Jewish understanding, is not an opportunity to assert our own sense of superiority, but to foster a spirit of self-critique." yair.substack.com/p/other-people…
Proud that this newsletter illustrates the ancient story of Tisha B'av with a painting from 1867 and a Star Wars meme from 2021. We cater to all demographics.
When most of your people are vaccinated, most of your remaining coronavirus cases will be among the vaccinated. This does not mean that the vaccines "failed." It means that there aren't many unvaccinated people left to infect.
No one has ever claimed that the vaccines stop you from getting infected. They are a certain % effective, as has been repeatedly reported. When most people are vaccinated, you'd expect some people to still get coronavirus, and for most of them to have been vaccinated. It's math.
As I've said here repeatedly, Israel's data suggests the Pfizer vaccine is less effective against the Delta variant, though still over 60% effective at preventing infection, and 90%+ at preventing severe disease. So again, you should expect some vaccinated folks to get infected.
Here's the director of Human Rights Watch blaming Jews for antisemitism. Antisemites, like all bigots, have used alleged acts of their targets to justify attacks on them ("they killed Jesus! they swindle!"). Obscene for an ostensible human rights group to push their propaganda.
Antisemites have offered countless justifications for their antisemitism for thousands of years. Knock down one pretext & a new one takes its place. They were attacking Jews before Israel existed, and they'd be doing it if it didn't. Jews don't cause antisemitism. Antisemites do.
Antisemitism wasn't caused by Jews "killing Jesus" in the Middle East centuries ago. That was the bigot's excuse. Antisemitism isn't caused by Israeli actions in 2021. That's the bigot's excuse. Antisemitism is caused by the hate of the bigot, who will always find a new excuse.
Here it is, my Q&A with @AdamSerwer on the occasion of his new book. We talked about everything from the origins of antisemitism, to the untold story of American Jewry’s debate over slavery, to whether Jesus Christ did karate. Read it all here: yair.substack.com/p/q-and-a-with…
@AdamSerwer "Antisemitism … is not something that is inherent to right or left, because it so predates the modern conception of both ... It’s just not something that you can immunize yourself from as a result of having correct beliefs.” -@AdamSerweryair.substack.com/p/q-and-a-with…
@AdamSerwer "You’ve got Greek writers in Alexandria, Egypt, writing things that sound like alt-right shitposts from 2015. It sort of blows your mind, like, how is this this *old*?" -@AdamSerwer on the ancient roots of anti-Jewish prejudice yair.substack.com/p/q-and-a-with…
Here is the full description of the game, which does seem like a more humane approach to averting the Holocaust than killing Baby Hitler, but a lot less fun.
My latest: Last month, Israel's new government announced it would transfer 1.2 million vaccines to the Palestinian Authority. Yesterday, 700,000 of those doses landed in South Korea instead. I wrote about how this deal fell apart, and why it matters: tabletmag.com/sections/israe…
Israel, which is mostly vaccinated, traded its soon-to-expire doses to South Korea, which desperately needs them, in exchange for South Korea's scheduled fall shipment of Pfizer vaccines. That's the exact arrangement Israel originally had with the Palestinians. So what happened?
After the deal with Israel was announced, extremists began protesting it. Rather than stand up to them, the Palestinian Authority cancelled the entire deal on the pretext that some of the doses would soon expire—which was exactly the point of the swap, and agreed upon in advance!
This is kind of amazing. Now that Israel's president Reuven Rivlin is leaving office, Israel's security service released a photo showing how they disguised him so he could walk among the general public. Take a look: