Gabriel

Canada, Israel, Romania and parts in between. Politics, work culture, baseball, movies, life. Happily married with a beautiful child.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@JohnTho50423432 @shaynagoldman_ Those two and also lack of pressure. You win, great. You lose, nobody really cares.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@shevereshtus @JacobALinker I went to the Lubavitch school on Westbury when I was a kid. (whatever it's called now). Very scary stuff.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@ArchaeoBenjamin It's telling how the former bothers these people but the latter doesn't. It isn't policing Jewish identity to say someone who doesn't identify as Jewish shouldn't claim Jewishness for political reasons.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@StochasticStat1 @shlumpsters She can speak out. Anyone can. She can speak out as a daughter of holocaust survivors if she is (which isn't really clear(. She just can't speak out "as a Jew" because she isn't one and has never identified as one except for this.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@UTDMael Easy. Joe Cole.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@wolvestwtsara I get this discourse about 75 YO men because you'll be dead by the time the kid is grown, but a 40 YO woman will be 70 when their kid is 30. That's completely fine!

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@JeremyWingert79 The funniest responses to this is women who think that in men's bathrooms, there are just people walking around with their penises out all the time.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@HotForMoot Buddhism doesn't even have shatnez. What kind of religion is that?

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@TMZ Phony beatlemania has bitten the dust.

[Seth Frantzman @sfrantzman]

The reality is that the American public and leadership is not "turning against" Israel. The fact is that they are largely supportive of the moderate and historic Israel. They don't agree with the extremists and that's not surprising. Attempts to try to shoehorn the extremists into the pro-Israel big tent and make it seem like one has to agree with them or one is "anti-Israel" is one of the tragedies of what has happened. Rather than say "ok these extremist types are not our values, we want to work with the vast majority of normal regular Israel, the silent minority of Israel, the mostly secular and hi-tech and army serving tax paying part"...there was an attempt to say to the broadly supportive community "the extremists represent our values and they are now mainstream"...and so unsurprisingly people faced with this "take it or leave it" choice began to say "umm, no."

The fact is that there is ample opportunity to reverse course. The trend toward this theory below that Israel will move toward isolation because of a desire to cater to the minority of extremists in the country...basically letting them take control of policy and sabotage all of Israel's ties that were built up over 70 years...is a looming tragedy.

A better course is obviously that Israel should return to its roots, and the silent majority who have been sidelined should return to the fore, those who serve and pay taxes and work hard and are into the pioneering innovative part of Israel. Instead of surrendering to a few violent religious extremists who spend most days talking about violence and have no interest in the world...it would be better to take the path that Israel's founding pragmatic leadership took, towards embracing the world and global norms and working on multi-lateral and bilateral relations. A lot of countries want to to work with that Israel.

Things can change. But it takes a will and decision to want to have an Israel that is connected and partnered with others. Not letting the five percent decide policies...

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@sfrantzman This is 100% accurate and unfortiantekt, it's been coming for decades. Oct. 7 just accelerated the timeline. I'm not optimistic because Israelis are caught in a delusional information loop where politicians promise the impossible. Unfortunately, so many of the best are leaving.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@MaytalKowalski The Israel outreach stuff is so cringe and designed to appeal to like 5,000 old people.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@JohnnyGiunta_ Hoffman was actually generally excellent in playoffs. Unlike say, Varsho or Lukes or others.. Saying "Hoffman cost us the World Series" is just absurd. About ten players and coaches cost us that game and Jays could have won a couple of other games as well.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@georgebell Beyond that, we've had conservative mayors and a conservative premier for most of the last 15 years. Blaming everything on a mayor with very little power who has been in office for less than 3 years is silly.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@wyshynski It's become absurd that this is almost the only penalty that gets called in the playoffs. Punch someone in the face? Fine. Cross-check them into the boards? No problem. Flip a puck out and it accidentally clears the glass? Penalty.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@NikLynam I'm fine trading down it if makes sense but don't trust this front office because they would probably trade for like a 31 YO 3rd line centre to drop 20 spots.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@zackbeauchamp You're more right than Noah but there is an adaptation of some American "wokeness" as well especially around anti-black racism. It obviously exists here as well but it isn't an original sin like it is in the US and often gets treated as such by some people.

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@Johnsense38 @world_tourists_ Except that's wrong. It's the Skydome forever!

[Gabriel @GabrielLevin78]

@islanders_takes This take was ok until you started naming goalies. Hasek and Roy were better than Brodeur but Belfour? Literally the king of shutouts were he didn't make a single save within 20 feet of the goal.