I’ve been trying to articulate to myself why I find the discourse around Mamdani so upsetting and I think beyond the fact that it is/encourages racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, it also makes a mockery of what I consider to be real issues, namely antisemitism and Jewish safety.

If Oct. 7 had never happened, Trump would right now be pulling funding from Columbia and Harvard because of DEI policies or admissions requirements or what research they were doing or all of the above. The right hates universities and that’s it.

No one told me how much of grad school would involve days like today: brain MRI, FL-41 glasses, and desperately hoping something helps my migraines.

I would personally not be involved with this ever, but I would especially not do it right before my big holiday about celebrating freedom from oppression etc. Just another way Chaya and I see our Judaism differently I guess.

Betar USA is the far-right organization giving the Trump administration names of pro-Palestine students to deport. Today they confirmed they are going after the “wrong sort of Jews” as well. It was always inevitable that this “anti-antisemitism” campaign would be turned against Jews on the left.

Totally agree with this. Flying a person to a third country that they may never have been to, directly into a prison where they are going to be forced to do hard labor, is not a deportation; it's something else entirely.

Roll Crimson, baby!!!

This is a grave and sobering admission: they are not pursuing the “WELL ACTUALLY he broke the law during protests,” they are bragging that they are deporting people for protected speech.

Right-wing Jew Laura Loomer is attacking the wife of the judge who blocked the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, herself the head of the Heschel School in NYC. This is blatant antisemitism, but Loomer is justifying it as only against "Marxist Jews" who "create antisemitism for the rest of the Jews."

How did Mahmoud Khalil become the first student targeted for deportation by the Trump administration? He showed up at a protest last week without a mask. "The guy was making it too easy for us," a pro-Israel activist who has been compiling a protester database told me. forward.com/news/703018/...

This makes me feel more unsafe than anything that has happened at Harvard since 10/7. Wondering if ICE is going to begin taking my peers is a much greater disruption to campus life for me than protests!

Since it apparently needs to be said: As a Jew who works on a university campus, I am safest in a country that protects academic freedom and liberal values of due process of law. Anyone who supports extrajudicial detention of students for "wrong" ideological opinions is not doing it for my safety.

As far as I can tell, Khalil has still not been charged & his attorney/family still don’t know where he is. Any Jew who thinks this is going to start and stop with a few Palestinian activists is fooling themselves. Our community should not be used as an excuse to upend democracy & the rule of law.

What law is the ADL alleging Mahmoud broke? Is it against the law to criticize Israel? To speak to the press? To be Palestinian?

What better way to combat antisemitism than by stripping funds from a university with the highest percentages of Jewish undergraduates of any school in the Ivy League?

the problem with the "trans sports participation is a loser / 80-20 issue" framing is that it ignores how it got that way. it didn't just happen out of nowhere. It's been a 5+ year campaign by Republicans to make it an 80-20 issue, and noone fought back.

Again this is obviously in bad faith, but let's pretend like it's not. What part of culture is telling young men to cast their families aside...? Is the main cultural messaging not that men should provide for their families??

How is it their fault the NBA has a stupid loophole if you don’t make any of the 3s??? Bring back my kings.

Oh wow, why would the defenders of women's sports do this?!

This is simply excellent from start to finish. rodgersherman.substack.com/p/the-spinel...

Very weird victim mentality in Vance's tweet that doesn't make any sense. It's not like liberals or reporters or cancel culture fired him. Your administration did! Nothing is stopping them from hiring him back if they want him back!

Exactly, and it's shameful.

This is maybe the fifth most important thing in this video, but it’s so clear none of these “women’s sports” defenders know anything about women’s sports. Banning men from women’s sports practice? Most women’s basketball teams practice against men!!

On a broader level, it’s fascinating how criticisms of the US president and leader of the Republican party are often responded to with “yeah but these college kids…” It’s certainly most prominent re Israel/antisemitism, but it happens constantly in the “culture war” debates too.

This legislation would empower a crackdown on civil liberties. It would pit Jews against other minorities. It would attempt to codify an understanding about what it means to be Jewish, further diving Jewish communities. What it would not do is decrease antisemitism.

They won't, but the IOC should move the 2028 Olympics (isn't the US also still fighting with WADA over them not taking doping seriously enough? two birds, one stone...) Trump also says everyone would've thought this was crazy ten years ago, but the IOC has allowed trans athletes since 2004, so...

Last thing (maybe) for now about this is: people say it's fearmongering to say that this will only increase scrutiny of cis women who play sports. But look at any of the comment sections on a post about Brittney Griner, and you'll see all these weirdos calling her a man. It's already happening!!!

It's hard to respond to this because two things are true at the same time: 1. I believe one (1) trans woman has competed in the Olympics as a woman. Absurd to spend this much time fussing about one person. 2. Even if there were thousands of trans women competing, this would still be shameful!

Ah, here we go again. Normal press conference stuff.

Sage words from @debpearlstein.bsky.social on rejecting nihilism and embracing the fight… www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/o...

Our statement on President Trump's EO on antisemitism is quoted in the Jerusalem Post: www.jpost.com/diaspora/ant... True security for Jewish communities comes through protecting democratic institutions & civil liberties for all, not through authoritarian measures that target other minority groups.

Is everyone besides me getting work done right now or are we all just sort of doomscrolling and staring blankly...?

Not feeling so good right now about my hopes of having children without dying, to be honest.

Publicly talking about gender violence in such a high profile setting alters women’s lives dramatically, irrevocably, and for the worse. To promise that the sacrifice will matter when you know it will not is to mock that woman’s sacrifice.

I see we’re still canonizing Kobe Bryant. Lemme guess: It’s still not the right time to talk about his culpability in the sexual assault case www.usatoday.com/story/sports...

I've seen some people defend Musk with "he visited Auschwitz!" which 1 pathetic and 2 yeah the visit was followed by a presentation on how X could have stopped the Holocaust and a discussion in which he declined to apologize for his past remarks, instead attacking DEI forward.com/opinion/5769...

I am not offering any reassurances about SCOTUS. I am saying, the best way to increase the odds of good things happening is to not speculate about SCOTUS and say what the Constitution says about this and act like it.

I’m not going to predict what the Supreme Court will do. I will say, again and again, that if you wait for a reactionary Supreme Court to tell you what the Constitution means, you will get a reactionary constitutional order. So, don’t do that.

This is what the Biden admin did; their proposed Title IX rules were blocked in court by Republicans and it didn't gain them anything electorally. It's also what the NCAA tried to do and they've also been sued by Republicans. So congrats--your plan is both unoriginal and politically worthless

"I support Jews over Muslims in the Middle East, but I would still like all the Jews to leave my country and go to Israel" is a coherent antisemitic position that leads to Zionism. Not sure why people so many people think they're incompatible.

Why would the party that’s so concerned with fairness for (cis) women in sports lately not support this? 🤔

Wow good for Muffet, I was beginning to think no one would ever address this.

Is there actual evidence of this? Later on in the article, the suggested evidence is “the Trump campaign spent money on transphobic ads and then won” which….is not convincing.

Huge day for me and my fellow Nolanheads. A true Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to us indeed!!

Feast week, baby!! I went to bed around 1 at the beginning of the second half; Heels were down by 21. I gasped when my wife woke me up this morning to tell me we won. Let's goooooo!

One positive effect of watching a lot of basketball is that you get used to phrases like The Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis. It's not good to read stuff like that or know what it means but I sense it will help somewhat when something with a similar vibe and feel replaces Social Security.

So proud of my sister for fighting for a fair wage for herself and her coworkers!! Union strong in the Royden family ✊

Has anyone asked the anti-trans bathroom crew what they think of trans men sharing bathrooms with cis women? I don’t really understand the plan to distinguish cis men from trans men, or how that (in their view) keeps cis women safe.