Ilya Mirman

photographer, guitarist, tech startup guy

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@IAPonomarenko Worse than removing Zaluzhnyi?!

[Jonah Platt @JonahPlatt]

FIFA world cup semifinals: THE JEW VIEW.

Four countries left. One question that actually matters: Who should Jews root for?! Let's see...🤔

A completely objective, deeply petty, historically rigorous ranking.

🇫🇷 France:
✔ Expelled the Jews in 1182. Let them back.
✔ Expelled them in 1306. Let them back.
✔ Expelled them AGAIN in 1394. Practice makes perfect.
✔ Framed the only Jewish officer on its General Staff for treason (the Dreyfus Affair) — a trial so antisemitic it inspired a journalist named Theodor Herzl to invent modern Zionism.
✔ Then Vichy France helped deport 75,000 Jews to the camps.
⚽ Points for: 3rd largest Jewish community on Earth. Accidentally created Zionism. Excellent kosher wine.
📂 Current form: Record antisemitism. Aliyah applications through the roof.

JEW VIEW SCALE: 4/10 for inventing modern Zionism (by accident)

🇪🇸 Spain:
✔ Invented the Inquisition (1478). Nobody expected it.
✔ Then 1492: convert, leave, or die — fifteen centuries of Spanish Jewry ended with one royal signature.
✔ The expulsion decree stayed legally in force for 476 years.
✔ Spain revoked it in 1968. Yes. THAT 1968.
⚽ Points for: Offered citizenship to Sephardic descendants in 2015. Only 523 years late. Great tapas (we checked — not kosher).
🇮🇱 Current form: ~40,000 Jews left, and a government going for Western Europe's gold medal in anti-Israel hysteria.

JEW VIEW SCALE: 1.5/10 for knowing what they did, but refusing to admit or talk about it. Ok

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England:
✔ Invented the blood libel — Norwich, 1144. History's worst export.
✔ First country in Europe to expel its ENTIRE Jewish population (1290). The ban lasted 366 years.
✔ In 2025, Jews were murdered outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur.
⚽ Points for: The Balfour Declaration. 5th largest Jewish community in the world. Readmitted the Jews in 1656 because Cromwell heard we were good for business — flattering AND insulting.
🥯 Current form: Despite scyrocketing record of antisemitism, multiple shootings, stabbings, and bombings, the North London bagels are holding the line.

JEW VIEW SCALE: 3/10 – "giveth the blood libel, giveth the Balfour"

🇦🇷 Argentina:
✔ Opened the door to thousands of Nazis after WWII. Eichmann. Mengele. A whole retirement plan.
✔ In 1994, the AMIA bombing killed 85 people — the deadliest attack on Jews outside Israel since the Holocaust.
✔ Iran and Hezbollah. Still unpunished.
⚽ Points for: The Mossad caught Eichmann in Buenos Aires anyway — thanks for the address. Largest Jewish community in Latin America. Current president studies Torah, wept at the Western Wall, and says he wants to convert. The most philosemitic head of state on Earth.
✡️ Current form: From Nazi haven to "is the president having a bar mitzvah?" in one generation.

JEW VIEW SCALE: 7.5/10 for “character development”

So, who are YOU rooting for?

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@JonahPlatt Argentina - obviously!

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@EmoPhilips Gold, Emo!!

(Eugene was right to love you!)

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@TheAFDPodcast I would inevitably drive faster when the faster tempo songs came on. This speeding ticket was either Shotgun Blues or Get In The Ring :)

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@GadSaad You’re right among the classics!

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@johnkonrad It’s to match the podium.

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@TheGNRGiirl They are also excited.

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@GadSaad You’re now in Boston, safely wedged among the classics. (In fact, right next to Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, the wealthy Athenian whose defining trait is extravagant, boundless empathy & generosity as performance and self-image)

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@marcorandazza Poland is one of the few in NATO that takes Russia seriously, is well armed, and will actually fight.

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@chess_feed My father, who beat Tal at least once.

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@TheAFDPodcast We’ll see what happens. It is an ever changing world.

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@bhalligan @gradypb My hunch is that spelling out where you can sign significantly lean on AI for analysis and decision-making, and where you likely can’t (both today and in, say, 18 months), could be useful. There’s everything from garbage to brilliance in AI’s analyses of large troves of data.

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@bhalligan None of those jobs are about the science & engineering of products, deep domain expertise. I suspect those roles will continue to be indispensable.

COBOL is 70 years old, running a great deal of critical infrastructure. A hot CMO (like me) isn’t going to write /debug that code

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@marcorandazza 3rd floor Dickinson handled it right.

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@marcorandazza It’s been 38 years! (And 39 since you left Pump Up The Jam playing in your room, as you left for the weekend.).

Sending you an email (which immediately grants me attorney/client privileges).

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@bhalligan What enforcement ACTIONS has MIT taken over the past 18 months against perpetrators of antisemitic actions on campus? What ACTIONS is she most proud of, and what are their results?

[Ilya Mirman @IlyaMirman]

@bhalligan “I have a hard stop in 8 minutes”