Lucy Abrahams

Literary Scout. Tel Aviv/ London. Tweeting when most of you are asleep, probably.

[Nicole Lampert @nicolelampert]

This is the UN.
Look at the face of the UN special rapporteur who is meant to stand up for women but has refused, again and again, to speak up for Israeli women.
Look at her face when a former hostage challenges her.

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

lran to lash prominent female singer for performing online without hijab https://t.co/TjTgMsqlHv via @timesofisrael

[Rep Josh Gottheimer @RepJoshG]

“Monsters.” “Dark money.” A hidden hand “turning us against one another.”

Swap “AIPAC” for “Jews” and it’s the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theory in the books. That’s not criticizing a lobby. That’s laundering antisemitism from your podium as Mayor of a city with more than a million Jews. This bullshit is dangerous.

If you want to talk about real monsters let’s start with the North Koreans, Russians, Sudanese, the Iranian regime, and their proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, PIJ — and other terrorist groups who’ve killed scores of Americans.

[Tomer Persico @TomerPersico]

The place Israel occupies in these people's imagination is ridiculous. Israel as the linchpin of colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, ecological devastation - whatever bugs you most, Israel does it worst. Get rid of Israel, save the entire world.

It is much bigger than Rooney. Over the last few years, artists, activists, and academics have repeatedly advanced versions of the same claim: Israel as humanity’s arch-nemesis, the disappearance would somehow solve everything.

Example: Jason Hickel, visiting professor at the London School of Economics, claimed that “A liberated Palestine means a liberated Middle East. A liberated Middle East means capitalism in the core really faces a crisis.” Because why not.

Israel has become a western totem, personifying the cumulative sins of the West’s entire history. In an incredible historical irony, the Jews are now not an oriental, semitic pariah nation nor a degenerate sub-human race, but the purest representatives of the West and the most atrocious white supremacists.

As the West’s original essence Israel naturally carries the West’s original sins: colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, etc. Because the Jews are now considered the very essence of the West, Israel's sins are understood as the carrying the collective blame of all westerners. Making Israel pay is thus not only a step on the long arch towards justice, but serves as a purgative practice for all westerners.

As the effigy of the West, burning Israel will cleanse the West from its past transgressions. The wish to eradicate Israel is therapeutic, salvific: the sins of all western forefathers, those imperialist, colonialist, slave-holding Europeans, will finally be atoned. Capitalism will fall, the environment will be saved. Redemption is nigh, we just have to eradicate that wart of a nation.

As the eternal alter-ego of the West, Jews will always function as its scapegoats. When the West loved itself, we were the alien element supposedly defiling it. Now that the West despises itself, we have become its distilled essence: the figure through whose destruction it fantasizes about purification.

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

🇩🇪 A beloved Jewish bakery in Berlin closed last week after receiving so much hate.

🇮🇪 The only kosher cafe in Dublin is receiving hateful reviews

🇫🇷 A kosher cafe in Paris was destroyed by vandals who broke in and sprayed it with acid.

🗽 An Ethiopian-Israeli-Jewish restaurant in Harlem is now open only for events due to receiving so much hate.

🇦🇺 A kosher bakery in Sydney closed its doors after the Bondi attack, unable to keep diners and staff safe.

🇵🇹 An Israeli restaurant in Lisbon is closing, after a neverending stream of hate.

🇧🇪 An Israeli eatery in Antwerp is closing, after facing bankruptcy brought on by boycotts.

🗽 A Jewish bakery in NYC is dealing with workers who think catering Jewish events is a violation of their rights.

🇬🇧 Acclaimed Israeli restaurant Miznon has faced protests in London telling it to shut down.

All over the world, Jewish and Israeli cuisine is being wiped off the menu in the name of “justice.”

But depriving the world of rugelach, kubeh, latkes, and sfinj won’t help anyone.

It will only hurt Jews.

[Hillel Neuer @HillelNeuer]

Surprise: it turns out the U.N. humanitarian grandee who announced “14,000 babies are going to die in 48 hours” has a soft spot for genocidal terrorist organization Hezbollah.

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

A huge factor in the collapse of our collective mental health is the decline in reading for pleasure. Reading lessens loneliness, builds community, sharpens the intellect. It brings joy. You will be shocked at how much better you feel if you begin to read regularly.

[David Harris @DavidHarrisNY]

Simple questions:

Why do 5 million Palestinians have the "right" to a state, but not 40-60 million freedom-seeking #Kurds?

Why are there endless marches & protests for Palestinians, but not Kurds?

Why is the UN obsessed with Palestinians, but doesn't give a damn about Kurds?

[Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر @emilykschrader]

Lebanese professor Hicham Bou Nassif: ‘There Is No Israeli Conspiracy against Lebanon, the “Greater Israel” Plan Does Not Exist. We Are Paying the Price for Arafat, Assad, and Iran Using Our Territory’

Hicham teaches at Claremont McKenna College

[Jew in a Canoe ✡️🇨🇦 memoir now available! @WillieHandler]

by Jonathan Fisher, MD, FACC

I am a Jewish physician, and I have never written about that here. I am going to, because of a surgeon I have never met. Emmanuel Moss, chief of cardiac surgery at Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital, is leaving for Atlanta in September.He is one of the few surgeons in Canada routinely performing robotic mitral valve and coronary bypass procedures. People close to him say the deciding factor was not Quebec’s strained healthcare system, which had been strained for years, but a growing sense that he was no longer safe in the city as a Jew.

The hospital he is leaving opened in 1934 with the first official non-discrimination policy of any hospital in Canada. It was founded in response to an era when many Jewish physicians faced discrimination in medical training and hospital appointments. The historical echo is difficult to miss.

When a clinician leaves because of who they are, a health system does not lose a statistic. It loses a specific person who held specific knowledge, relationships, judgment, and expertise developed over decades.

A 2024 survey of Canadian Jewish physicians found that reported antisemitism in hospitals rose from near zero before October 2023 to 39 percent after, and that nearly a third of respondents were considering leaving the country. The association’s chair warned that the consequences could include the loss of hundreds of physicians at a time when the healthcare system can least afford it. That mechanism is not unique to Jews. It is what happens whenever people feel unsafe because of their identity. Experts leave. Communities become poorer in ways that are difficult to measure. Eventually, patients and their families pay the price.

I am writing this as a Jewish physician because this story landed personally. I am writing it as a physician leader because I have spent decades thinking about what allows caring people to do their best work, and what it costs when they cannot. When any clinician feels unsafe because of who they are, something is lost long before they decide to leave.This time, the story touched my own community. That does not make it less relevant to anyone else. It does make it harder for me to stay silent.

[Aizenberg @Aizenberg55]

Hamas commander Ahmed Siyam held 1,000 Gazans at gunpoint to block them from leaving Rantisi Hospital, using them as human shields before hiding at al-Buraq school. IDF reported killing him on Nov 10, 2023. Hamas now admits he was indeed their commander killed as IDF claimed.

[Yehuda Teitelbaum @chalavyishmael]

Zohran Mamdani just endorsed Darializa Avila Chevalier for Congress.

On October 8th, 2023, while Jews were still being slaughtered, raped, kidnapped, and hunted across southern Israel, she attended the "All Out For Palestine" rally in NYC.

Some clips:

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

Stupid.

Why is it that the wisest and supposedly most learned institutions of the West are always the first to succumb to this cowardice?

An elite culture that chooses intellectual uniformity — a museum that literally cannot tell a story — is no longer fit for purpose. What’s the point of all your learning if it makes you cowards?

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

The Bund rejected Zionism. The Bund were all killed by Nazis and communists. For the vast majority of the Jews of the Eastern Hemisphere, the only survival and freedom they could find -- after trying every other imaginable option -- was Zionism.

Zionism is big and diverse and complex and beautiful. Zionism is also the product of a vast, unspeakable tragedy.

The Bund *should* have been able to build an interesting and flourishing Jewish world all its own, in the "hereness" of Eastern Europe. And in a better world, the Bund would have. But this isn't that world.

In this world, the Nazi war on the millenia-old European Jewish civilization was successful, the Jews of Europe were wiped out -- and old ideas that once animated Nazis and Stalinists in their murder of Bundists have now returned into fashion on left and right and gone looking once more for the Jews.

Is there a word that describes a Jew so pitiably afraid of the current whirlwind of hatred that they choose to build a fake past to live in, just so they can pretend that Jews ever had an alternative to Zionism?

The Bund's story, like Molly Crabapple's ahistorical polemics, is merely one more data point demonstrating that Zionism's case is actually -- tragically, in fact -- impregnable. That it is a story of the transformation of catastrophic annihilation into triumphant freedom and survival.

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

DISGUSTING: Dr. Nawaf Al-Takrouri, head of the Palestinian Scholars Abroad Association: "I don't think a reasonable Muslim can see the fantastic gains all over the world, and still say negative things about [Oct 7th] Al-Aqsa Flood" and that Gaza's destruction is "a natural price for the liberation of Al-Aqsa" — one that "may require 1 million martyrs across the Muslim world."

These disgusting people do not see the blood of our children in Gaza as anything more than a tool for their fantasy of so-called liberation. This is a death cult.

70,000 dead is not enough for them. 150,000 is not enough. They want millions of deaths — and they speak about Gaza's destruction and the killing of our people with excitement.

Absolutely vile.

[Mayor of Tel Aviv @MayorOfTelAviv]

Once again, I am ashamed that Minister Ben-Gvir, whose duty is to protect us, is causing us such immense damage with his disgraceful, cruel, and foolish behavior.

[Henshi @HenshiG]

Yosef Wiener, a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor, passed away from a broken heart.

The sole survivor of his family, who were murdered by the Nazis, he rebuilt his life in Israel. He married Aviva, raised two children — Ofer and Nurit — and proudly watched his family tree grow with ten grandchildren.

On October 7, 2023, evil struck again.

His beloved grandson Yahav was murdered while protecting his wife Shili and their one-month-old daughter Shiya. His beloved granddaughter Hadar and her husband Itay were killed while shielding their ten-month-old twins, Roy and Guy.

In his final words, Yosef wrote:

“I was saved from the fire of the Nazi beasts… I built a family tree firmly planted in the soil of the homeland.
But on 10/7, the horror returned. Once again I am exhausted, in despair, drowning. And I have no more ground to hold on to.”

May his memory be a blessing.

[Danny Orbach @Mujakura]

My reading recommendation for this week is one of the most important articles published so far on October 7 — if not the most important. My colleague Dr. Daniel Sobelman, an expert on strategy, Hamas, and Hezbollah, published an article in the journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism titled The Strategic Origins of Hamas's October 7 Attack. Based on a treasure trove of original Hamas documents captured during the war, alongside other sources, the article describes in detail Hamas’s “Ring of Fire” strategy and the Axis of Resistance’s plan for the destruction of Israel, which became concrete after what Hamas perceived as its victory in Operation Guardian of the Walls.

The article shows that, in Sinwar’s eyes, the destruction of Israel was not a distant vision for the future, but an immediate, feasible, and realistic plan. Israel, which believed it was deterring Hamas and Hezbollah, was in fact being deterred by them, restricting its own freedom of action while facing adversaries that were increasingly intervening in other arenas such as Jerusalem and the West Bank, where any wrong move could trigger a major escalation.

Iran surrounded Israel with a “ring of fire” of proxies, foremost among them Hezbollah, while Hamas assumed an increasingly central role within this deadly array. By no later than 2021, a series of discussions had taken place between Sinwar and his counterparts in the Axis of Resistance regarding the implementation of the destruction plan. The Iranians were represented by Saeed Izadi, head of the Palestine branch in the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards.

Sinwar presented several scenarios to his counterparts: the first was the destruction of Israel; the second was forcing Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and breaking its strength in a way that would accelerate emigration from the country and lead to its later destruction; and the third was a more limited war that would still inflict enormous damage on Israel. Hamas documents show that — according to Hamas’s own account — Nasrallah supported the first scenario (namely total destruction), but was more cautious regarding timing, apparently believing that the Axis of Resistance should wait several more years until it was fully https://t.co/FBwyDiYQfO the end, Sinwar moved ahead of schedule and surprised his Axis counterparts with the October 7 attack.

Within Hezbollah there were disagreements: many commanders wanted to enter the war with full force, which in my opinion would have caused Israel enormous and possibly irreversible damage. Nasrallah, however, was more cautious and believed the time was not yet ripe. Ultimately, Sinwar’s haste combined with Nasrallah’s caution saved Israel from a far worse scenario.The article also describes the testimony of Amit Saar, then head of Military Intelligence research, according to whom the real plan for Israel’s destruction — a deliberate, coordinated offensive by the entire Axis — was still about two years away in October 2023.

In my view — and this does not appear in the article — had Sinwar waited, Israel would have been in a much worse position: the internal crisis would have deepened and, above all, the ground forces would have been cut back and further hollowed out. My personal assessment is that under such conditions, the destruction of Israel, even if carried out in stages, would have become a realistic possibility.

Therefore — and here I am expressing my personal opinion and going beyond the scope of the article — Israel saved itself and its people from genocide on October 7 (a real genocide, like Rwanda, not the kind that “genocide scholars” write about today in the context of Gaza). In this context, the new Israeli doctrine of crushing genocidal threats on its borders is a matter of necessity. Once Israel faces enemies for whom, unlike the state adversaries of the past, the destruction of Israel is a top priority, deterrence is no longer possible. Such enemies can only be eradicated; otherwise they will continue building up their forces along the borders until they decide to strike in coordination. On October 7 we escaped that fate, at a terrible price, and awakened to the realities of the Middle East. Had we failed to do so, it is not certain we would have had another opportunity.A link to the article is in the first comment.

P.S. Considerations such as the internal Israeli crisis, Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem, and similar issues were not the cause of Hamas’s attack, but they certainly influenced its timing and Hamas’s assessment of the IDF’s weakness. It should also be noted that here too Sinwar acted contrary to the assessments of his own intelligence officials, who argued that the IDF had not yet weakened sufficiently because of that crisis.

[Yaakov Katz @yaakovkatz]

Am in London for a few work meetings, and stopped by a bookstore. This time it was @Dauntbooks.

As expected, and perhaps unsurprisingly given the current climate, the Middle East section was front and center. As you can see in the photos, prominently displayed were books accusing Israel of genocide, books about alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza, books about the so-called occupation and of course @PeterBeinart’s latest book about his problem being Jewish while watching the Jewish state defend itself.

What was nowhere to be found? Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s “When We See You Again”. Didn’t make a difference that it was number one on the @nytimesbooks bestseller list. “While Israel Slept” was obviously not there as well. The one exception was Eli Sharabi’s “Hostage” almost missed on a whole different bookcase.

This is not accidental. It is by design. Bookstores like this don’t curate books for intellectual diversity or genuine scholarship. They curate to promote a narrative.

When I was younger - and probably more naive - I used to think bookstores were meant to provide readers with a range of titles that could get people to think, could encourage debate and could expand minds. Now too many seem interested in something else entirely: narrowing them.