u/ruchenn

The fast-changing future for Jews in the West,
by Mijal Bitton, Future of Jewish, 2026-05-21.

> As the old integrationist dream weakens, many Western Jews will > increasingly need to rediscover the strength of family, community, > and peoplehood — cornerstones of the Sephardic Jewish experience. > > Western Jews have lately been sensing the end of what has been > dubbed our “Golden Age” or “A Jewish Century.” Looking back > longingly at the past hundred years, we question whether the next > century will be as kind to us and our children as the last one was. > > It’s a reasonable question, but as I’ve noticed, it tends to be > asked more often by American Ashkenazi Jews than by those whose > families came from Muslim lands across the Middle East and North > Africa, widely referred to as Sephardic Jews. > > There is a profound difference between how Western Ashkenazi Jews > from the lands of the cross and Western Sephardic Jews from the > lands of the crescent are experiencing this moment, and in that > difference lie competing visions of the Western dream, rooted in > each community’s pre-modern-day-West history.

The neighbors got the house: looting as structural infrastructure,
by Eliezer Aryeh, Eliezer’s substack, 2026-05-21.

> One of the comments from Reddit about the prior post asked > a question that historians have spent decades trying to answer > properly: to what degree was local support for the deportation of > Jews influenced by the prospect of prime real estate coming on the > market at must-sell prices? > > The neighbor who moved into a Jewish apartment within hours of a > massacre, the municipal mayor who forced a fire-sale deed at 2am > under threat of Dachau, the Reich finance minister redistributing > confiscated Jewish furniture to German bombing victims as social > welfare, these were not separate phenomena. The Holocaust was, among > other things, a transfer of wealth, and that transfer implicated > ordinary people at every level of German and occupied European > society in ways that go well beyond ideology.

France's Jews are leaving en masse — again,
by Melissa Brodsky

> The largest Jewish community in Europe is shrinking as antisemitism, > Islamist violence, and institutional denial drive thousands to > question whether modern-day France is safe for Jews.

The 8th of May 1945 of Ionas Turkov,
by Stéphane Bou, K: Jews, Europe, the 21st century, 2025-05-08.

> On May 8, Europe celebrates its rebirth following the defeat of the > Nazis. But can Jews participate in this moment of jubilation that > unites European consciousness? Through the experiences of playwright > Ionas Turkov on May 8, 1945, Stéphane Bou examines the disconnect > between the narratives and emotions of “the world” and those of the > Jews. What place can the history of the Shoah find in the grand > triumphal narrative of victory and European unity? > > <much snippage> > > Turkov is confronted with a nagging problem, one that has troubled > most survivors from the outset and continues to resurface to this > day: how to record the history of the extermination of the Jews – > ”those who suffered the most,” as he put it — as an event that was > both part of a war that ravaged all of Europe and yet distinct and > unique. How can this difference be conveyed? How can a minority > history be integrated into the grand majority history? How can the > fragmented specificity of a catastrophe that made Jews unique > victims among all other victims be accounted for? > > <more snippage> > > Jews and other Europeans do not live in the same reality: the > radical nature of the extermination they suffered is not that of > war, however devastating it may have been. Now that it is the event > of “39–45” as a whole that is being targeted, we understand that the > question arises of what words can be used both within a community > that needs to be rebuilt, with the loss that lies at its heart, and > towards an outside world that considers itself victorious and where > Jews must find a place for themselves again. How can Jews, without > silencing what happened to them, return to a world of joy and > celebration? Under what conditions? Can the world and the Jews come > together in agreement on the same narrative? At the very least, if > the points of view do not align, but each determines their own > specific narrative, can these coexist? Is the narrative that Jews > carry with them not rather destined to become an additional factor > of separation? These are a series of very concrete political > questions, and burning ones at a time when anti-Jewish violence, > strictly Polish and no longer Nazi, is reviving the feelings of > isolation and abandonment that Jews experienced during the war. > > For post-war Polish Jews, it is not enough to “settle accounts”; > they must remain vigilant. It was premature to assert that it was > finally possible to “draw a line under the past.” The world was > still a dangerous place: “The first episodes of aggression against > Jews [were] recorded the very day after the government was formed, > on July 22, 1944,” [emphasis added —ruchenn] even before Turkov > took refuge in Lublin. In May 1945, anti-Jewish violence took place > as part of a continuum of hostilities that began in the summer of > 1944 with the liberation of certain areas of Poland and intensified > until 1946.

Antisemitism and the anti-Zionist exploitation of the universal,
by Julien Chanet K: Jews, Europe, the 21st century, 2026-05-14.

> Last month, Crise et Critique published L’Incendie Universel (The > Universal Fire). The subject at hand is left-wing anti-Zionism, as > explored by Julien Chanet. From an anti-racist and > anti-authoritarian perspective, the author develops a well-reasoned > analysis of the history of Zionism and the place that anti-Zionism > has come to occupy within a segment of the left, along with its > unintended ideological consequences. We are publishing here an > excerpt, in its first ever English translation, selected to explore > the paradoxical recycling of Christian anti-Judaism through the > falsely universalist logic of contemporary anti-Zionism.

NB: the linked-to book extract is, as noted above, a translation from the original French, ‘L’antijudaïsme et l’instrumentalisation antisioniste de l’universel’. And the author is not just writing in French, but is writing from within the French post-modern intellectual tradition. The writing is dense, and some familiarity with French sociological and academic political thinking is helpful in parsing said density.

The only night Europe tells the truth,
by Hen Mazzig, Hen Mazzig, 2026-05-18.

> Think of Eurovision voting like a high school cafeteria. Everyone > has a table. The Nordics sit together, the Yugoslavs sit together, > and Greece and Cyprus have been best friends for years. > > Israel sits alone. > > There is no Israeli bloc because there is no Israeli neighborhood. > The closest countries geographically are Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, > Egypt, and none of them compete. The countries with the largest > Jewish populations after Israel itself are the United States and > France, and the United States doesn’t compete either. Israel walks > into Eurovision every year as the kid with no lunch table, hoping > someone across the room will wave them over. > > And what just happened is this. The kid with no table got picked > third by the entire cafeteria. > > Bulgaria won this year because it had a song that crossed blocs. > “Bangaranga” topped jury and public votes simultaneously, which > almost never happens. It was, on the merits, the song of the year, > and Bulgaria deserves the win. I want to be clear about that. > > What I want you to notice is something else. Every point Israel > earned, it earned on its own. There was no bloc to inherit and no > neighbor returning a favor. Twelve from France. Twelve from Germany. > The Swiss, the Portuguese, the Azerbaijanis, and the Finns all gave > Israel twelve. These are not countries with historic obligations to > vote for Israel, and not countries with large Jewish populations > driving the result. These are countries whose general public, in a > private vote, decided that the Israeli song was the song they wanted > to win. > > The campaign against Israel framed every Israeli high finish as > suspicious. Bought, driven by bots, or manipulated by the state. The > New York Times wrote two stories suggesting exactly that, and > admitted in both that there was no evidence for any of it. > > Here is the thing about Eurovision that the campaign never wanted to > admit. The public vote is the most honest political instrument in > Europe. No polling bias. No social desirability effect. Just a phone > and a button and a private moment of preference. > > When Europeans were given that private moment, they chose Israel > third out of thirty-seven. Despite everything. > > That is not a result you can spin.

George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda: how one novel reshaped the image of British Jews,
by Josh Glancy, K: Jews, Europe, the 21st century, 2021-12-09.

> Published in 1876, Daniel Deronda is a unique novel in the history > of 19th century English literature. Raised in an aristocratic > household, Deronda longs to discover his true origins. Who are his > real parents? A chance meeting draws him into Whitechapel and the > world of British Jews, with whom he has a growing affinity, before > eventually discovering the remarkable story of his own birth. Set at > the zenith of Victorian England, George Eliot's last novel displays > a deep empathy towards British Jews, while also laying out the > author's firm proto-Zionist sympathies. > > <snippage> > > Deronda… is a rare novel that had a lasting political impact. > Fifty-one years after its publication, British foreign secretary > Arthur Balfour issued his famous declaration supporting the > establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The Zionist idea had > reached the very apex of British imperial power, in no small part > thanks to the influence of Eliot’s book. > > Deronda was published the same year that Benjamin D’Israeli became > the first (and so far last) Jewish-born prime minister of Britain. > Both wrote novels about Jews and Palestine, but Eliot’s diligent > compassion far outstrips D’Israeli’s theatrical orientalism and her > work had a more lasting impact. In Paul Johnson’s History of the > Jews, a staple bar mitzvah gift for decades, he describes Deronda as > “probably the most influential novel of the 19th century” in terms > of its practical effect. Even though Deronda was never widely loved, > Eliot was a literary giant and her last novel was read and debated > around the world. “To hundreds of thousands of assimilated Jews,” > writes Johnson, “the story presented, for the first time, the > possibility of a return to Zion”. > > In New York, the book inspired a young Emma Lazarus, who in 1882 > wrote a series of pamphlets arguing that the persecuted Jews of > eastern Europe should be resettled in Palestine. Around the same > time, a friend of Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the man who founded modern > Hebrew, gave him a copy of Deronda, firing his imagination too. > “After I read the story a few times, I made up my mind and I acted,” > he recalled. “I went to Paris … in order to learn and equip myself > there with the information needed for my work in the Land of > Israel.” Chaim Weizmann claimed that he kept the novel “within easy > reach” in his bedroom. > > Another early Zionist leader, Nahum Sokolow, wrote: “In the Valhalla > of the Jewish people, among the tokens of homage offered by the > genius of centuries, Daniel Deronda will take its place as the > proudest testimony to the English recognition of the Zionist idea”.

Reality does not transmit itself (On war, legibility, and the burden placed on diaspora Jews),
by Brenden Strauss, Brenden Strauss, 2026-05-14.

> Israel failed to take seriously enough the responsibility to make > reality legible. > > That is a criticism the Jewish diaspora has every right to make, and > it is not a small one. It is not only about Netanyahu. Not only > about military decisions. Not only about settlements, coalitions, or > the familiar arguments that divide Jews from one another and from > the world. It is about a failure beneath all of that. > > Not a failure to make itself loved. Not a failure to persuade > everyone. Those goals were never fully achievable. But a failure to > ensure that the reality Israel was acting inside of could be seen, > understood, and judged with something closer to completeness. In the > world we live in now, that is not optional. It is part of what it > means to exercise power. > > Because reality does not transmit itself.

 

A common feature of authoritarians is an infantile worship of brute strength and an equally infantile disdain for what gets called soft power.

And both infantilisms are obvious in way too many folks high up in the Netanyahu regime (and the Trump regime, which also doesn’t help on this front).

These infantilisms are, I believe, a fair chunk of the explanation for why the Israeli government has failed to take seriously enough the responsibility to make reality legible.

European Jewish communities under pressure,
by Elie Petit, K: Jews, Europe, the 21st century, 2026-05-07.

> E.P.: You have experience of Jewish communities outside Europe. > I would therefore like to ask you for an outside perspective: so you > see something deeply coherent about European Jewish communities, > beyond their shared geographical belonging? A distinctive trait, a > shared identity that defines them? > > M.M.: There is first the profound sense of history, and of the > rootedness on this continent, which are aspects the two other great > Jewries do not share in the same way. > > Israeli Jewry lives in a tension between a millennia-old biblical > anchoring and an extremely recent statehood – not a dissonance, but > a kind of pull between these two temporalities. North American Jewry > has at most three centuries of history on its soil. European Jewry > has more than twenty – and it does not merely invoke this: it is the > bearer of it, culturally, philosophically, traditionally. Ashkenazi > and Sephardic Jewries are European Jewries in their very essence: > Ashkenaz refers to Germany, Sefarad refers to Spain. The etymology > says it all. > > And then there is the other end of the historical arc: European > Jewry is also the one that lost two thirds of its demographic mass > in the Shoah. And which, emerging from the war, had to rebuild from > decimated populations and a collective trauma of a depth that the > other two Jewries do not know from the inside, or at least not in > such a direct way. North American Jewry may be inhabited, for its > part, by a form of guilt at not having intervened sufficiently > during the war. Israeli Jewry was at that time entirely mobilized in > the building of a state. France is an exception, with the massive > arrival of Jews from North Africa who profoundly reconfigured the > community. England too, for obvious reasons: the Nazi occupation did > not take place there. But for the rest of Europe, reconstruction > occurred under extraordinarily difficult conditions. > > <snippage> > > E.P.: Is there a gap between Western and Eastern Europe? Or between North and South? > > T.M.: Not really. I think those divides – East and West, North > and South – have become much less relevant over time. Some > communities in Eastern Europe, like Poland or Hungary, are today > very close in their development and outlook to Western communities. > Thirty years ago, there was a clear socioeconomic gap but that’s > largely no longer the case, except in places like Ukraine or Russia, > for obvious reasons. > > For me, the real difference is not geography. It’s size. A large > community has structure, resources, professionals. A smaller one > often relies on a handful of very committed people, professional and > lay, who do everything. That creates very different realities and > very different needs.

The Manosphere: the language of misogyny in the grammar of antisemitism,
by James Bloodworth, fathom, 2026-05.

> James Bloodworth argues that the Manosphere, the online collection > of male supremacists and misogynists that target women, rests upon > the older bigotry of antisemitism.

TL;DR: all conspiracy theories end up at Jew hatred. Also, these men who feel dispossessed and have been told they have been robbed aren’t doing anything new. Jews as threats to masculinity are as big a part of 1930s fascism as they are today’s fascism.

The Civil commission on October 7th have released their report, Silence no more. (Or, to go straight to a PDF of the complete report: Silence no more — sexual terror unveiled: the untold atrocities of October 7th and against hostages in captivity.)

It is harrowing reading. I don’t recomend reading the whole thing in one sitting.

I’m more instantly curious, however, about who is reporting on the report.

So, I ran two quick news searches, one on DuckDuckGo, and one on Google.

Contextualising notes

1. I ran both searches at around 00:30 UTC on 2026-05-13.

2. The two search URLs linked-to above are the literal queries I sent to each search engine.

   By design, these queries load each engine’s respective News tab, not the general search results page.

3. I conducted both searchs from within the browser’s Private Window.

   Not out of some misplaced belief it would hide my activity from anyone, but because these windows don’t load any cookies or other previously-acquired data. From the search engine’s perspective, each search came from a client that had never previously sent a request of any sort to said search engine.

   Consequently, the algorithms driving the returned results are entirely server-side, with none of my previous personal searches or actions affecting the results.

4. The search term I used for both searches was civil commission on october 7th.

   No quote marks surrounding the string, and no more specific data requested (no use of contextualising strings such as report or Silence no more).

5. All the returned results on the first News page of each engine were reports on the release of Silence no more.

   The results others will see if they send the same queries will be different. All else aside, the location a query comes from will affect results, as will further reporting published after I sent my queries.

The results

Preliminary conclusion

The Silenced no more report isn’t, in the main, news outside Israel. At least so far.

Why Germans protested T4 but not the Holocaust,
by Elizer Aryeh, Eliezer’s substack, 2026-05-11.

> This post analyzes the differential public response to two Nazi > killing programs, the T4 euthanasia program and the Holocaust. It > uses the difference as evidence that antisemitism was structurally > embedded in German society rather than situationally produced. > Please note that this post discusses mass killing and genocide by > the Nazi regime. > > Between 1939 and 1941, Nazi Germany murdered between 70,000 and > 90,000 disabled and psychiatric patients in a network of gas > chambers operating inside Germany. Buses arrived at the asylums and > left empty. Smoke rose from the crematoria. Death notices arrived in > bulk, listing identical improbable causes, “appendicitis,” “heart > failure”, for patients who had been healthy weeks before. > > The German populace protested, Catholic and Protestant clergy issued > statements, and families demanded information. The Bishop of > Münster, Clemens August Graf von Galen, delivered a sermon on August > 3, 1941, publicly denouncing the murders as violations of divine and > German law. Goebbels told Hitler that if anything were done against > Galen, “the population of Münster could be regarded as lost to the > war effort, and the same could confidently be said of the whole of > Westphalia.” Hitler ordered the program halted. Public protest > stopped the Nazi killing machine. > > Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews. This, > too, was visible, in some respects more so, since it was larger and > longer. Locals worked in and around the camps. Towns near > extermination facilities in occupied Poland smelled burning flesh > and saw ash fall on nearby fields. Inside Germany, by 1944, nearly > every major industry used concentration camps or forced labor; the > camps were next to the factories. Death marches in the war’s final > months elapsed through German towns, the starving prisoners visible > to anyone who looked. Germans largely did not protest. > > The question then is, why did the same population that was outraged > by one killing program fail to mobilize against the other?

‘Rape is just part of war’: what happened when I spoke in Amsterdam,
by Andrew Fox, Mr Andrew Fox, 2026-05-10.

> What struck me most was not just the hostility: it was the epistemic > closure. These people operate within a sealed universe of > alternative facts. There is no argument to be had because there is > no shared evidentiary standard. I know what I have seen with my own > eyes in Gaza itself during the war. They, on the other hand, have > absorbed two and a half years of propaganda via social media, > activist networks, campus politics, and the Hamas narrative > laundered through supposedly respectable institutions. Those two > evidentiary bars are not the same. > > That is the truly dangerous part. When two sides disagree about > policy, there can still be debate. When two sides disagree about > interpretation, there can still be debate. However, when one side > insists on living in a manufactured reality, conversation becomes > almost impossible. > > That is what I saw in Amsterdam; neither serious engagement nor > moral seriousness. Not even real anger, in the sense of an emotion > tied to facts. What I saw was a political identity built from > keffiyehs, flags, slogans, and inverted victimhood. It was a glimpse > into how toxic this movement has become. Not because it advocates > for Palestinians (there is nothing inherently wrong with advocating > for Palestinians), but because so much of the Western > pro-Palestinian movement has now fused with denial, propaganda, > theatrical intimidation, and the moral laundering of Hamas. > > That is the world we are dealing with, and after what I saw in > Amsterdam this week, I am more convinced than ever that the fight is > not only about Israel, Gaza, or international law. It is about > reality itself.

Don’t worry, right-wing antisemites — I didn’t forget about you,
by Jaclyn S Clark, The Times of Israel, 2026-04-30.

> Rene Girard, a French literary critic who pivoted into anthropology > and spent the back half of his career at Stanford, focused on one > question for almost forty years: why do human communities, at every > scale, over and over, converge on a single target when the > collective pressure builds? Why does the choreography of that > convergence look the same across cultures, across centuries, across > causes? > > His answer begins with mimetic desire. The claim is simple: > desire is not original to the person experiencing it. We learn what > to want by watching each other want. Status, partners, jobs, lives, > sneakers, abs — almost all of it is borrowed. Advertising operates > on this. Social media weaponizes it. The dating economy runs on it. > The reason teenage boys all want the same shoes, the same body, the > same girl is that each of them is reading the others’ wanting and > converting it into his own. > > When a community is collectively wanting the same things and the > supply does not stretch, you get rivalry. Multiply rivalry across an > entire society and you get what Girard called a mimetic crisis — > a pressure system with no release valve, social cohesion fraying, > frustration accumulating with nowhere to go. > > The relief mechanism societies have repeatedly reached for is the > scapegoat. Pick a target — different enough to mark, embedded enough > to make sense as a symbol — and load the accumulated anxiety onto > it. The unanimity of the choice is what makes the violence feel like > justice rather than mob rule. Nobody pauses to interrogate whether > the target actually caused the problem. The crowd moves as one. The > pressure dissipates. > > Girard wrote in the abstract. He was too good a scholar to spell out > the empirical pattern. He did not have to. The historical record > names one population that Western civilization has, more reliably > than any other, fed into the scapegoat mechanism every time the > pressure has built.

Scapes and signals,
by Ben Schulman, TEL: exploring Jewish histories in cityscapes, 206-04-25.

> As Thomas Frank detailed in The Conquest of Cool, we have been > centering cool for some time. And, as Frank showed, the > counterculture and its signals of transgression are reliably > absorbed by the very power structures they claim to oppose. > > Cool defines things. It gives shape to the formless. It turns noise > into narrative. > > Which brings us to Julian Casablancas, frontman of The Strokes, > Übermensch of the early aughts NYC gilded sleaze set, who was > recently interviewed on Kareem Rahma's viral video series, Subway > Takes. There, in a breezy mood waxing about things he doesn’t like, > such as too-long audio text messages and ugly modern cars, he > singles out "American Zionists [who] get the benefits of white > privileged people, but talk like they are Black people during > slavery." > > The Strokes have cool in their blood. Writer Eve Barlow, in a > brilliant essay that contextualizes Casablancas’ > still-(ir)relevant cool, suggests that it kinda sucks that > Casablancas' elite background (the son of Elite Model Management > founder John Casablancas) makes for such an easy readymade to > counter his current worldview. That, for as much as his own > privileged background may make it seem easy to disparage his remarks > as out-of-touch, his presence still carries a paragon of cool, and > that has cachet. Cool cats like Casablancas are critical as brand > ambassadors when antisemitism has a big future.

The Jewish holiday that most Jews don’t understand,
by Joshua Hoffman, Future of Jewish, 2026-05-05.

> Lag BaOmer literally translates to “the 33rd day of the Omer.” The > Hebrew word Lag comes from letters Lamed (which represents the > number 30) and Gimel (3), equaling 33. BaOmer means “in the Omer,” > referring to the 49-day period between Passover and Shavuot. > > It sits in the Jewish calendar like a spark in the middle of a long, > dim corridor — one day of fire and music and release, interrupting > weeks that are otherwise quiet, restrained, even heavy. If you > didn’t know better, you might think it doesn’t quite belong. And in > a way, that’s exactly the point. > > To understand Lag BaOmer, you have to start with a story that > feels almost too fragile to survive history.

The money-making business of attacking Jews,
by Vanessa Berg, Future of Jewish, 2026-04-28.

> In the modern “Attention Economy,” people and platforms make money > by capturing and keeping your focus — often by showing you the most > emotional, shocking, or engaging content. In this context, outrage > is the most reliable currency. Platforms reward content that > provokes emotion such as anger, moral certainty, indignation. The > more intense the reaction, the more the algorithm amplifies it. And > the more it spreads, the more it pays. > > This is not unique to Jews. But Jews, and especially Israel, occupy > a peculiar position within this system. They can be framed, > simultaneously, as powerful yet illegitimate, privileged yet > oppressive, Western yet foreign, and successful yet immoral. That > combination is combustible. It allows for a narrative that is > simple, emotionally charged, and endlessly recyclable. In other > words, it performs extremely well. And performance is what gets > rewarded. > > Scroll through enough content and a pattern emerges. Content > creators and influencers who package their commentary around moral > outrage (particularly around Israel or “Zionism”) tend to grow > faster. Their content travels further. Their audiences are more > engaged. Their platforms expand. Plenty of data has been published > since October 7th showing that anti-Israel content far outweighs > “pro-Israel” content on these platforms. Translation: Propaganda, > half-truths, and information devoid of context far outweigh more > factual, nuanced content. > > With that expansion comes monetization ad revenue, sponsorships, > paid subscriptions, speaking opportunities, and brand partnerships. > > The mechanism is straightforward: Content that frames Jews or Israel > as uniquely malevolent is more likely to trigger strong emotional > responses. Those responses drive engagement. Engagement drives > visibility. Visibility drives income. This does not require > coordination or conspiracy. It requires only one thing: that the > system rewards certain outputs. And it does.

‘We, Italian Jews: a minority within the minority’,
by Ada Treves, K: Jews, Europe, the 21st century, 2026-04-30.

> [Nobel gases capture] the essence of Italian Judaism: something that > does not explode, that does not blend easily, and that precisely for > this reason might go almost unnoticed. > > Yet, we are very much there. We have always been few in number, but > we continue to exist. > > We are neither truly Sephardic nor truly Ashkenazi. We have welcomed > both, but we are not them. We are Italian Jews, quite simply. We are > the result not of assimilation, but of stratification. We are a > minority even among other Jews: a minority within the minority. A > square root. > > We have no ‘elsewhere’ to think of, no great expulsion to recount, > no original trauma haunting our minds, no memories of the shtetl. We > do not lend ourselves to folklore. > > We have been in Italy for over two thousand years. We have not > arrived; we stayed. And we have remained ourselves, since time > immemorial.