This Is How We Roll (And Don't)

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

It’s Friday, and this is the mood (and also John Goodman’s finest hour):

(As an aside, I once showed this clip to my Orthodox Chabad rebbetzin. This is a woman who has likely never said a profane word in her life and never once seen a movie like this, and the way she threw her head back and laughed hard and long and helplessly will always be a cherished memory.)

So I promised you the good news today, as I try to do every Friday, and I have a lot.

First, the secret initiative I shared with you in a recent newsletter is now up and running. I’m not going to even say the name of it here, because I don’t have control over who reads this page, I only have control over the comment section.

If you are on Facebook, please message me and request an invitation to join.

Membership will be entirely and only by invitation. I may not have total control over the privacy and secrecy of the group, but I’m going to do everything in my power to protect it.

I know it will be tedious to invite people one by one, but that’s the way I’m going to do it. I really hope to see you there. If you’re not on Facebook but would like to respond in some other way to the situations we’ll be addressing, I can add you to a separate mailing list here, so please let me know that in the comment section or message me through this site.

Second, we have a new book pick and I could not be more excited for us to meet with the author: Dr. Yossi Sheffi. He’s a man after my own heart. A former fighter pilot with the IDF and now a longtime professor at MIT (and internationally renowned expert in his field), he was appalled by the way MIT erupted into full-throttle Jew hatred after October 7th, and the utter failure of the administration to address or contain it.

Other schools created reports about the proliferation of antisemitic incidents during that time; MIT did not. So Dr. Sheffi created his own report. He’s an excellent, incisive writer and his account is so important.

He published it himself. I have little doubt that mainstream publishers wouldn’t touch it with a stick, given the current climate. So he did as Jews have always done: put it out himself.

This is what we do and have always done. In response to discrimination in other eras, we built our own hospitals. We built our own medical schools. We built our own colleges. We built our own law firms. We built our own theaters. We built Hollywood. And we built the best around.

The entire premise of the Never Alone Book Club is that we Jews — millions strong in the United States — have the power to create #1 bestsellers even without anyone else’s permission, approval or participation. Rachel Goldberg-Polin was a #1 NYT bestseller and we can create many more.

If you want an accurate reflection of the state of publishing and Jews, by the way, PEN America released its report about that yesterday.

They quoted yours truly and gave that quote a prominent place.

Shocker: they left out the part where I said I thought PEN America’s capitulation to antizionists -- by which I mean, among other things, their surrender to cultural boycotts, their amplication of the genocide libel, their shift in focus to issues like “free speech on campus” which are outside the scope of their (literary-based) mission, and the intense internal pressure on Suzanne Nossel to step down as leader of their organization -- was contemptible and pathetic, especially since their primary purpose is to defend freedom of expression.

But honestly, they didn’t need to bother with that report. One look at a comment section like the one beneath their post about it yesterday is all you need in order to know exactly where we are. I may say more about that next week, but I don’t want to bring your spirits down just before Shabbat.

In any event, please buy Dr. Sheffi’s book if you’re able, and please plan to join our conversation with him. I’m hoping August 6th will work but that’s far from set in stone right now, so don’t save the date just yet. I will announce it the moment we have it.

Finally, and I know this is potentially annoying because I can’t say more yet, I was contacted this week by a verrrrrry prominent figure on the front lines of the effort to find a way forward for Israelis and Palestinians. I was stunned and thrilled when said figure proposed working together on a particular project. I am so sorry I can’t reveal any details yet, but know that I’m excited beyond belief and this is going to be a Very Good Thing that you’ll be the very first to know about when I’m allowed to provide more info.

Okay, fam. I’ll be back with you early next week. And let me say just before signing off that I’m grateful beyond belief to this community for allowing me to do this work. None of it would be effective without your active engagement and participation and support. I feel the momentum building around the Jewish resistance movement, and as hard and demoralizing as it can often be, it’s also the privilege and honor of my life to stand up and speak and fight for us. And it’s exciting to know that — just as the aforementioned Jews in other eras built new hospitals and schools and theaters, etc. — we are in the process of building all kinds of things for this generation of Jews and the ones to come.

Till next week, then.

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.