Good news: Itamar Ben-Gvir has cancelled his upcoming trip to NYC. He must have gotten the memo that he's not welcome or wanted here.

You know what I'm going to do today? I will use a media platform that reaches a general audience in the United States to air my parochial gripes about Brad Lander.

I will be in Durham, NC for two weeks starting on Monday. Let me know if there is anything I should be doing in the evenings and weekends.

The July 2026 issue of Harper's is superb. It's been a long time since I've read every article in a sizable magazine (96 pages). Recommend picking it up if it's sold near you.

Birthright citizenship strikes at the heart of the chauvinist's worldview. The only thing separating you from the wretched of the earth is chance. Being American was not your "destiny." You're not "blessed." Your coming was not foretold. You're an accident, just like the universe. It's beautiful.

This is who the 92Y turns to to discuss how progressives have "lost their way" or whatnot. I wonder if Batya drops the whole uber-MAGA act when speaking to liberal Jews on the Upper East Side.

I wonder if Rabbi Cosgrove took two minutes to consider the ramifications of the conceit of his article. Brad Lander losing to a DSA challenger in NY-10 in 2028 would require a massive movement further to the left on Israel/Palestine among liberal Jews.

As American Jews, we are relieved birthright citizenship protections will continue to be upheld, and vow to continue our work to protect the democratic institutions and civil liberties that make our pluralistic society possible.

I looked through the list of amici curiae preparing to be disappointed, but I'm happy to report the American Jewish Committee and the Reform movement joined a petition with faith-based organizations, including CAIR, to support birthright citizenship.

Arthur Hertzberg in 1988 arguing that American Jewish support for Israel was undergirded by a distinct lack of fear of antisemitism in the United States:

You're sitting on the couch after a long day, catatonically staring at the floor. Suddenly, the television turns on without you touching the remote. A green light blinks at the top of the screen, a built-in camera of which you were heretofore ignorant. Judgment Day is here.

At this point, I don't know who can possibly deny that Brad Lander is an extraordinarily generous human soul.

I've lived in close proximity to a large and growing Haitian community in Midwood, Brooklyn, for much of my life. It's so infuriating to see such disgusting racist lies told about decent ordinary people that I encounter almost every day.

You don't have to defend the NIMBY guy screaming at Scott Wiener. You can just take the W of Scott Wiener having moved to a better position on Israel/Palestine instead of fixating on the nonpolitical unanswerable question of, "Is he sincere?"

I think Joel Swanson gets it exactly right here. Lander vs. Goldman was a check-in moment for where liberal Jews are at. Thankfully, at least in my mind, we are moving away from the "October 8th Jew" phenomenon.

Another mistake New York Democrats made was leaving a huge asset off the field and behind a desk: Jay Jacobs. Next time he needs to be in the community making sure voters know which candidates are approved by the party leadership.

The presence of Darializa Avila Chevalier in Congress will disturb what is otherwise a very serious, sober, and—it should go without saying—moderate foreign policy discourse in Washington. It's just not the place for simplistic, Manichean moralizing in support of reckless ideas.

In addition to everything else about it, calling a Jew a kapo is definitely not a "normie" thing to do.

I don't think establishment Democrats are sufficiently highlighting the chutzpah of these challengers. They can't assume this message gets through implicitly to voters. The campaigns need to be centered around "Wait Your Turn." Print that slogan on rally signs and mailers.

Difficult day for the International Marxist Tendency guy trying to sell the paper in Union Square. Sorry, comrade, we have all been taken in by the social democracy. Didn't you hear about the big bang last night?

Establishment anti-gentrification rhetoric is about staying in power for a few more years. They do not care about people being displaced, and they cannot actually stop gentrification. After a few years, their campaign amounts to telling most of the electorate: I don't like you. Shocker: they lose.

No one was "purged." He stopped a primary challenge that would have ended in defeat and possibly sank the uptown race by wasting resources in Jeffries's district. I live in NY-8. Hakeem Jeffries is not an unpopular incumbent and the terrain is just not favorable. Yvette Clarke is a better target.

As a native New Yorker, it is hard for me to take seriously the chorus of "New York is going down the tubes" every time a mayor to the left of Bloomberg is elected. Perhaps some recent transplants are scared by all this, but I'm not.

Yes, I am an assimilated American Jew. I prefer being a full citizen with equal rights and do not want or need anyone representing me in front of the poritz anymore. I thank you for your past service in that role.

I don't like the term "mainstream." It's a construction favored by people who are scared of polls. But to the extent there is a "mainstream" American Jewish phenomenon, I'm not sure why the intuitive assumption is that it exclusively revolves around Israel politics.

One way to prevent the younger college-educated middle class from becoming socialists would be to redistribute some of the country's wealth to them. That will first require a greater number of older Americans not calling any redistributionist policy "socialist" anymore.

Here we go!

One obvious lesson that establishment Democrats should learn: open disdain towards recent graduates struggling to afford the city, calling them gentrifiers and worse, is a political loser in Democratic primaries. Maybe appeal to them instead of trying to pit them against other working people.

The week I finally finished reading Harvey Swados's "Standing Fast," a socialist wins a State Assembly race in Buffalo. Coincidence? [Five people will get this.]

With Brad Lander's commanding victory, I think what we need most now is a 92Y panel consisting entirely of neoconservative commentators discussing the political homelessness that liberal Jews are experiencing.

In retrospect, a really strange story from the 2024 encampment was Mark Rudd's criticism of the students. In 1968, Rudd had been a leader of the Columbia occupation that year. Two years later, he was a domestic terrorist in the Weather Underground, not a member of Congress.

Two years after Darializa Avila Chevalier took part in the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University, she is now set to represent the district in which the university is located in Congress.

My first rough draft of this history: far from repelling them, the left challengers' positions on Israel/Palestine helped attract normie liberal voters to their side.

As of now, every DSA NYC-endorsed candidate is ahead except for Conrad Blackburn.

the thing about greenblatt is that this is a dude who watched elon musk give a "heil hitler" and then said "looks like nothing to me." why would anyone take him seriously?

Virtually all Republicans voted against it. Of the four who did not, two are occasional rebels, one is leaving office after being drummed out in a primary, and one is Rand Paul. It doesn't look like the noninterventionist right is exercising much influence on current members.

Eli Northrup, the candidate Mamdani endorsed in that race, is also Jewish. Had he not endorsed in the race, one could have framed that as Mamdani spurning Jewish ally Eli Northrup. Of course, that would have been most unlikely to happen—as this is about attacking progressives and not defending Jews.

This is the only thing anyone should ever say about Elon Musk. He deserves to be talked about in the same category as Mao and Stalin as one of history's worst mass murderers.

Today is the 2026 Democratic primary in NYC. If you live in NY-10 and haven't voted early, please go out and vote for @bradlander.bsky.social before 9pm. Don't take for granted that the district is favorable to him. It may be, but that's only true if you turn out for him.

I don't expect Mayor Mamdani to fully agree with Jill Jacobs (not sure that I do), but I think it's worth considering the views of those leaders in the Jewish community who have not boycotted him and in fact largely share his negative views of AIPAC.

You will not find any survey in which over 85% of American Jews support AIPAC's positions. Polling on support for Israel's "right to exist" is being used to rhetorically conscript American Jews as supporters of more controversial pro-Israel positions.

Low-key liberal accomplishments coupled with high-profile policy concessions to the right and aggressive conservative virtue signalling — this is exactly the strategy moderates have recommended for Democrats here, of course. Didn't work too well. Maybe some lessons there.

Face-to-face with the Angel of History.

The vote to divest the UAW from Israel Bonds was 321-287. That feels surprisingly contested given prevailing attitudes towards Israel and that bonds are obviously sold to finance government projects. Would love to know more from people in the know.

"If you ever thought Trump is capable of behaving strategically, let alone undertaking some 'civilizational' plan, you are far dumber than he is. And that’s all he needs to stay in business—bigger suckers."

Appreciate the critically important work of the Nexus Project and honored they shared my piece. We will not succeed in fighting antisemitism if we neglect the struggle for democracy and a society in which all Americans belong.

What a humiliation for The Atlantic: publishing Adam Louis-Klein 'as a leftist.'

A Congress that tolerates Islamophobia will never truly protect Jews. When elected officials demonize Muslims, traffic in conspiracy theories about religious minorities and treat pluralism as a threat, they’re attacking the foundation that keep us safe. More in the Forward by @abesilbe.bsky.social

“[Carlo] Ginzburg showed that non-intellectuals had an intellectual life — and demonstrated what that life was."