"That’s what it is to be a Jew, in some ways. Being really comfortable with tension, and being comfortable with paradoxes..."

"... and understanding that we’re a people, we’re a nation, we’re an ethnicity, we are a religion, too. We don’t fit naturally. And that’s why we’re such a pain. It’ll give a lot of grist for people to argue at over kitchen tables, as we have been doing for over 3,000 years."

Said California State Senator Henry Stern, a Democrat, quoted in "Are Jews an Ethnic Group? California Considers the Question. A bill would allow Jews to identify themselves as an ethnic group on state forms. Supporters argue it’s a step toward acknowledging the complex nature of Jewish identity" (NYT gift link).

Stern is the son of the actor Daniel Stern:

I have to use the tag "Judaism" for this post. I don't mean to be coming down on the side of those who say Jews are a religious group. I'm against tag proliferation and  "Judaism" and "anti-Semitism" are longstanding tags. And I don't have separate tags for each ethnic group. I just use "ethnicity." There's also "race consciousness" and "racial politics."

I hadn't used my "deeply" tag since last May.

It's a deeply bloggy tag, so it makes me want to do a post collecting recent iterations of "deeply." The first time I used it — in "Deeply... it's such a poser word" — I had a 12-point list. That was back in 2014. Let's see what "deeply" has been doing lately.

1. "The Once-Shameless President Is Deeply Embarrassed/As Donald Trump faces one humiliation after another, he is attacking those he blames" by Jonathan Lemire in The Atlantic, published today. Gift link. "But how Trump will respond next to this ongoing embarrassment remains unknown. He’s made the war deeply personal. Will he now bail on the stalled war entirely, leaving Iran more empowered in the region? Will he follow through on his threats to dramatically escalate the conflict, perhaps even to strike civilian infrastructure and energy sites? Or will he channel his rage against Americans who point out his mistakes?"

2. "UN rips ‘deeply troubling’ Iran for executing at least 56 people since start of war: ‘Has no place in our world'" — published today in The New York Post. "Several people were executed in the last two weeks alone, including a 19-year-old charged with 'enmity against god' for allegedly partaking in January’s protests. Two others arrested during the protests were also executed. And in July, two people were executed out of a group of 12 convicted of 'corruption on Earth' and 'enmity against God' over connections to four police killed in January."

3. "Ken Jennings Says He Cares 'More Deeply' About Trans Rights Than Any Other Issue" (Them, August 3, 2026). "Ken Jennings... recently got into a relatively minor back-and-forth on Bluesky with people who claimed his subscriptions to the New York Times were supporting an anti-transgender media organization.... Would I subscribe to the New York Times? No. Would I unfriend someone who did? Not necessarily.... Do I do the crossword puzzle? Yes, because nothing else quiets the anxiety I feel about living in our current reality quite like trying to find a five-letter word for boredom. Ah, 'ennui,' my old friend."

4. "The Woody Guthrie story you’ve probably never heard is deeply Jewish/A documentary recasts the folk singer’s legacy through the influence of his mother-in-law, Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt" (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 3, 2026). "The film ['Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie'] makes the case that Guthrie’s extended Jewish family was not incidental but integral in his artistic and personal evolution. It is a story that stretches from Oklahoma to Coney Island to the Yiddish literary world, and from the folk revival’s Jewish impresarios to one remarkable immigrant woman whose influence has largely gone unrecognized."

5. "Neil Shubin on Trusted Science in a ‘Deeply Partisan Age’/An eminent fossil hunter takes the reins at the National Academy of Sciences in a turbulent moment for American researchers" (NYT, June 2026). "As an institution, we are — by charter and design and history — nonpartisan. But we are in a deeply partisan age. Just by doing our work, we will be viewed in a partisan light no matter what. So our job is to double down on the science. We need to be a trusted source of data."

6. "'I Deeply Believe Dogs Have Superpowers and Secrets’/Prompted by a fierce attachment to his own pet, Paul Yoon wrote a harrowing yet hopeful novel, set during wartime, told from a canine perspective" (NYT, August 2, 2026). "Like his finest literary forebears who have written from a dog’s perspective — Virginia Woolf ('Flush'), John Berger ('King: A Street Story'), Jack London ('Call of the Wild') — Yoon pulls it off without being treacly or condescending.... It helps that Etna can understand everything that’s said by people around him. This was partly a practical choice, as Yoon explains: 'I wanted to create a bridge for the reader to experience this world and this journey.' But, he added, 'I deeply believe dogs have superpowers and secrets.'"

7. "The Deeply Human, Complexly Queer Animated Animals of 'Bouchra'" (autostraddle, August 3, 2026). "In Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki’s bold film Bouchra, an NYC‑based lesbian filmmaker... tries to process her relationship with her Moroccan mother through a semi‑autobiographical meta‑fictional drama stemming from a coming‑out letter she sent nine years prior.... It’s told via anthropomorphic animals in a hyperrealized backdrop.... [E]ntirely animated in Blender, Bouchra’s experimental animal‑filled approach takes some getting used to."

"Making daylight saving time permanent, Orthodox leaders say, would disturb their community rituals and create logistical problems..."

"... for Jews who work or attend school in the winter, when sunrise and sunset — which coincide with morning and evening prayers — would occur an hour later. For those who work secular jobs, praying nearly an hour later than usual would make it difficult to arrive at work on time, they argue."

The NYT reports, in "Why Some Orthodox Jews Oppose Permanent Daylight Saving Time" (gift link).

"As a Frida Kahlo portrait glared protectively at me over Madonna’s shoulder, we talked past, present, future, prayer, dicks, nutritional yeast, and more…"

Writes Mel Ottenberg, introducing "The Madonna Interview" in Interview Magazine.

EXCERPT:

OTTENBERG: When was the last time you confessed?

MADONNA: Well, every song on this record is—not every song. Some are just joy. “Love Sensation” is just joy. But a lot of the songs here are confessional.

OTTENBERG: What about the last time you confessed in a church?

MADONNA: Oh, that’s been a while.

OTTENBERG: Do you have a relationship with organized religion?

MADONNA: Well, I was raised a Catholic and I’m a cultural Catholic.

"Hessy Levinsons Taft, who as an infant appeared on the cover of a Nazi magazine in Germany promoting her as the ideal Aryan baby..."

"... a distinction complicated by the fact that she was Jewish and had been exploited as part of a dangerous hoax, died on Jan. 1 at her home in San Francisco. She was 91.... As Latvians, her parents were protected from laws targeting Jews of German descent. Still, they were terrified that the Nazis would discover what had happened and execute them. They kept Hessy inside, rarely taking her out, even for walks...."

From "Hessy Levinsons Taft, Jewish Baby on Cover of Nazi Magazine, Dies at 91/Without her parents’ knowledge, her portrait was entered as a prank in a contest in 1935 to represent the ideal Aryan infant — and she won" (NYT).

"After becoming pregnant with their son, St. Clair and Musk’s relationship progressed.... In November, Musk responded to a selfie she texted him saying: 'I want to knock you up again.'"

"While she was pregnant, Musk had urged her to deliver the baby via caesarean section and told her he didn’t want the child to be circumcised. (Musk has posted on X that vaginal births limit brain size and that C-sections allow for larger brains.) St. Clair is Jewish and circumcisions are an important ritual in the religion, and she decided against a C-section. He told her she should have 10 babies, and they debated the child’s middle name.... She complied with the request to not name Musk on the birth certificate. Not long after the birth, [Musk’s longtime fixer, Jared] Birchall pushed St. Clair to sign documents keeping the father of the baby and details regarding her relationship with Musk secret in return for financial support. The offer was a one-time fee of $15 million for a home and living expenses, plus an additional $100,000 a month until the baby turned 21. Musk told her by text it was dangerous to reveal his relationship to the baby, describing himself as the '#2 after Trump for assassination.' He added that 'only the paranoid survive.' But she didn’t sign...."

From "The Tactics Elon Musk Uses to Manage His ‘Legion’ of Babies—and Their Mothers/The world’s richest man juggles more than a dozen children and ‘harem drama’ along with running his companies and advising Trump. He recently took a paternity test in a battle with one woman over money and privacy" (Wall Street Journal).

The life of a one-man genius sperm bank is not easy.

"His ideas on what he called the 'politics of meaning' (his goal, he said, was 'to build a society based on love and connection') were briefly embraced by Hillary Clinton..."

"... the newly installed first lady. 'We need a new politics of meaning,' Mrs. Clinton said in a speech in Austin, Texas, in 1993. 'We need a new ethos of individual responsibility and caring. We need a new definition of civil society which answers the unanswerable questions posed by both the market forces and the governmental ones, as to how we can have a society that fills us up again and makes us feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.' Just how much impact his ideas ultimately had on Mrs. Clinton is unclear; confronted by skepticism over the vagueness of his philosophy — a Baltimore Sun columnist called it 'psychobabble' — she soon dropped references to it, at least in public.... 'Unintentionally hilarious Big Brotherism is, in fact, a hallmark of Lerner’s ideas for implementing the politics of meaning,' the journalist Michael Kelly wrote in a 1993 profile of Hillary Clinton in The New York Times Magazine, citing Rabbi Lerner’s proposal that the Department of Labor order 'every workplace' to create a 'mission statement.'"

From "Michael Lerner, 81, Is Dead; Founder of a Combative Jewish Magazine/His publication, Tikkun, was a leading voice for left-wing American Jews. His ideas about “the politics of meaning” were embraced by Hillary Clinton" (NYT).

"Pride Month has always been about a political and progressive embrace of our rainbow of choices. But lately..."

"... I find myself feeling alienated by loud voices among activists in the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community on all sides of the Israel-Gaza war. They’re intolerant of nuance, complexity and opposing views."

Writes Amichai Lau-Lavie, leader and a co-founder of Lab/Shul, in "The Pride March Doesn’t Have a Place for Me" (NYT). Amichai Lau-Lavie "is the spiritual leader and a co-founder of Lab/Shul, an everybody-friendly, God-optional congregation in New York City."

Why would a parade about pride partake of nuance, complexity and opposing views?

"For decades, Democrats in New York and across the country have succeeded when they hold together a coalition of Black, Latino and Jewish voters, young people and..."

"... the ideologically liberal of all stripes. The race between ['Squad' member Jamaal] Bowman and [George] Latimer showed how badly that coalition has cracked — by race, class and age — and just how much work President Biden will need to do ahead of November.... Mr. Bowman, who is Black, openly campaigned as the candidate of the working class, progressives and people of color. He called Mr. Latimer, who is white, a candidate for the wealthy suburban class. And he alienated many Jewish voters with harsh criticism of Israel and comments like one suggesting 'the Jews' in his district had intentionally chosen to live apart from other people. Mr. Latimer, in turn, portrayed the incumbent as a sideshow, preoccupied with making his name and playing an 'ethnic game.' He repeatedly made racially coded comments that fed Mr. Bowman’s case, including by suggesting that the congressman did not care about voters 'who are not Black or brown.'"

I'm reading "5 Takeaways From Jamaal Bowman’s Loss/The congressman, who lost to George Latimer, was the first 'squad' member to fall, in a painful defeat for the Democratic left" (NYT)(free access link, so you can see the other 4 takeaways, one of which is about that "haunt[ing]" fire alarm).

The phrase that caught my attention is "how much work President Biden will need to do ahead of November." Biden is supposed to bring these diverse groups together after so many decades of using them as separate blocs and expecting them to vote the same way in the end? Biden can barely do a minimal job of appearing to be a candidate for reelection. How could he perform this magical task in the last 4 months?

"Simply for posting a link to the Israeli chapter of the Red Cross, the novelist Kristin Hannah was deemed a 'Zionist'..."

"... as was the author Gabrielle Zevin for delivering a book talk to Hadassah, a Jewish women’s organization. Needless to say, the creator of the list — whose post on X announcing it garnered over a million views within a few days — encourages readers to boycott any works produced by 'Zionists.'... Since a large majority of American Jews (80 percent of whom, according to a 2020 poll, said that caring about Israel is an important or essential part of their Judaism) are Zionists, to accuse all Zionists of complicity in genocide is to anathematize a core component of Jewish identity. Over the past several months, a litmus test has emerged across wide swaths of the literary world effectively excluding Jews from full participation unless they denounce Israel.... For a growing set of writers, declaring one’s belief that the world’s only Jewish state is a genocidal entity whose dismantlement is necessary for the advancement of humankind is a political fashion statement, a bauble one parades around in order to signify being on the right team....."

Writes James Kirchick, in "How ‘Zionist’ Became a Bad Word in Publishing" (NYT).

The saddest, loneliest Althouse blog tag: "Biden the healer."

I created this tag on November 8, 2020, and I don't create a new tag unless I think there will be a good number of other posts that will support that tag. I imagined Biden stepping up to the role of healer. I went back today, looking for "Biden the healer" in my archive, because I've been thinking how much better Biden might be doing — and, more importantly, how much better this country might be doing — if Biden had followed the path of healing — of bringing us together. But Biden was and is a divider. Maybe January 6th was too much of a temptation, such great raw material for tearing us apart. He could have said — like Lincoln — "with malice toward none, with charity for all" and forgiven everyone involved and called upon all of us — on his side and the other side — to "bind up the nation's wounds." But he didn't do it. And now it's too late.

Here's my November 8, 2020 post. Read it and weep. It's title is an eloquent quote from someone who has gone on to distinguish herself for her comical lack of eloquence:

"Joe is a healer, a uniter, a tested and steady hand, a person whose own experience of loss gives him a sense of purpose that will help us as a nation reclaim our own sense of purpose, and a man with a big heart who loves with abandon."

In that one crowded sentence, Kamala Harris — in her victory speech last night — stated the theme for Biden's presidency. 

I see the laying-on-of-hands concept that we were talking about yesterday.

The nothing that happened.

The most surprising part about this is that you uploaded it. Nothing happened. Nobody even reacted. Your provocation failed. This demonstrates that you are not unsafe among supporters of Palestinian liberation.

— Daniel Baryon (@AnarkYouTube) April 22, 2024

ADDED: I suspect that the person who posted the video actually wanted to show that the protesters were not accosting those they identified as Jews. In that light, here's a NYT article: "A Night Different From Others as Campus Protests Break for Seder/Pro-Palestinian protesters, many of whom are Jewish, prepared Seder dinners at college protest encampments, even as other Jewish students sought community in more traditional settings":

"You didn’t like the 'Seinfeld' finale? Well, here it is again times ten! Larry David is not about to cower."

Writes David Remnick, in "No Kaddish for 'Curb'/Larry David bows out" (The New Yorker).

And yet, as I was watching, something felt out of kilter. It wasn’t the occasional comic misfire that was bothering me. Nor was it the sense that the end of “Curb” signalled the end of something more than the show itself; the immigrant and children-of-immigrant Yiddishkeit version of Jewish humor has been on the wane for a long time.... No, what was off was the timing, the misery of the moment. It was hard to think about the finale of “Curb”... amid the cruelty and carnage of the past six months. The comedy of manners plays with the mores of civilization; it can lose its charm when civilization succumbs to barbarity. In life, as in comedy, timing is essential.

Did Larry David ever intend charm? Did Larry David ever purport to fit with the times? He went looking for where he did not fit and leaned into his own repugnance. But it is always possible to demand an end to comedy because it is unseemly in a world where people are suffering and dying. Here, Remnick is making a special complaint, based on Jewishness ("Yiddishkeit"): A Jew should not do Jewish humor at a time when Jews are conspicuously killing people. (Remnick himself is Jewish.)

"Shabbat is one of the most radical things you could do. One of the reasons we have a climate crisis right now is a product of disconnection..."

"... the result of undervaluing life, especially nonhuman life. Shabbat is a time of remembering we’re not machines; we get to be human with all other life. That kind of connection is what powers environmental and climate movements."

Says Rabbi Laura Bellows of Dayenu, "an organization mobilizing the United States’ Jewish community to confront the climate crisis," quoted in "Why reviving a 2,600-year-old spiritual practice made my life better" (WaPo).

This essay, by Michael J. Coren, begins with a focus on his own psychological wellbeing, as the essay title suggests, but it quickly devolves into a discussion of climate change, replete with suggestions of compulsory observance of the Sabbath:

"Younger, left-leaning Jews, steeped in the cause of antiracism and terms like 'settler colonialism,' are increasingly searching for a Jewish identity centered more on religious values..."

"... like the pursuit of justice and repairing the world than on collective nationalism tied to the land of Israel. Many older liberal Jews have also struggled with the Israeli government’s lurch to the far right, but they see Israel as the centerpiece and guarantor of continued Jewish existence in an ever more secular world.... For Republicans, the issue is simple and convenient. The raising of anti-Zionism in the debate over antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war pushes aside the presence of white-nationalist bigots on the fringes of the Republican coalition... and instead forces Democrats to defend the pro-Hamas demonstrators on their own coalition’s fringes...."

Writes Jonathan Weisman, in "Is Anti-Zionism Always Antisemitic? A Fraught Question for the Moment/From the halls of Congress to America’s streets and universities, a once largely academic issue has roiled national discourse, inciting accusations of bigotry and countercharges of bullying" (NYT).

"... Democrats worry that the debate is blurring the line between political speech and hate speech. Tibetans pressing for freedom from the Chinese are considered unserious or even repugnant in Beijing, just as Native American activists demanding to reclaim parts of the United States might be to the owners of that land. But are they bigoted?"

ADDED: Who is Jonathan Weisman? He published a book in 2018 called "(((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump" (commission earned). Simon Schama, reviewing the book in 2018 in the NYT, wrote:

A richly researched and nuanced account of Jewish life in stressed-out, polarized America would be timely, but this isn’t it. Instead, Weisman takes a chapter to complain about what he considers the major distraction preventing American Jews from being fully alert to the perils of the time — but this, a little surprisingly, turns out to be “Israel, Israel, Israel.”... 

The second malaise Weisman identifies as blunting Jewish alertness to the peril of the times is the hollowing out of a Jewish identity that is neither uncritically Zionist nor devoutly religious. “The Jews who are most interested in a liberal, internationalist future, who wish to live progressive, assimilated existences free of threat,” he warns, “are disappearing.”...

But if “being Jewish” means nothing more than an ethically attuned solidarity with kindred disadvantaged at home and abroad, then the reawakening he wants will just evaporate in a cloud of airy good will....

"This phrasing was a terrible mistake, as it implies that until recently Jews have been strangers to persecution...."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Susan Sarandon (@susansarandon)

"So, if you want to be real, tell us what privileges you have received being Jewish?"

 Stuart Rojstaczer gives a brilliant answer (TikTok video):

"The more uncertain you are about your sense of self, the more likely you are to join a group, which can give you guidance on 'what to think, how to feel and how to behave'...."

Writes Jessica Grose, in "I’m Not a Joiner. Was I Born That Way?" (NYT), quoting a psychology professor who studies group behavior.

Grose mentions book clubs but her focus is on joining religious groups:

"I see myself as something of a Yente the matchmaker... that character from 'Fiddler on the Roof.'"

"I seek out individuals or jurisdictions, corporations who have been discriminated against in various endeavors because of their race and ethnicity. Over the years, my outreach has diminished because I guess I’m a more high-profile individual and people contact me. I pair them with lawyers. Then if the lawyers believe that there is a cause of action, I go out and try to raise money to pay for the lawyers. Now, philosophically, there’s a common theme in all of this. Like the vast majority of Americans, I believe that an individual’s race and ethnicity should not be used to help them or harm them in their life’s endeavors. And those life’s endeavors include, you know, if they’re gerrymandered into a voting district because they’re a certain race, if they’re applying for a job that they’re not going to get because they’re a certain race or they’re applying to a college or university that they won’t be admitted to because of their race or ethnicity."

Said Edward Blum, responding to a question about why he's involved in so many different cases, from affirmative action to gerrymandering. He's quoted in "He Worked for Years to Overturn Affirmative Action and Finally Won. He’s Not Done. Edward Blum’s latest victory at the Supreme Court is the culmination of a long fight to take race out of college admissions. Is the workplace next?" (NYT).

The NYT interviewer, Lulu Garica-Navarro, pushes him about his Jewishness: "I know you were raised in a liberal Jewish family. What made you break from the way that you had been brought up?" That question contains an assumption, and Blum doesn't accept it. He puts it very politely, like someone who knows not to take bait: "It’s easy to characterize someone like me, who is against racial preferences and classifications, as someone who has broken with standard Jewish philosophy and Jewish heritage. I disagree with that."

"When I was 16 years old, my hair started turning white.... he insecurity, anxiety, and ruminations about my slowly deteriorating hair lasted for over a decade."

"Every mirror became my own personal Picture of Dorian Gray. ... I was 16 and I was already fully immersed in a midlife crisis. And it was this preoccupation with my hair that made Tractate Nazir such a moving and deeply personal learning experience. A nazirite vow prohibits one from cutting their hair, drinking wine, and becoming contaminated by contact with the dead. But more so than any of the other prohibitions, the crowning definition of the nazir—a person who has taken this vow—is hair. The very word 'nazir,' explains Rashi, is a crown. And throughout Tractate Nazir, I discovered how to find sanctity in my own hair...."

Writes Dovid Bashevkin, in "By a Hair/In Tractate Nazir, the Talmud teaches us about beauty, transcendence, and other human frailties" (Tablet).