Trump

Fight Jew-hatred – and lies

The U.S. Congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is limping along in the face of a near-total absence of cooperation from the Republicans who make up almost half of Congress and of the American voting public. Despite reams of video evidence, there is legitimate worry that justice will not be served in the case of an attempted coup at the heart of American government.

Those who tried to overthrow the will of the people and who even called for the murder of the vice-president of their own party are venerated by their supporters as patriots, while those who seek justice for those events are vilified as traitors.

The very people who tried to subvert the democratic decision of the American people last November – those who are trying to steal the election from President Joe Biden – chant “Stop the steal!” apparently without a hint of irony or self-awareness.

But the fight over Jan. 6 is a small puzzle piece in a larger social disorder. We are seeing verifiable truths dismissed as lies and what should be summarily debunked as lies revered as gospel. Listening to some of these voices, it is difficult to tell whether they are trying to create a reality based on what they wish were true – Trump won, Democrats eat babies, whatever – or whether they truly believe these falsehoods. It’s probably some of both.

Are we approaching a tipping point where a healthy society that has at least a modicum of shared consensus on what is true and what is false slides into a moral terrain that has no agreed-upon truth or lies, right or wrong, good or evil?

The pandemic has brought this problem into clear relief. Doctors say that they are treating people who, on their deathbed, continue to insist there is no such thing as COVID. There is a spectrum, from outright denial of the existence of the virus to conspiracies that it was invented for nefarious purposes to the idea that the virus itself is legitimate but is being exploited by governments (or other disreputable entities) to take away some amorphous “freedoms.”

Recently, parents opposed to mask mandates chased fellow parents (and their kids) at a school in California, screaming that the kids could not breathe through the masks. When some parents responded with what, by any fair measure, is common sense, one protester screamed back: “You were propagandized.… You are not being told the truth!”

To put a fine point on it, people who have been propagandized and who are convinced of a lie are shouting at others that they have been propagandized and do not know the truth.

Recently, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, speaking to a Republican crowd that should have been in his back pocket, said, “If you haven’t had the vaccine, you ought to think about getting it because if you’re my age –” At this point, he was drowned out by screaming and booing. When he was able to speak again, he told the Republican crowd, “Ninety-two percent of the people in the hospitals in South Carolina are unvaccinated.” To this, some audience members began screaming “Lies!”

The New York Times Magazine’s ethics columnist, Kwame Anthony Appiah, wrote recently of the “strange mirror game” being played by conspiracy theorists and hucksters. “They peddle hoaxes that warn of hoaxes, scams that warn of scams. They dupe their victims by cautioning them not to be duped.”

Lies have been around forever. But it seems we are in another realm now. When Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to Trump, defended then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s false claims that attendance numbers at Trump’s 2016 presidential inauguration were the largest in history, Conway asserted that there were facts and then there were

“alternative facts.” This was not the genesis of a culture of gaslighting, but it did represent, along with Spicer’s lies, a turning point. The Trump administration operated in a world that rational observers would view as existing in an alternative universe of alternative facts.

Jews and supporters of Israel who forgive Trump’s many affronts because they deem him to be on “our side” on one issue suffer from something that might be equated to the difference between the weather and the climate.

Trump may indeed have taken steps that people view as being to Israel’s advantage. But, in nearly everything else Trump and his supporters have done, they have assaulted truth, facts and rationality. They call black white and up down. Legitimate media are “fake news” and darkweb rantings are trustworthy sources.

In a story in the last issue of the Independent, the commentator Bret Stephens said: “We now have come to a place where, increasingly, we are a nation that can bring ourselves to believe anything and a nation that can bring itself to believe anything … sooner or later, is going to have no problem believing the worst about Jews.”

Trump, Spicer, Conway and their crowd did not invent the situation where lies are gospel and truth is rejected, but they did their best to perfect it.

It should not need saying that such people should not be trusted, since their loyalty and sincerity are worthless. Republicans who, on a dime, turn into an angry mob screaming “Hang Mike Pence!” should not be trusted when it comes to something as sacred as the security and the fate of Israel and its people.

More gravely still, there is a reason why Jews are often referred to (as dehumanizing as the term is) as “canaries in a coalmine.” When antisemitism emerges, it is a sign of broader societal disorder. It is no surprise that the spike in antisemitism we are witnessing coincides with a phenomenon where verifiable facts are regarded as debatable assertions and the most ludicrous assertions are not only accepted as truth but defended with fanaticism and violence.

In the late 20th century, Canadian Jewish Congress and other groups adopted an approach premised on the idea that the best way to ensure the safety of Jewish people was to advance an ideal that protects allminorities. There might always be people with antisemitic motivations, but, if we can inculcate in society a transcendent commitment to equality for all, we may create a firewall against the worst antisemitism.

As CJC and others did several decades ago, it may be time for Jewish people and others who care about fighting antisemitism to rededicate ourselves to strengthening the most fundamental principles of our democratic societies, the very foundations that we too often have taken for granted, even after Jan. 6. This includes not only ensuring basic things like civil and voting rights and protecting the institutions of democratic government, but it calls on us to contest outright lies and to defend basic truth. If, in the process, we manage to yank our democratic societies back from the abyss of lies and the frightening places they lead, we will have made things better not only for the Jewish future, but for everyone’s.

Trump’s golden idol status

When Moses went up Mount Sinai, the Israelites grew restless and constructed a golden calf to worship. Every Jew and everyone with any theological literacy knows what happened next. So it came to pass that, last weekend at the annual convention known as the Conservative Political Action Conference in the United States, a giant golden statue of Donald Trump was wheeled around, drawing adulation and selfies. With an apparent absence of irony, the defeated president was transformed into a literal golden idol.

CPAC has been an annual shindig for Christian and other religious conservatives, libertarians, right-leaning economic thinkers and a big tent of the country’s centre-right. As evidenced by last weekend’s iteration, it is now, like so much of that country’s political establishment, in thrall to Donald J. Trump.

This is the latest in an avalanche of evidence that, despite losing the election, Trump maintains a stranglehold on the Republican party and much of the country. The literal idolatry he inspires deserves fresh consideration. It is the inevitable end-point (we hope) of a trend that was predictable.

It is easy – and not wrong – to view the perpetrators of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as domestic terrorists who threatened the very foundation of American democracy. But these people view themselves – or, at least, some do, based on interviews after the incident – as saviours of democracy. They (or, at least, many of them) genuinely believe that the election of Joe Biden was a result of a rigged process; that millions of votes were stolen or some other jiggery-pokery ensured that the true voice of the people was thwarted.

They believe this because they have been told, repeatedly and as recently as last Sunday at CPAC, by Trump, the man they believe won the election, that the process was rigged, that American democracy has already collapsed and that the election was stolen. Thus, we observe people attempting to steal a free and fair election carrying signs demanding, “Stop the steal.”

Certainly, some recognize that the election was fair but hop on a bandwagon arguing otherwise simply because they dislike the outcome. But there are many who are absolutely convinced that corruption and trickery unjustly deprived Trump of a second term. More alarmingly, a subset apparently believes in an entirely alternate reality, in which Trump is still president, operating the “legitimate” government from his Mar-a-Lago retreat or, even more fancifully, that a series of events is yet to unfold in which the election will be proven wrong and Trump will triumphantly return to the White House.

Listening to the comments of some Americans on cable TV or in online sources is chilling. It is hard to decide whether the scarier position is the one that winks at the truth, as many Republican members of Congress do, claiming disingenuously that they merely want to investigate to make sure the election process was fair, or the one that is rooted in thin air, asserting, despite all evidence and scores of court decisions, that Trump was cheated.

There is much talk of the political polarization that the United States and other countries are experiencing, a result in part of a refraction of the media universe. We are now all capable of consuming a diet of news and information that completely reinforces our prejudices. Combined with a charismatic (to many, anyway) leader who repeats lies endlessly while stoking a narrative of grievances, this refraction has led not to differences of opinion but to incongruities about the very facts of history and current events. To use a condescending and clichéd construction, the people who are convinced Trump won are themselves victims of their leaders’ lies.

This is not to let either side entirely off the hook in this time of division. Much has been made of perceived snobbery that dismisses or diminishes the intelligence or goodwill of Trump supporters. Terms like “wokeness,” which suggest one side has awakened to incontrovertible truth while the rest of the world is mired in somnambulant ignorance, do not leave much room for constructive dialogue. The certainties of the left are visible online and on cable news as well, if for now at least founded more sturdily on a foundation of reality.

There is much talk of healing the divided society that Biden has inherited. Even this elicits disagreement, however, with some demanding accountability for the egregious oversteps of the Trump era before moving on to making nice.

This challenge runs deeper than politics. The United States may be an urgent example but all societies must confront the divisions created by the diffusion of information and contested ideas of “truth” in the internet era. This is a challenge for educators, for elected officials, for thinkers and activists and, significantly and problematically in a free society, for media.

A society requires some shared understanding of reality. When we are literally arguing over the definition of truth, when terms like “alternative facts” are uttered without a smirk, we have a problem. To say nothing of a chunk of the population who reject science, including denial around whether a virus that has killed more than 500,000 Americans actually exists. This is a desperately urgent, possibly existential, challenge for democratic societies. The first step may, as in other cases of human behaviour, be acknowledging we have a problem.

Trump exploited, and continues to exploit, a situation in which it is possible to convince large swaths of people that up is down and black is white. But, while he makes excellent use of the ambiguity of our time, he is a product of it. Whether Trump remains an influential figure or not, we have inherited a world where others like him will emerge from a miasma of mistruth unless we find some common foundations of fact.

Hope in the presidency

There is no perfection in human affairs. We are imperfect beings and our creations are always flawed. But this does not stop us from striving for perfection, knowing that our reach should exceed our grasp.

The preamble to the United States Constitution begins with, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union …” and then sets forth the things that the founders agreed to aspire toward, knowing that perfection is unreachable but that aiming for a “more perfect” future is still an ideal to pursue.

This idea is central to Judaism also, that the world was created imperfect and unfinished because it is the role of humanity to complete that work – or, rather, to advance in the direction of completion/perfection even knowing it is unattainable.

This theme appeared also in the poem by Amanda Gorman, the first United States National Youth Poet Laureate, at the inauguration last week of President Joe Biden. “Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed / a nation that isn’t broken / but simply unfinished,” she said.

That day, Inauguration Day, felt to many like a collective swerve away from an abyss. After the violence at the Capitol two weeks earlier, after four years of chaos and cruelty at the top of the U.S. administration, and at what we hope is the beginning of the end of the pandemic of our lifetimes, it felt like a move in the right direction, a reversal from the trajectory of spiraling rancour. The violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, so horrific and deadly, may have been the wakeup call that enough Americans needed to recognize the destination to which the “Trump train” was always headed.

The most fundamental component of a democratic society – the peaceful transition of power – was assaulted on Jan. 6, a day most of us never dreamed we would see, an experience that people in autocratic societies know too well but we hoped we never would. We may never know how close the United States came to genuinely losing its democracy but we can hope that the shock of the violence and the widespread refusal to accept the outcome of a properly run election opened enough eyes to the dangers of that approach. As President Biden said, “enough of us have come together to carry all of us forward.”

Regardless of party affiliation, the transfer of power seemed to many like a return to the project of a more perfect union.

By the skin of their teeth, the Democratic party held the House of Representatives and reclaimed the White House and the Senate. The new Biden administration better reflects the diversity of the country’s racial, religious, gender and other components, not least of which is exemplified by the first female vice-president and the first one who is not white.

The refusal of the outgoing president and his wife to adhere to longstanding decorum and decency and their petulant retreat to Florida before the inauguration was a slap in the face for the very idea of democracy itself. To the credit of the vice-president, Mike Pence, he stepped up where the president would not. So, too, did all the living former presidents, three of them in person at the inauguration and the fourth, Jimmy Carter, calling Biden the night before the inauguration to offer wishes of support. This was a powerful show of respect for the office that Trump never exhibited when he held it and which he further despoiled while leaving it. But he is gone now from there, ideally forever, and we trust that a less divisive and corrupt government will carry that country forward.

It is notable that our hopes for 2021 focus so much on a vaccine. The idea of this science – that injecting a dose of a virus into a body to develop an antibody to a more destructive manifestation – might be extrapolated into our body politic. The virus of extremism, tyranny and violence that we saw on Jan. 6 may have inoculated some Americans to combat the spread of such threats. As we strive for herd immunity in our public health, we can perhaps seek a similar degree of protection in our public life. There will always be bad people and bad ideas. Ensuring that they are kept in check and not permitted to reach pandemic levels is as close to perfection as we can possibly attain. We can hope that, in the spirit of Biden’s words, enough people will come together in defence of the great values that country was founded on to carry all of us forward.

יום הבוחר בארה”ב

(image by Zoonar/A.Makarov)

יום הבוחר: תושבי בריטיש קולומביה במערב קנדה הימרו כי דונלד טראמפ ינצח בבחירות לנשיאות ארה”ב היום, וימשיך בתפקיד לארבע שנים נוספות. אירוע הבחירות יהיה הפופולארי ביותר בהיסטוריה בקרב המהמרים

הבחירות לנשיאות ארצות הברית שיערכו היום יום שלישי, יהפכו לאירוע הפופולרי ביותר מאז ומעולם בקרב המהמרים השונים בעולם. רבים מהם מהמרים כי הנשיא הנוכחי, דונלד טראמפ, נציג המפלגה הרפובליקנית, הוא זה שינצח בבחירות את המועמד מטעם המפלגה הדמוקרטית, ג’ו ביידן. להערכת המהמרים אם כן טראמפ ימשיך לשמש נשיא ארה”ב בקדנציה נוספת בת ארבע שנים בבית הלבן.

בארה”ב חל איסור להמר בנושאים פוליטיים כמו הבחירות לנשיאות. לעומת זאת ניתן להמר על תוצאות הבחירות בקנדה במספר מדינות באירופה ובמקומות נוספים בעולם.

תושבי מחוז בריטיש קולומביה שבמערב קנדה השכנה מצפון של ארה”ב, החליטו כבר מי ינצח בבחירות לנשיאות ארה”ב, שיערכו היום (שלישי). לפי הערכת הקנדים או יותר נכון בין אלה שמהמרים, טראמפ ינצח בבחירות את ביידן.

לפי מצב ההימורים להיום: ארבעים וארבעה אחוז מצביעים על טראמפ כזוכה בבחירות, לעומת עשרים ושבעה אחוז שמאמינים שביידן ינצח. ואילו ללא פחות מעשרים ותשעה אחוז אין בשלב זה מועמד עדיף וזה קצת תמוה.

התאגיד של ממשלת בריטיש קולומביה – בי.סי לוטוריס קורפוריישן – שאחראי על כל ההימורים במחוז, החליט לאפשר לתושבים המקומיים להמר גם על זהות המנצח בבחירות לנשיאות בארה”ב, מבין השניים שמנהלים קרב איתנים, טראמפ וביידן. לפי הערכת בי.סי לוטוריס קורפוריישן למעלה מעשרת אלפים ישתתפו בהימורים לנשיאות ארה”ב היום. ובכך צפוי להישבר שיא המהמרים לאירוע בודד ביום אחד. אם כן ההימורים על הזוכה לנשיאות בארה”ב יותר פופולריים במחוז בריטיש קולומביה, מאשר זהות המנצחים באירועי הספורט הבולטים ובהם: משחקי הפלייאוף של הסופר בול, משחקי הפלייאוף של האן.בי.איי ומשחקי הפלייאוף של ההוקי. אגב, בבחירות לנשיאות לארה”ב הקודמות (שנערכו לפני כארבע שנים) בין טראמפ למועמדת המפלגה הדמוקרטית, הילרי קילנטון, כשבעת אלפיים ומאתיים מתושבי בריטיש קולוביה לקחו חלק בהימורים על זהות המנצח.

יש לציין כי אתר ההימורים של הבי.סי לוטוריס קורופריישן הוא הראשון בקנדה שהציע להמר על הבחירות בארה”ב. בשנה האחרונה בעיקר לאור מגיפת הקוביד, היקף ההימורים באתר של הבי.סי לוטוריס קורופריישן גדל משמעותית והגיע לכשני מיליארד דולר קנדי.

גם בקרב המהמרים באמצעות פלטפורמת ההימורים של אתר ההימורים הבריטי אודצ’קר, טראמפ ינצח את ביידן. בשלב זה בין המהמרים המועמד הפופולארי ביותר הוא טראמפ שזוכה לחמישים ושישה אחוז. זאת לעומת ביידן שזוכה לעשרים ושמונה אחוז בלבד. סגנית הנשיא המועמדת של ביידן, קמלה האריס, זוכה לפופולריות בשיעור של שמונה אחוזים בקרב המהמרים, ואילו סגן הנשיא של טראמפ, מייק פנס, זוכה לפופולריות בשיעור של חמישה אחוזים בלבד בקרב המהמרים. ואילו הזמר הראפר השחור, קניה וסט, שגם הוא הכריז על ריצתו לנשיאות ארה”ב, זוכה לשלושה אחוזים בלבד כמועמד פופולארי לזכייה בבחירות בקרב המהרים.

באתר אודצ’ר מציינים כי ההימורים על הזוכה לנשיאות ארה”ב היום, הופכים להיות האירוע הפופולרי ביותר בהיסטוריה מאז ומעולם, בקרב המהמרים השונים ברחבי העולם.

הקנדים כאן נערכים אף הם לבחירות: לפי הערכה כשש מאות ועשרים אלף קנדים שמחזיקים גם באזרחות אריקנית יכולים להצביע בבחירות אלה. בבחירות הקודמות לנשיאות רק כשלושים ושלושה אלף מהם הצביעו, ומדובר בכחמישה אחוזים בלבד. אך הפעם הדבר אמור להיות שונה בתכלית וקרוב לוודאי שאחוז הקנדים שיצביעו בבחירות לטובת טראמפ או ביידן יהיה הרבה יותר גבוה.

Favourable position

British Columbians, like others in much of the world, are stepping gingerly into what may be a post-pandemic period – or an “inter-pandemic” phase, if the predicted second wave bears out. Our daily briefings from Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, and Health Minister Adrian Dix are cautiously optimistic, tempered with the reality that some people, given an inch, will take a mile. Confusion around, or contempt for, changing social distancing guidelines has meant numerous instances of inappropriate gatherings.

All in all, though, British Columbians have so far experienced among the lowest proportions of COVID-related illnesses and deaths than almost any jurisdiction in the developed world. Each death is a tragedy, yet we should be grateful for those who have recovered and the fact that so many of us have remained healthy so far. Thanks should go to all those who have helped others make it through, including first responders, healthcare professionals and also those irreplaceable workers we used to take for granted: retail and service employees and others who have allowed most of us to live through this with comparatively minimal disruptions.

In our Jewish community, so many individuals and institutions have done so much, from delivering challah to providing emergency financial and other supports for those affected by the economic impacts of the pandemic.

Canadians, in general, seem to be making it through this time as well as can be expected. Polls indicate that Canadians are overwhelmingly supportive of the actions our governments have taken during the coronavirus pandemic. How the federal and provincial governments manage the continuing economic repercussions and the potential resurgence of infections in coming months will determine long-term consequences both for us and for their popularity.

In signs that things are returning to something akin to pre-pandemic normal, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s once-and-still-prime minister, is complaining about a “left-wing coup” and asserting that “the entire right” is on trial. In fact, it is not an entire wing of the Israeli political spectrum that is on trial, but Netanyahu himself, for bribery, breach of trust and fraud. He is accused of exchanging favours to friends and allies in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars in trinkets like cigars and champagne, and favourable coverage in media. Whatever strategy his team has for inside the courtroom, his PR strategy is pure deflection: blame the media, the court system, political opponents. He’s fighting two trials: the one in the justice system and the one in the court of public opinion. Netanyahu has managed to save his political hide thus far, through three successive elections and a year of coalition-building and horse trading. Predicting what might happen next is a popular but fruitless pastime.

More signs that things are not so different came from U.S. President Donald Trump on the weekend. As the death toll in the United States approached 100,000, Trump took time off from golfing to deliver Twitter rants, including retweets calling Hillary Clinton a “skank” and smearing other female Democrats for their appearance. Trump also insinuated that MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough is a murderer.

Sitting (mostly) comfortably in our homes watching such things from afar, it’s no wonder Canadians are feeling good about the way our various governments – federal and provincial, of all political stripes – are behaving these days.

Loss-loss only solution

The parallels between the Trump impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate and the release of the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan are striking. Donald Trump, a master of diversion, unveiled his incendiary proposal for the Mideast at the height of the Senate’s process. Just as the impeachment trial was, in some senses, a process whose outcome was predetermined by the Republican majority, so too is the Mideast proposal outcome predetermined in that it barrels over the Palestinian opposition and rubber-stamps almost everything the more extreme elements of the Israeli body politic have long demanded.

The approach is counterintuitive – like almost everything this U.S. president has done. Supporters might contend that, since all the rational thinking of the best diplomatic minds has not resolved this problem, a 180-degree turn that electroshocks the status quo might be better than nothing. The proposal is so one-sided that, out of sheer outrage, it has at least forced the Palestinian leadership to articulate what they will (or, rather, won’t) accept to a degree greater than they have expressed in recent years.

In the end, though, this emphasis on winning and losing – the Trump plan would be a clear win for Israel and a commensurate loss for Palestinians – is precisely the wrong approach. We may believe that the Palestinian leadership has betrayed their people by rejecting previous offers of coexistence, and conclude that what their people get is what their leaders deserve. But the Palestinian people deserve better than this.

Israel and the Zionist project have always had to contend with the realities and vagaries of coexistence – what other choice do Jews really have? Despite early warnings, coexistence with their neighbours was a widespread expectation among the early Zionists, some of whom thought (naïvely, in retrospect) that they would be welcomed with open arms by the other peoples in the region. But, even with the history of conflict and the absence of anything to give us a great deal of hope, some slow evolution that leads toward coexistence is the only realistic alternative to the status quo of suspended violence and intermittent war.

We need to recognize, above all, that a lasting resolution is not going to look like a win for one side and a loss for the other. Likewise, it is not going to resemble a win-win, as negotiators in various arenas, as well as salespeople, like to say. It will be a lose-lose proposition. An enduring peace and coexistence will almost certainly occur only when both sides are willing to accept a loss on many or most of their key demands – and accept that loss as a price for their children’s lives and well-being.

More immediately, we should be very wary of any master plan for peace that is scribbled out in the middle of an election campaign or another drama like an impeachment. The contents of such a plan are almost certainly more geared to the outcome it is trying to influence (votes for Likud or the Republican Party) or distract from (the U.S. president’s impeachment and trial or the Israeli prime minister’s loss of immunity from prosecution) than the problem it is ostensibly meant to address. Israelis and Palestinians, both, deserve self-determination and lasting peace.

Novelist explores Trump era

Gary Shteyngart opens the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 8 at Rothstein Theatre. (photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

“You want to know the first rule of running a billion-dollar-plus hedge fund?” Lake Success protagonist Barry Cohen recalls telling the high school boys who invited him to speak to their Investors’ Club. “Don’t sweat the metrics. We’re not really about the numbers. Do you know what we are? We are a story. Hedge funds are a story about how we’re going to make money. They’re about being smart, gaining access, associating with someone great. You. You are someone smart enough to make others feel smart. You are bringing your investors something far more elusive than a metric. You’re bringing them the story of how great you’ll be together.”

Through the character of Barry Cohen, on his journey to what would be self-discovery if he were at all self-aware, author Gary Shteyngart explores the societal circumstances in the United States that led to the election of President Donald Trump – and could well do so again.

Shteyngart opens the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival on the night of Feb. 8. In conversation with CBC’s Lisa Christiansen at Rothstein Theatre, he will no doubt talk about his latest novel, Lake Success, about a hedge-fund manager who flees his wife and young child, who has recently been diagnosed with severe autism, as well as a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into his financial dealings.

Barry is stuck in a childlike state. He had a difficult father and his mother was killed in a car crash, a death Barry witnessed and which haunts him. Barry yearns for affection; he cannot regulate his emotions. He believes himself to be a self-made man and he is constantly coming across people he thinks would benefit from his mentorship, from fellow fund managers to a poor black youth he encounters on his travels to his first girlfriend, with whom he is trying to reconnect – hence, the bus trip. He is trying to find her, in the hopes of rekindling that relationship, and all the lost hope it encapsulated, while disregarding all the relationships – personal and business – he has left behind in New York City.

The main female characters in Lake Success – Barry’s wife, Seema, and his former girlfriend, Layla – are not as well-constructed as is Barry. Despite a sympathetic portrayal, it is hard to understand what anyone would see in Barry, yet he manages to attract smart and beautiful women. The novel provides some explanation as to why Seema would marry him, including family expectations. And, after meeting him for the first time, she recalls, “she went home and Googled Barry’s net worth and found it comforting. A man that rich couldn’t be stupid. Or, Seema thought now, was that the grand fallacy of 21st-century America?” So, she thought she was connecting with an intelligent and wealthy man, but how Barry continues to be an attractive prospect to women (and men) after he cowardly runs away from his responsibilities and is nearly penniless is a bit of a mystery.

For some readers, Shteyngart might come down a little too easy on the one-percent, as exemplified by Barry, Seema and the few people we meet in their realm. When the Jewish Independent asked the author why it was important to imbue the character of Barry with humanity, Shteyngart said, “Books about inhumane characters are not fun to write. Imagine an entire novel set from Trump’s point of view. Eat burger, get angry, eat burger, get angry. It’s just not 330 pages worth of material.”

That is not to say that Shteyngart is condoning the lifestyle of the ultra-rich; in fact, quite the opposite, though he does so with seeming resignation.

“Without giving too much away for the new reader,” he said, “Barry does change. Somewhat. Slightly. But the damage that has been done to the country socially and politically by Barry-like oligarchs is not going to go away, even if the next election ends the so-called Trump Era.”

While Lake Success doesn’t offer insight into how the divisions in Trump’s United States could be repaired, Shteyngart’s acerbic wit and astute observations offer an entertaining read that will hopefully elicit readers’ introspection about our own privilege and identities, how we define and carry ourselves in the world. Both Barry and Seema have a conflicted relationship with their cultural heritage; Barry his Jewish, Seema her Tamil.

As Barry holds his three-week-old son in his arms – long before the autism has been diagnosed – “he whispered through all his agnostic lapsed-Jew bullshit, ‘Please, God, just don’t do anything to him, okay? My sins are my own.’”

Later in the novel, on the bus as it enters Louisiana, Barry overhears a conversation between two white men, one an aspiring preacher who declares hatred of “any kind of ignorance,” then goes on to explain why “they nailed Jews to the cross” and that “Muhammad was killed, because he couldn’t accept Jesus Christ as permanent.” At that moment, “Barry realized that the man was now looking at him. And also that he was a Jew. He hadn’t really thought of being Jewish since he was in grade school. But he did now.”

Even later, Barry would again look at his heritage differently, considering how it could be passed on to his son. For the most part, though, Barry is perceived as a white male throughout the novel.

“Yes, it’s very strange,” said Shteyngart about being Jewish in America. “I was being interviewed by a Jewish intellectual who was trying to convince me that we weren’t white. Which is oddly enough the talking point of the neo-fascist right. In any case, the feeling that Jews were a part of the American mainstream – think Seinfeld – has been badly shaken both by the physical attacks against Jews and by the general feeling that the country is now being run as an exclusive enclave for straight white Christian males with the occasional sprinkling of Sheldon Adelson.”

Lake Success is a provocative read with some brilliant one-liners, such as the description of neighbours in their building, whom Barry hates, as being “so featureless, they could have come with the hallway,” and, when he faces difficulty becoming a writer, Barry concludes, “He was a damaged person, but not damaged enough to make a life out of it.”

The Jewish Book Festival runs to Feb. 13 at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and other venues. For the full lineup, visit jewishbookfestival.ca.

Trump betrays Kurds

U.S. President Donald Trump stunned and confounded even his closest allies in Congress and his military advisors when he announced Monday that he would withdraw American troops that were helping safeguard Kurds who have valiantly held off ISIS and battled the blood-soaked regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan is threatening an incursion into Kurdish-held Syrian territory and analysts say the offensive could include massacres of Kurds, a longtime enemy. The move is a brutal betrayal of the stateless Kurdish people who have been steadfast allies of the West against the worst forces in the world today. Trump’s irrational, inhuman act could lead to mass murder of the very people who are – or were – our greatest allies in that horrific battle. His motives are opaque and suspect. He appears to be doing the bidding of Turkey, Russia and Iran and, at the same time, emboldening ISIS. Trying to understand the inner workings of his mind, in this case, as in most, is probably fruitless.

Stateless people are endangered everywhere, nowhere more than in the contentious and violent region the Kurds are condemned to live. Jews understand the perils of statelessness in a dangerous world. That was one of the lessons of the 20th century. Another lesson was to depend on no one else for survival. Repeatedly, Israel has had to defend itself alone from existential threats. The Kurdish people are in a deeply precarious position now and, in an ideal world, alternative forces would come to their aid.

Meanwhile, for those supporters of Israel who insist that moving an embassy and having a Jewish daughter make Trump a reliable friend of Jews, let this be a lesson about the capriciousness of the man’s loyalty and humanity.

Israel is not a political toy

The U.S. president accused Representative Rashida Tlaib of a political stunt when the American politician of Palestinian descent rejected Israel’s offer of permission to visit the West Bank on humanitarian grounds.

Israel’s government had first announced that it would permit visits to Palestine by Tlaib and fellow congresswoman Ilhan Omar, another of the four members of the “squad” of progressive women of colour elected to Congress as Democrats in last November’s U.S. midterm elections. Then, apparently after Donald Trump intervened with his continued vendetta against the women, the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu changed their minds and declared that the congresswomen would not be permitted to go to Palestine. Then, in another twist, Israel decided to allow Tlaib admission based on “humanitarian” grounds to visit her grandmother and other relatives in the West Bank. Tlaib rejected the offer.

“Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me,” Tlaib tweeted about her grandmother. “It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in – fighting against racism, oppression & injustice.”

Putting ideology over seeing a nonagenarian grandparent seems a tad distorted, but she’s probably correct that Israel’s actions were over-the-top.

The idea that Israel should ban members of the United States Congress from entering the country (en route to the West Bank, which is occupied by Israeli forces, which means Israel controls who can enter and move around there) is a highly dubious move. Given Tlaib’s and Omar’s unrelenting condemnation of Israel and its policies, including support for the BDS movement, some people argued that Israel should ban them. But almost every mainstream Jewish and Zionist organization in the United States that spoke up argued that they should be permitted to go.

In fact, it would have been smart to invite the two as guests of the Israeli government and give them the VIP tour of Israel. Then, they would have at least have heard the Israeli side of the story, take it or leave it. More to the point, had they refused the invitation to see the modern miracle that is the Jewish state, they might have looked closed-minded.

Instead, the two Democrats have come out of it looking righteous, while Netanyahu looks like Trump’s puppet and Trump looks like, well, like he usually does. Especially when he tweeted that the only winner in the scenario is Tlaib’s grandmother because “She doesn’t have to see her now!” One wonders about what goes through the minds Trump’s grandchildren when he blusters into the room.

On the one hand, the recent vote in Congress to criticize the BDS movement was massively lopsided and indicates that Israel’s special relationship with the United States remains steadfast. But among grassroots Democratic voters and some other Americans, the Netanyahu-Trump bromance is repellent and makes some people naturally less amenable to the bilateral relationship – specifically because it has been so spectacularly and cynically politicized by both leaders.

There are serious and legitimate fears that the solid bipartisanship that has defined this relationship for 71 years is fraying, possibly irrevocably.

It doesn’t matter what one thinks of Trump. It doesn’t matter if you agree with the board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition who told the New York Times, “When I look at what he’s done for Israel, I’m not going to take issue with anything he’s said or done.” The day-to-day cut-and-thrust of politics means we will agree and disagree with our leaders in Canada, or those in the United States or Israel or elsewhere. But the deterioration of the nonpartisanship around the foundational importance of the bilateral relationship between Israel and its most significant ally is a grave concern.

We have an election campaign about to launch here in Canada. There will be moments when Middle East policy comes up and we will disagree. What we should strive to ensure is that, regardless of our opinions about Israel’s leader – and what position he may hold after next month’s Israeli elections – or our thoughts about our own political leaders, one thing we should avoid at all cost is turning Israel into a partisan tool. Let’s just not. And let’s not reward politicians who try.

The art of conversation

Howard Stern Comes Again highlights 37 interviews from Howard Stern’s show, and much more. (photo by Adam Bogoch)

Conversation is almost a dead art. Technology, ludicrously divisive politics and sheer laziness have almost entirely killed it. How often do you see true connection happen through dialogue anymore? Most people talk at each other, not to each other. Heck, most of the time they’re more interested in their phone. And I can’t say I’m guiltless in this department. Nor would radio talk-show legend Howard Stern, at least for the first 30 years of his epic career. This is a theme that’s intentionally threaded throughout his masterful new book, Howard Stern Comes Again (Simon & Schuster, 2019).

Not a fan of Howard Stern? Many people see him as a crude entertainer willing to insult and demean others in order to win a laugh. Well, as a die-hard fan of his, I can say that’s an accurate observation – at least partially. Ever since he moved his extraordinarily successful radio show to satellite in 2006, he’s become so much more than that. His level of insight and tolerance has grown exponentially. He’s learned to see beyond himself. And he attributes this shift to his new platform, meditation and, most importantly, extensive psychotherapy. Because of these changes, he’s regarded as “the greatest celebrity interviewer of all time.”

Don’t believe it? If you’re not willing to purchase a full SiriusXM subscription, a copy of Howard Stern Comes Again will suffice as proof. Don’t worry, this book isn’t meant for those who know what “Baba-Booey” means. It’s for anyone and everyone who loves actual communication.

The New York Times bestseller highlights 37 edited transcripts of interviews from Stern’s show. Each features a guest, such as Sir Paul McCartney, Chris Rock, Joan Rivers, Bill Murray, Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Martin, Lady Gaga, Larry David – and Stern’s mom. They contain fascinating revelations from these individuals, as well as from Stern, who has written an eloquent foreword to each chapter.

Every topic under the sun is covered. Nothing stays in a “safe space,” unless it’s honest to the individual he’s interviewing. The conversations are revealing, genuine, hilarious, and even pretty upsetting at times. It’s astounding how Stern is able to extract such information from celebrities who often try to maintain a level of secrecy to protect themselves, their families, and sometimes their art. They clearly feel comfortable with him. Maybe because there’s no question he asks that he’s unwilling to answer himself. He injects his own personal experiences, opinions and shtick into his interviews, making them real dialogues. The conversations are intimate and almost seem to be taking place privately – the opposite of interviews on shows like Late Night, 60 Minutes or Oprah.

Stern’s approach has influenced countless podcasters and radio hosts. In a May 8 interview with the Hollywood Reporter this year, Stern described his style as “the dinner party approach.” This is an apt description. And, thanks to his new book, it is not only his listeners who get to be flies on the wall.

Howard Stern Comes Again is 130 mini-biographies in less than 600 pages. It’s not just the 37 that are included. The beautifully bound and well-formatted book also features short exchanges between Stern and a variety of other comedians, actors, news anchors, mobsters, filmmakers and musicians. These snippets are compiled in special chapters where the likes of Dave Chappelle, James Taylor, Tina Fey and Vancouver’s own Seth Rogen speak on topics like sex, religion and death.

Which brings me to Trump.

Unfortunately, I can’t get away without mentioning the current president of the United States. He features heavily in the book thanks to several chapter breaks entitled, “And Now a Word from Our President.” They present fragments of Stern’s now-famous interviews with “the Donald” before he became leader of the Free World. Although Stern has revealed he isn’t a supporter of Trump – a fact that put Stern in Trump’s bad graces – not every interaction with him is negative. Stern shows that he’s capable of doing something Trump clearly is not able to do – having a conversation, even a light-hearted one, with someone of a different opinion. Having said that, there are certainly some cringe-worthy moments here that maybe even Stern regrets. But, honestly, it wouldn’t be a Howard Stern book without them.

Because of Stern’s approach to conversation, as well as his outrageous comedy, he’s been described as “divisive.” I actually thought he was a monster before I was turned onto him by another member of the Jewish community who encouraged me to listen. And, guess what? I laughed. I learned to take things less seriously – especially the darkest aspects of society. Confronting them the way he does makes them more manageable.

I also became aware of Stern’s enlightened stance on equal rights, the environment, freedom of speech, Israel, and animal rights. Even when I disagree with him, I love him. Because he comes from an authentic place. A place of experience. Of flaws. A place with passion and desire. And never has this been more obvious than in a book focusing on – gasp – actual human interaction.

It’s apparent that Howard Stern Comes Again is meant to be considered as Stern’s legacy. Whether you’re an active listener or completely unfamiliar with him, it is something to appreciate and, maybe, just maybe, from which to learn.

Adam Bogoch is a Vancouver-based screenwriter and content writer.