August 5, 2019

"But this summer Ivanka transformed into someone entirely alien and new. She’s a frum Donatella Versace, her platinum hair parted severely down the middle..."

"... clad in increasingly conservative floor-length dresses, with an uncanny-valley beauty that’s the inverse of her father’s slack meat sack, and speaking in the ever-huskier whisper of a phone-sex operator who went to boarding school.... In her rebellious phase, she dyed her hair blue, listened to grunge and country music, and cried over Kurt Cobain’s death, none of which her parents were excited about. She also developed another habit that friends say her father did not like — she became a prodigious reader of great novels, burying her nose in Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Austen, Morrison. In her 20s, she said her favorite book was Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and she had modeled herself on its capitalist heroine, Dagny Taggart.... She was the flashy shiksa daughter of a celebrity showman in Manhattan, and Jared was the buttoned-down Orthodox Jewish real-estate heir from New Jersey, which sounds like a rom-com plot and seemed, at least at first, like a way for Ivanka to break with tradition; she’d gone with a straight arrow for a mate instead of a wild man.... With Jared by her side, Ivanka left her hard-partying crowd for tamer friends.... After her father’s election, Ivanka... told friends she wanted to stay in New York. Jared argued for D.C., saying they needed to protect her father, and, by the way, now anything — everything! — was theirs for the taking. At their synagogue, at least a few people began referring to Ivanka, the first Jewish member of an American First Family, by a new nickname, that of a savior. ...[T]hey called her Esther, after the beautiful Jewish wife of a Persian king who convinced him to cancel an order to annihilate the Jews."

A couple snippets from the long New York Magazine article, "Ivanka Aeternum After the White House, she probably can’t go back to the city that made her. So she has cannily devised another exit strategy" by Vanessa Grigoriadis."

"She’s a frum Donatella Versace...." I know Donatella Versace, the 64-year-old fashion mogul who has aged quite weirdly... but what is "frum"?

Wikipedia says:
Frum (Yiddish: פֿרום‎, lit. 'religious', 'pious') is a word that describes Jewish religious devotion.... The term connotes the observance of Jewish religious law in a way that often exceeds its bare requirements.... Frum can be used in a negative sense for 'hypocritically pious', 'holier-than-thou', 'sanctimonious'; or in a positive sense for 'pious', 'devout', 'God-fearing', and 'upright'.... 

121 comments:

Mike Sylwester said...

The German word fromm means pious in English. The Yiddish word is taken from the German word.

In the linked article, only the Yiddish word for pious would do.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I find it telling that New York Magazine found it necessary to explain who Esther was, but threw out "frum" with no explanation whatsoever. Also, I'm calling shenanigans on the "her father disliked her reading great novels" thing. Why, exactly, would he do that?

Wilbur said...

"Frum can be used in a negative sense for 'hypocritically pious', 'holier-than-thou', 'sanctimonious'; or in a positive sense for 'pious', 'devout', 'God-fearing', and 'upright'.... "


I'll give you one guess for the meaning intended by the author.

Infinite Monkeys said...

I am glad to hear her parents were not excited over Kurt Cobain’s death.

gilbar said...

to Ivanka, the first Jewish member of an American First Family, by a new nickname, that of a savior. ...[T]hey called her Esther, after the beautiful Jewish wife of a Persian king who convinced him to cancel an order to annihilate the Jews

Need any more reasons, why the Prog left HATES TRUMP?
canceling orders to annihilate the Jews? That wasn't the plan progressives had in mind

Kevin said...

With Jared by her side, Ivanka left her hard-partying crowd for tamer friends....

Fact.

After her father’s election, Ivanka... told friends she wanted to stay in New York.

Fact.

Jared argued for D.C., saying they needed to protect her father,

Fact.

and, by the way, now anything — everything! — was theirs for the taking.

Wait, what?

At their synagogue, at least a few people began referring to Ivanka, the first Jewish member of an American First Family, by a new nickname, that of a savior.

Fact.

We see what they did there. You put some half-interesting facts together, then sprinkle in some innuendo, half-truths, and outright falsehoods to make them factual by association in the minds of the reader.

It's the essence of fake news.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

MOre insults hurled at Trump and his family. Fuck off leftwing assholes.

rhhardin said...

Frumpy.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Ivanka is not allowed back in NY? What the hell, leftwing Nazis? Fuck the left.

RNB said...

It's funnier in the original Housecat.

Darkisland said...

saying they needed to protect her father, and, by the way, now anything — everything! — was theirs for the taking.

So Hilary Clinton with better fashion sense?

Why do you read such dreck, Ann?

John Henry

0_0 said...

Ivanka is Jewish?

JRoberts said...

I couldn't read the entire article. There's just something condescending and mean-spirited about articles like this. As if to say "she's not like us" and therefore it's okay to treat her and her family as outcasts.

It's that type of mindset that causes others to "other" and abuse Jews, gays, African Americans, Hispanics, evangelicals, etc. Taken to an extreme, it's a mindset that says it's okay to walk into a shopping center or nightclub and start shooting up the place.

We are a sick and sad culture.

Chuck said...

Aren't most White House women (First Ladies, First Daughters, etc.) just like Presidents and the economy? Way too much credit for anything good, and way too much disdain for anything bad.

{#26}

Seeing Red said...

Do they have a wall?

rhhardin said...

with an uncanny-valley beauty that’s the inverse of her father’s slack meat sack

I'm guessing cunt, just from context.

traditionalguy said...

Wait...wait. Isn't she a Russian Agent and best friends with Putin. Apparently all 17 Intelligence Agencies say so. Or was that last years Narrative.

AllenS said...

Agree with JRoberts @ 8:21 AM

Otto said...

Another hit piece on Trump, aided and abetted by Ann. Remember that word propaganda from the Huxley video. Ann is a master at the game.

narciso said...

It's like the whole Neumann clan, but most of victors family hates him.

gilbar said...

Chuck comes Dangerously close to talking about President Trump, saying...
Aren't most White House women (First Ladies, First Daughters, etc.) just like Presidents and the economy? Way too much credit for anything good, and way too much disdain for anything bad.


Not really.
DEMOCRAT White House women get credit (and deference); REPUBLICAN White House women get disdain

Wilbur said...

Not a bad name for a rock band: Slack Meat Sack.

dbp said...

It was kind of weird that the cover photo was computer modified to age, Ivanka and Jared. I feel like it was a kind of HARRISON BERGERON move.

gilbar said...

Think back to a Republican White House woman, that got credit for something (anything)
Takers?

Mike Sylwester said...

The German word fromm is etymologically related to the Latin word primus, which means first in English.

The Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon words for first were formo and forma.

That word was replaced in German by erste, which allowed the meaning of the adjective formo/forma to shift in meaning to pious -- the leader in devotion.

narciso said...

If you think of this as a soap opera, you use that metaphor.

Kevin said...

In a Trump Presidency, it is not enough to be non-Trump, we must be anti-Trump. -- Corey Booker

JRoberts said...

"gilbar said...
Think back to a Republican White House woman, that got credit for something (anything)
Takers?"

I get your point, but I would throw out Betty Ford as an exception to the rule.

narciso said...

If she actively denounced like patty Davis, even 15 years later.

Howard said...

Agreed. It's like the Fake News Collective is purposely inciting incels to bust a nut and shoot up a bunch of Hispanic Invaders

gilbar said...

Pat Nixon? Tricia Nixon?
Betty Ford?
Nancy Reagan ? Patty Davis? [i suppose Patty got some credit, but she wasn't a White House woman]
Barbara Bush?
Laura Bush? OH WAIT! I know which Republican White House women got credit! Barb and Jenna </sarc

Kevin said...

The German word fromm is etymologically related to the Latin word primus, which means first in English.

Very interesting.

But it also means a funk metal band that released Suck on This and Green Naugahyde, leading to the nu metal movement and subsequent bands such as Deftones, Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Incubus.

gilbar said...

Betty Ford? she got credit for her Drug rehab? AFTER she was out of the White House?

narciso said...

Remember the press freakout when they went to get a drink, vapours, rinse wash repeat.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I managed to make it through 4 paragraphs. Summarized, "not our sort." The condescension oozes out, informing everyone who knows "how the world really works" that these upstarts are to be purged from the high society that they were never really a part of anyway.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Ivanka is Jewish?

Yes.

Judaism is a religion you know.

Darrell said...

I hope Vanessa Grigoriadis gains 75 pounds when Trump is re-elected.

Heartless Aztec said...

Back in 2016 I thought I wouldnt care for the Trumps as the First Family but weirdly they've grown on me. What a shame they've been treated so shabbily by the Fourth Estate and the Left. It could have been a really fun Presidency.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Perhaps Vanessa Grigoriadis can beat up Ivanka on the streets of NY - Antifa style.

mccullough said...

Ivanka is prettier than the author.

That’s all you need to know.

pacwest said...

"I feel like it was a kind of HARRISON BERGERON move."

That Vonnegut story has been on my mind also of late. Once again the leftists are turning a cautionary tale into a how to manual.

Leland said...

Also, I'm calling shenanigans on the "her father disliked her reading great novels" thing. Why, exactly, would he do that?

I agree, that's just BS. Heck, most the authors were required reading in the public school I attended.

With Jared by her side, Ivanka left her hard-partying crowd for tamer friends

Not so "Alien and New" as compared to what most men and women do when they decide to settle down and get married, but I don't think Vanessa Grigoriadis would understand this, so perhaps alien and new is appropriate to the writer.

Anonymous said...

John Henry: Why do you read such dreck, Ann?

I'd like to think it's for the fun of trolling her readers.

But I really think she takes anything put out by this magazine as serious commentary for thoughtful people.

"... clad in increasingly conservative floor-length dresses, with an uncanny-valley beauty that’s the inverse of her father’s slack meat sack, and speaking in the ever-huskier whisper of a phone-sex operator who went to boarding school...."

Nah, she can't not be rolling her eyes at the writing, she's gotta be trolling us.

Dude1394 said...

What a load of bigoted crap.

Kevin said...

"But this summer Ivanka transformed into someone entirely alien and new.

Shorter NYT: It was OK to like her before, but it's not OK to like her now.

Many 7th grade girls are putting out similar hits on no-longer-friends before the new school year starts.

Don't want anyone to treat them nicely out of ignorance.

M Jordan said...

McCullough

Ain’t that the truth.

Kevin said...

I'd like to think it's for the fun of trolling her readers.

The trolling part is where she instructs us to read the whole article.

Like we're all going to get NYT subscriptions so we can follow along.

William said...

By any metric, Ivanka is an attractive and appealing woman who is apparently incapable of taking a bad photograph. You've got to admire their ingenuity and imagination in their efforts to find an effective angle of attack. It reminds me of their efforts to make Chelsea look attractive and appealing. They really kept at it, and, if they failed, it wasn't for lack of trying......Does anyone know what ever became of President Carter's daughter, the one who hung out with Abby Hoffman?....The various members of the Bush family and the Obamas seem to be good parents. Trump was surprisingly effective as a father. Reagan and FDR not so much. Go figure.

narayanan said...

from the article - In her 20s, she said her favorite book was Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and she had modeled herself on its capitalist heroine, Dagny Taggart....

and what it means from the book ...

“You ought to do something great...I mean, the two of us together.” “What?” she asked. He said, “I don’t know. That’s what we ought to find out. Not just what you said. Not just business and earning a living. Things like winning battles, or saving people out of fires, or climbing mountains.... The minister said last Sunday that we must always reach for the best within us. What do you suppose is the best within us?”

By the end of the novel, Eddie knows the answer to that question. “I said, ‘not business or earning a living’... but, Dagny, business and earning a living and that in man which makes it possible—that is the best within us, that was the thing to defend.”

J. Farmer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
J. Farmer said...

The first time I ever encountered Ivanka was in the 2003 Jamie Johnson documentary Born Rich, in which he interviews children of wealthy families and discusses his own role as an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. She came across by far as the most grounded and well adjusted. I'm sure she's a lovely, intelligent woman. That said, two things: (1) I don't want her within a mile of public policy making (2) How likely to be sincere are religious conversions to placate potential in-laws?

Sebastian said...

Frum. Figures. Since we Trump cultists consider our Donald das Hoffen der Frommen.

Excuse the blasphemy.

chuck said...

New York City

City of the Narrow Shoulders:

They tell me you are bigots, and I believe them...

narciso said...

Once you know the script you know what the expected reaction is, once upon a time I

Hagar said...

But then it is what her father wants that counts. The President is entitled to talk with his family, regardless of what either Mr. Nadler or J. Farmer thinks of it.

Keith said...

Blogger J. Farmer said...
The first time I ever encountered Ivanka was in the 2003 Jamie Johnson documentary Born Rich, in which he interviews children of wealthy families and discusses his own role as an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. She came across by far as the most grounded and well adjusted. I'm sure she's a lovely, intelligent woman. That said, two things: (1) I don't want her within a mile of public policy making (2) How likely to be sincere are religious conversions to placate potential in-laws?

---

The Kushner's as I understand are orthodox. This would require an orthodox conversion. These are not given by signing up for a class and meeting with a rabbi. Of course there is book learning but the rabbi would need to be confident the family is living an orthodox life before authorizing the conversion. For other sects, perhaps. But any trustworthy orthodox rabbi whose certification is accepted takes this very, very seriously. Additionally, it's not like they live in podunk. The lived - I assume - in Manhattan where hundreds of thousands (I assume) of orthodox Jews see them constantly. If they did not live an orthodox life, especially given their prominence, everyone would know. Honestly as an observant Jew, I've never heard that they do not live an orthodox life.

dbp said...

It is a New York Magazine article (Not NYT) and is not behind a paywall--which one can easily find out by clicking on the link our hostess provided.

The article is an obvious attempt at a hit-piece, but much the way one could read Pravda and still learn something true--there is informational content in the piece. The unconvincing claims that Ivanka was a "laughingstock" are really just showing the sting of seeing that Trump (the uncouth) and his spawn have rendered these people, who thought they ruled the world, as irrelevant and outdated relics.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Agreed, JRoberts.

Yesterday morning we sat at church and listened to a sermon based on the lectionary reading in Colossians, chapter 3, which in part reads: But now you must get rid of all such things-- anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! The sermon was about the fact that Christ died for every last one of us, from Mother Teresa to the El Paso shooter, and that we owe love and Christian charity to every other human.

Then in the afternoon a member of our congregation, a retired Episcopal priest, shared a cartoon of Donald Trump winding up little toy Klansman, guys with assault rifles, etc on Facebook and several of our mutual church friends joined the Donald Trump Is Responsible for El Paso slander party. The retired priest was the lector who read the epistle that morning!

It upset me for the rest of the evening and I’m not typically emotional about such things. But if committed Christians cannot see the hate in their own hearts, what hope is there for everyone else?

gspencer said...

"I know Donatella Versace, the 64-year-old fashion mogul who has aged quite weirdly"

Donatella accelerated her own aging process; she chose all those surgeries.

Seeing Red said...

They used face app.

That’s either a Russian or chicom bot.

That’s a nasty bot. They can use who you’ve dowliaded for anything.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The Dream Team Loses to the Nobodies

Love it. VDH exposes the hacks who use language to build a case against Trump.

Ken B said...

How can a dress be “increasingly” conservative?

frum = feckless

Michael K said...

It's like the Fake News Collective is purposely inciting incels to bust a nut and shoot up a bunch of Hispanic Invaders

So, did you read his nutty manifesto ? All the stuff about the environment and “Fresh water is being polluted from farming and oil drilling operations. Consumer culture is creating thousands of tons of unnecessary plastic waste and electronic waste, and recycling to help slow this down is almost non-existent.” ?


JPS said...

J. Farmer,

"How likely to be sincere are religious conversions to placate potential in-laws?"

Decent question, but you don't know what component of her motivation was to placate potential in-laws. I could imagine its being substantial or negligible or anywhere in between.

I only know one woman who converted to Judaism to marry her now-husband. I think part of it was because she knew it meant something to him, part of it was that getting to know him had gotten her curious about Judaism, and no part of it was to placate her in-laws, who were going to look at her as an outsider anyway.

Bruce Hayden said...

Blogger gilbar said...
“Think back to a Republican White House woman, that got credit for something (anything)
Takers?”

Sorry, J Farmer. Ivanka is already involved in policy. But the interesting thing to me is that she may be the most active child of a President in his Administration in generations. She and her husband often travel with her father, and she often seems to be running female empowerment sessions a level down from the high level meetings that her father (and probably husband) are attending. She is in a unique situation - old enough to significantly contribute (which the Clinton, GWB, and Obama kids were not, when their fathers were President) but with a young enough family that she has the freedom to routinely travel with her father on AF-1. Plus, she had real accomplishments of her own, outside her father’s Presidency - notably her clothing line.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Read a little bit more, have no trouble believing that Trump disliked the Hamptons, preferring to be in New York where he had things he needed to do. He's a workaholic who would have been aware of the disdain he would have been held in, being Nouve Riche and, even worse, from Queens. The article reveals far more about the author and the milieu she lives in than it does about Ivanka. Also, Ivanka is not in the uncanny-valley. She's simply extremely hot.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I read the manifesto. Well, most of it. I gave up after a while. It certainly was a mix of standard modern grievances - and the mix could be Trump AND Bernie.

But how does it make someone want to kill innocent people?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I want a secure and controlled border, and a strict immigration system. So do millions of Americans. We don't want to mow down innocent people at a Walmart.
We all want a clean environment. Not sure how killing innocent people at Walmart achieves that.


mccullough said...

Committed Christians. As bad as committed Muslims.

rcocean said...

Reagan had Nancy giving him terrible political advice. Trump has Ivanka. Both of them/are ambitious oddballs of mediocre abilities. It reminds me of a Hemmingway line:

She had the ambition of Napoleon and the talent of a High School Valedictorian.

pacwest said...

At one time the descriptive term for the writer would be 'ankle biter'. In fact, I think it still is.

rcocean said...

Trump's problem is that he's had to do it all alone. Who in DC is helping him secure the border and give us a sane immigration policy? No one. Not Turkey Mitch and his band of bought-off Senators. Ryan stabbed him in the back. Roberts said he couldn't even ask about Citizenship on the Census!

Even the "Red State" voters refuse to support him. Alabama gave us a liberal Democrat to replace Sessions, Utah just voted in Mittens, and Arizona replaced McCain/Flake with some lesbian weirdo. Not to mention 40 R Congressman bailed out and helped give Pelosi the House.

Its Trump - fighting alone. When he goes, we're back to Jeb Bush or a Mittens clone.

JPS said...

BleachBit-and-Hammers,

I think your mistake here is using sane person logic to try to make sense of this. Those may have been his grievances. If he hadn't had those, he'd have found others.

After Rep. Giffords was shot, my liberal friends on Facebook just knew it was for her politics. (Forget the young girl of no known politics, and the Republican federal judge.) I wonder if they ever got the correction: He thought she had laughed at his question, "What if words really have no meaning?"

Michael K said...

She and her husband often travel with her father,

They seem to be a very close knit family. He needs their support since almost every man's hand is against him in DC.

Very few people he can trust. Many fewer than he thought on January 17, 2017

Bruce Hayden said...

“The unconvincing claims that Ivanka was a "laughingstock" are really just showing the sting of seeing that Trump (the uncouth) and his spawn have rendered these people, who thought they ruled the world, as irrelevant and outdated relics.”

All you have to do is look at all of the leaders around the world that the Kushners have met over the last two and a half years. I suspect that few other people of their generation have anywhere near as many private phone numbers of prominent world leaders, and their closest advisors and families, in the world. All those calling Ivanka a “laughingstock” are delusional. The Kushners have the sort of real power that their detractors can just dream about. Or maybe aren’t even aware enough to dream those dreams. How many of them have had a private family get together with the Queen of England and her royal family? Etc.

narciso said...

Yes Doug Jones from hellboy who let Eric rusolph get away for a year, Romney is like deep throat candidate robert bennett, (Woodward source who employed howatd hunt)

narciso said...

Sinema is actually more dependable than flake,

rcocean said...

Nobody elected the "Kushners" to anything. In fact, if Trump had told us how much power Jared and Ivanka would have he wouldn't gotten elected. Of course, ultimately, they're basically no different than a Chief of staff or presidential aid who's close to the POTUS. They only have as much power as Trump gives them.

But its still dangerous.

narciso said...

They have had little policy imput, Bannon could have been patient but like Cromwell he thought he was the brain and not a servant, Miller has retained authority. Cuxxinelli is helpful

rcocean said...

BTW, some computer firm used this as an excuse to shut down 8chan. That's what the Liberal/Left does, they're ALWAYS looking for an excuse to censor and shut down anyone not under their control. "Shut it down" is their motto.

The Government needs to make the internet a public utility open to all. We can't have leftist Computer Geeks deciding who gets to speak and who doesn't.

MikeR said...

While all those other shades of meanings of "frum" are available, the standard meaning in the Orthodox community is simply the Yiddish word for "Orthodox". That is the meaning intended by the author, because that's exactly how it's used.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

@Bruce Hayden

I think the point of the article is to reassure the "right" people that their status is secure.

MikeR said...

https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Jared-and-Ivanka-do-their-own-thing-as-observant-Jews-And-thats-normal-497044
They sound like nice people.

cf said...

It is astonishing to me that this tantrum of the Elites has not exhausted itself. how many years and articles will this go on? i cannot even imagine the minds of women who continue to suck out some satisfaction from these nasty installments.
Ptewy.

J. Farmer said...

@Hagar:

But then it is what her father wants that counts. The President is entitled to talk with his family, regardless of what either Mr. Nadler or J. Farmer thinks of it.

Talking to your kids is not the same thing as giving them offices down the hallway and having them accompany you on business trips (i.e. hiring them). Of course they are Trump's decisions to makes. But given that they are two people he is prone to listen to, it's not illegitimate to criticize their influence.

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

Apparently Ivanka changed the way she parts her hair....

chickelit said...

Vanessa reeks of jealousy and it’s ugly.

J. Farmer said...

@JPS:

Decent question, but you don't know what component of her motivation was to placate potential in-laws. I could imagine its being substantial or negligible or anywhere in between.

True it is not something I can know, but I am still skeptical. Especially given that they had broken up in 2008 over their religious differences.

chickelit said...

“Talking to your kids is not the same thing as giving them offices down the hallway and having them accompany you on business trips (i.e. hiring them). Of course they are Trump's decisions to makes. But given that they are two people he is prone to listen to, it's not illegitimate to criticize their influence.”

Fair point. But I’m more interested in attacking the author for her catty and petty comments regarding Ivanka and Donald Trump’s looks. That gets at the real motive which I suspect is simple jealousy.

J. Farmer said...

@Keith:

Honestly as an observant Jew, I've never heard that they do not live an orthodox life.

I do not claim they don't. Invanka herself as described them as "pretty observant," and I take her at her word. But that is not the same as questioning the sincerity of the conversion. Accepting a different lifestyle in order to be with someone you love seems more probable than coming to reject the theology of Presbyterianism in favor of Judaism.

Lucien said...

Rcocean: And how many extra votes do you think Kennedy would have won by advertising that he would pick his little brother to be AG?

Michael K said...

It is astonishing to me that this tantrum of the Elites has not exhausted itself. how many years and articles will this go on?

This tantrum is also puzzling to me. We have had the worst ruling class since Coolidge, probably. The Progressives began it with the theory of "rule by experts." Coolidge predicted the 1929 crash but believed that the NY stock Market was the concern of the Governor of New York, not the federal government. Who was Governor of New York ? Roosevelt.

Coolidge got his family out of the stock market in 1928. The NY Fed chairman died of tuberculosis in 1928, ending any control. Sorcerer's apprentice followed.

The CIA has a history of failure after failure. Hoover ran the FBI as a scandal sheet for presidents.

Michael K said...

Accepting a different lifestyle in order to be with someone you love seems more probable than coming to reject the theology of Presbyterianism in favor of Judaism.

Quite common in history. Not just Judaism. Catholic "mixed marriages," for example.

purplepenquin said...

Think back to a Republican White House woman, that got credit for something (anything)

Nancy Reagan gets ALL the credit for her "Just Say No" campaign.

Known Unknown said...

"Arizona replaced McCain/Flake with some lesbian weirdo"

The Lesbian Weirdo™ (Kristen Sinema) has voted more conservatively than Flake or McCain.

Known Unknown said...

"The Government needs to make the internet a public utility open to all. We can't have leftist Computer Geeks deciding who gets to speak and who doesn't."

Then the government will get to decide. Take your pick.

With the current setup, there's always the incentive of making money to keep people a bit honest. I think the better way would be to have Facebook, et al, lose their legal platform protections and be classified as publishers.

Openidname said...

"Frum" is most often used to describe a style of dress -- keeping arms and legs covered (to say nothing of naughtier bits). In other words, "modest."

chickelit said...

Ethan Frome was both pious and severe. He was well acquainted with Wharton as well.

mwindc said...

Frum generally refers to a highly observant Jew and certainly includes keeping arms and legs covered. But it also includes covering your head, including for women. Very orthodox Jewish women wear wigs whenever they are outside the home. Beyond clothing and head coverings, frum also references observance of the Sabbath (Friday night to Saturday night). During the Sabbath, someone who is frum will not do work of any kind including driving, riding a bike, using an elevator, turning on lights, turning on an oven, etc. It's why many observant orthodox Jews live within walking distance of their synagogue.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

geez-- arent there any good Trumps?
like, "black sheep of the family" types?

Why cant they be more like the Bidens ?

Anonymous said...

Known Unknown: With the current setup, there's always the incentive of making money to keep people a bit honest.

That's what the libertarian pious keep intoning, but I see precious little evidence that market forces are curbing the totalitarian impulses of the tech pooh-bahs.

Marc in Eugene said...

I'm still trying to figure out why the NYM writer chose to use the Latin 'aeternum'. Mrs Kushner is such a political, cultural thing, event, institution that her name requires the neuter form of the adjective? Spiteful objectification, indeed. Not for nothing is the new NYM venture called Tabloid.

readering said...

I think you may be giving NYM too much credit for knowledge of Latin. I bet the headline writer was thinking 'in aeternum". But still stupidly pompous.

Marc in Eugene said...

'I think you may be giving NYM too much credit for knowledge of Latin.' You may well be right, sure.

RobinGoodfellow said...

Is “aged quite weirdly” code for received several botched plastic surgeries?

I really want to know.

narayanan said...

"Frum" is most often used to describe a style of dress -- keeping arms and legs covered (to say nothing of naughtier bits). In other words, "modest."

So Jewish Burkha?

Earnest Prole said...

“Uncanny Valley” describes both Ivanka and Jared — it would come as but a mild surprise if we discovered she was a trans man and he a trans woman.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Earnest Prole said...

“Uncanny Valley” describes both Ivanka and Jared — it would come as but a mild surprise if we discovered she was a trans man and he a trans woman. "
And orthodox Jews!
You write some pretty stupid stuff, Earnest Prole.

Quaestor said...

Perhaps Donatella Versace used frum as in John Frum, implying Ivanka is a sort of saintly figure in the cargo cult that is the fashion industry?

Earnest Prole said...

You write some pretty stupid stuff, Earnest Prole.

Thanks -- I like to play.

Keith said...

Blogger J. Farmer said...
@Keith:

Honestly as an observant Jew, I've never heard that they do not live an orthodox life.

I do not claim they don't. Invanka herself as described them as "pretty observant," and I take her at her word. But that is not the same as questioning the sincerity of the conversion. Accepting a different lifestyle in order to be with someone you love seems more probable than coming to reject the theology of Presbyterianism in favor of Judaism.

---

Hi. The obligations and restrictions placed on an observant Jew are such that it is not clothing that makes you look one way on the outside but the reality is different on the inside. There are obligations and restrictions in every single aspect of living (and dying). Diet and time are the two most obvious. You cannot eat in a restaurant that is not kosher. All the food you eat must be kosher. No McDonald's. No going out with your friends for a spontaneous lunch. Every week, the Sabbath means you are detached from the material world and engage with the spiritual. No television. No subway. No cell phone. No phone calls. No driving. No flying. Your day is spent in the synagogue and then at home with friends and family or at friends' homes. Restrictions regarding sexual relations - obviously only with your spouse, but even then, no touching during the menstrual period and for several days thereafter and this continues until immersing in a mikvah. Every month. Forever.

These are extraordinary gifts once you realize their power, but no normal person would take this on unless he was really committed to living G-d's word. It's a long way of saying ... no one converts orthodox unless he is serious about living an orthodox Jewish life. The cost (and reward) is extraordinary.

Keith said...

rcocean said...
Reagan had Nancy giving him terrible political advice. Trump has Ivanka. Both of them/are ambitious oddballs of mediocre abilities. It reminds me of a Hemmingway line:

She had the ambition of Napoleon and the talent of a High School Valedictorian.
----
Do you know her? It seems like you are commenting about more than you have knowledge. In terms of Cocaine Mitch, it seems like his MO is get the most conservative judges to fill EVERY SINGLE AVAILABLE SPOT and so keep the judiciary originalist and constitutional. His legacy may be to keep the country more conservative for longer than Trump or Reagan could ever have hoped. It annoys me that people harp on him for supposedly not being conservative when honestly - judgeships are the reason half of us voted for Trump. Even if Trump never accomplished anything more - his partnership with Mitch to stack the judiciary is more than we could ever have hoped.

Keith said...

Openidname said...
"Frum" is most often used to describe a style of dress -- keeping arms and legs covered (to say nothing of naughtier bits). In other words, "modest."

---

Actually that's "Tznius." Frum more means generically religous, or Torah-observant, or orthodox.

walter said...

This was important. I'm so glad this has been discussed.
Thanks NYMby folks.

The Vault Dweller said...

Can hair be parted severely? I mean I guess one can be severely conservative. But are there gradients of parting? If one can severely part their hair, can hair be deeply parted?

James K said...

To Farmer’s point about sincerity: In my experience, converts to Judaism, especially Orthodox, are frequently more sincere and enthusiastic than their non-convert spouses. There’s a lot of study involved, and rabbis often discourage them, as in, “Do you really want this? Why?” So the ones that stick to it do tend to be sincere. My sense is Ivanka may be more observant than Jared.

Fen said...

It is astonishing to me that this tantrum of the Elites has not exhausted itself. how many years and articles will this go on?

Here;s the same thing from waaaay back in 2000:

The Florida secretary of state, a Republican elected official, calls a halt. She notes that hand counts are called only when there have been charges of broken machines or vote fraud. Fraud and breakdown were not charged, and did not in fact occur. She says she will certify the election’s outcome based on the original vote count and the recount that followed, plus overseas absentee ballots. Mr. Bush will be the victor.

She is immediately smeared by Democratic operatives and in the press. She is a political “hack,” a “Stalinist,” a “commissar”; she is a vamp, a lackey. The Washington Post, a great newspaper, publishes this description of Mrs. Harris: “Her lips were overdrawn with berry-red lipstick—the creamy sort that smears all over a coffee cup and leaves smudges on a shirt collar. Her skin had been plastered and powdered to the texture of pre-war walls in need of a skim coat. And her eyes, rimmed in liner and frosted with blue shadow, bore the telltale homogeneous spikes of false eyelashes. Caterpillars seemed to rise and fall with every bat of her eyelid, with every downward glance to double check—before reading—her latest ‘determination.’ ” Her mouth is “set in a jagged line.” She has “applied her makeup with a trowel.” “One wonders how this Republican woman, who can’t even use restraint when she’s wielding a mascara wand, will manage to . . . make sound decisions.”


- Noonan, The Greenwood Position

Why do we even continue to have dialogue with these people? 20 years later and we are expecting a different answer from the Howards and Ingas of the Left?

Fen said...

Not to mention 40 R Congressman bailed out and helped give Pelosi the House.

And wasn't that simply due to the GOP term-limiting chairmanships of committees?

"Hemmed in by term limits, a domineering party leadership, bitter partisan feuds and a GOP base that automatically loathes anyone in power, seven Republican committee chairs have decided to leave office at the end of this Congress, a remarkable level of turnover by any measure."

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/30/congress-republican-committee-chairs-377078

This is why I have scrutinized the conservatism of the likes of NRO and the NeverTrumpers. Our leaders abandoned us because they couldn't secure cushy chairs to trade influence to line their own pockets?

We deserve something better. And I fear the fatal flaw of conservatism is it's desire to err on the side of caution, to never go for the ball because you might incur a foul. Which leads to Failure Theater and Surrendering Gracefully. I've had it with that. I want someone who fights, I want a political philosophy akin to Marine Warfighting Doctrine. If you aren't overplaying your hand then you aren't really trying.

To borrow from the old jewish joke:

As two conservatives are being led into the Death Camps, one says to the other "Don't make a fuss, we might get in trouble".

Michael K said...

20 years later and we are expecting a different answer from the Howards and Ingas of the Left?

We drove to California today. Listened to the new book on the Kavanaugh hearings.

The book is a good history of the SCOTU nomination process. Well done and infuriating.

readering said...

Trying to decide whether to go see the authors at the Nixon Library August 20. Long drive in rush hour. Prefer midday events.

Unknown said...

Thank you.

At last I know why David Frum carries his name.