Greetings and welcome to this week's fresh batch of Laura's Links.
First and foremost, thanks for all your notes and concern about Mark which are very much appreciated by all of us here at Steyn HQ. Please continue to keep him in your prayers as he gains his strength back and rests up.
Thank you also to everyone who joined me yesterday for a substitute-level hour of hosting the Live Q&A Around the Planet in Mark's absence. We hope that Mark will be up to speed very soon, and things are actually looking quite good - he is feeling much better.
As previously mentioned, at Chez Cohen we are gearing up for the Shavuot holiday. Like most Jewish holidays, it has a lot of components including prayer, reading the Ten Commandments, reading the Book of Ruth, staying up all night learning Torah and also eating dairy foods.
This is going to be a two-day sucker for Jews all over the world as it starts Thursday evening at sundown, which will blend into the Sabbath at nightfall Friday and then will not be over until Saturday night. So if you have any comments or complaints on this column, or the Q&A I'll only be able to address them on Saturday night (but more likely Sunday). Thank you for your attention to this matter!
So far, I'd say we are pretty organized but these extended holidays do take quite a bit of planning. Luckily, I had a chance to write it all down last week and Mr. C and I were able to get pretty much all the shopping done earlier this week. I have big plans! In no particular order: lasagne, poke bowls, chicken, lamb and cheesecake among other things. Oh we also got some herring which I am truly excited about.
Luckily I also have a nice stash of books from the library - yay! I have been reading much more fiction than non-fiction lately. I think that's mostly because life (i.e., "non-fiction") is pretty intense, complicated and busy nowadays. I see fiction as a bit more of an escape, which is sometimes very necessary. Sometimes I will read a book of fiction and be so engrossed and engaged with the characters that I actually feel I will miss them when the book ends. Sometimes, they are so well developed that they remind me of someone I know, or are a composite of a few people that have weaved in and out of my life. Do you ever get really sad when a book ends? When you know that there are only a few pages left and then you will have to put it down and then be left to just think about what you have just experienced?
Last weekend, I finished reading a book by British author David Baddiel, an author I had never read before, although I had heard of him on social media because he wrote a book about antisemitism called Jews Don't Count. In case you're interested, I read The Death of Eli Gold and I enjoyed it, but one of the funniest passages for me (and this is not a spoiler) was when one of the preliminarily unsympathetic main characters describes going to yet another therapist and describes to him how anytime he would get upset or cry, his famous father ("Eli Gold") would say to him "stop hacking a chanik". It was hysterical to me because I had just seen a bit by the incredible Jewish comedian Modi, where he included the phrase (with a more accurate pronunciation) "stop hucking my chanik".
"Hucking" is one of those words that I grew up with and I never thought it wasn't a real English word. I mean it is so utterly and ridiculously Jewish that I kind of can't believe that I actually thought that, but on the other hand, I thought "mees" was a word, because my Dad's family used it all the time for butt-ugly, and never connected it to the word "miskain" - which is Hebrew for pathetic or pitiable. I went down a major etymological rabbit hole looking for "mees", I tried all the spellings, all the things and then - well basically I realized I was an idiot.
Anyway, hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik, in Yiddish literally means "don't beat a tea-kettle at me" but is more like stop nagging me, don't bug me - stop HUCKING me!!!
I don't have time now, but I think that in next week's column I will write about some of my parents' words of wisdom (and words of insult). Amazingly and luckily, as I've mentioned, I still have both of them and as I hear myself say their bits as I grow older, it might be time to memorialize some of that stuff here.
Anyway, Happy Shavuot to our Jewish readers and have a great weekend.
See you on the other side of the holiday.
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North America:
"Hot Tubbing in Non-Binaryland" (oy to the vey).
Yup. Buh-bye. Apparently it was the Joooooooz fault, imagine that?
VDH: The Real Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. From his mouth to G-d's ears.
Meanwhile in Toronto - the return of Pee Pee Poo Poo Man.
A Nakba whopper from Mayor "local issues" Mamdani.
"While the Right circulates op-eds after yet another Democrat avoids saying what a woman is or answering whether biological men can have babies, the Left smiles at another internal litmus test avoided and advances their cause diligently. Candidates on the Left are not looking to win arguments; they are trained to define their opponent, mobilize aligned constituencies through community organizing, and maintain narrative discipline. The result is not always intellectually coherent, but it is politically effective."
A failed Wokestapo cancellation attempt.
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Jews and Israel:
Seth Mandel is amazing. Read the whole thing: "The Anti-Zionist Affliction". The whole thing is great (the mixed dancing bit cracked me up), and then there's this: "Anti-Zionism is by definition an obsession, an antisocial affliction, a psychological condition. As the contagion spreads, there will still be pockets of art and comedy and literature and other essential pillars of culture. But only in places where you'll also find Jews, apparently."
RELATED:
"Jew-hatred strips the humanity from whatever it touches. There is nothing else like it."
There is an "orgy of antisemitism overtaking the West". Indeed.
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The Great Walkbackening, Reckoning and Accounting:
May it be the first of many.
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Christianity:
Any comment from the Pope on this? Any Christian podcasters mentioned it?
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Europe:
This is the lovely couple that opened their coffee house doors to the Israeli delegation in Vienna.
"To end the anti-immigration protests, Dutch police have received orders to start threatening mothers that their children will be taken away."
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The Formerly Great Britain:
This was the most disgusting article of the week, from the Beeb. Apparently, if you sell your children into sex slavery, you are the real victim. Afghanistan is a terrible country, with terrible "traditions" and terrible people. Barbarians.
Or as put here: "White man doesn't want immigrants in his country: Evil Brown man sells daughter into sex slavery: Tragic and brave"
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Oz:
This seems like a fabulous idea. If they do this, there will be literal explosions -and not just a figurative one.
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Human Grace:
Martin Short on his daughter Katherine's suicide; that she did the best she could until she couldn't. This is one of the most poignant and heartfelt and forgiving descriptions of suicide due to mental illness that I have ever seen. May she rest in peace and may G-d send strength to Martin Short and his family.