Read Bess Kalb's "The Grudge Report"

Bess Kalb is a successful comedy writer. In

she writes mostly about her two little boys and everyday life in NYC.

Although she never talks about religion, she has strong views on being Jewish and what it’s like to be Jewish these days. I’m a very secular Jew. It’s rare that I say anything about being a Jew. And I identify with Jewishness far, far less than she does. I like reading Bess’s blog because she shows me what someone, presumably like me intellectually but who identifies very strongly as Jewish, thinks. (That she’s half my age establishes another dimension on which we are very far apart.)

In today’s post Bess writes that even though she has taken a strongly negative position about how Israel has and is treating the Palestinians, the reaction to her post about the neo-Nazi demonstrations in Columbus, Ohio ignores everything she has said in support of the Palestinians and focuses solely on her being Jewish.

If you have been reading what I’ve published since 10/7, you know that I have used whatever platform I’m given to advocate for the dual survival of Jews and Palestinians, and as a Jew in the diaspora I have been unambiguous about my criticism of Netanyahu’s brutal retaliatory campaign in Gaza. I’ve posted about this on every social media platform, and dedicated a significant percentage of this newsletter to reflecting my own experience as a Jew watching the horrors unfold in Palestine.

I have alienated blood relatives with what I’ve written. I’ve raised thousands of dollars for organizations that were called “terrorists” by people I grew up with. And yet, I don’t shut up about it, because writing about anything else feels a bit besides the point.

And yet. And yet. When I posted about those Nazis in Ohio - when I raised the alarm that the symbol of our own annihilation — the same symbol my relatives saw as they were marched onto trains to the gas chambers and crematoriums — I was met with this:

I recommend you read her blog.