I’ll be on book tour for Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza for the next few months. You’ll find a list of book-related events below.
I’m happy people are reading my book. But I know that many talented Palestinian authors don’t get the same attention. So, I hope people who buy my book also buy one by a Palestinian author. For instance, the latest work by the brilliant essayist, Raja Shehada, What Does Israel Fear from Palestine?
I hope readers also donate to people in Gaza. For instance, Hossam and Mariam Alzweidi, who were severely injured along with their four children by Israeli bombs and have been displaced ten times since October 7th. They’re trying to raise the money to seek medical care in Egypt. Their GoFundMe page is here.
Here’s an update from Hossam’s sister, Abir:
I check on them at least six times a day. Every time they don’t answer, my heart drops, fearing the worst. Their hearts are heavy with grief, mourning the loss of loved ones and friends. My brother Hossam prays constantly—for an end to the war, for his family’s safety, and for all the innocent people suffering in Gaza. He told me they wake up and fall asleep to the sounds of bombs, ambulances, and the cries of women and children begging God for mercy. They are fasting for Ramadan, praying, and waiting—either for the war to end or for their lives to. It is heartbreaking to realize that this is their reality. That their lives feel as if they hold no value. That no one is standing up for them in the face of such injustice. Because of your generosity, Hossam was able to rent a small two-bedroom apartment, buy new clothing, mattresses, and some canned food—for his family and anyone in need after they leave. He had also begun the process of gathering the necessary medical and personal documents to leave. But now, everything is on hold. Please continue to support his campaign so that we can get them to safety as soon as the war ends. They need us now more than ever. Please keep them in your prayers.
Friday Zoom Call
This Friday’s zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at 1 PM Eastern on Friday, our regular time. Our guest will be the Gaza-born political analyst Muhammad Shehada, who I’ve long admired for his ability to criticize Israel without exonerating Hamas and to criticize Hamas without exonerating Israel. We’ll talk about the recent protests in Gaza against Hamas, and for an end to Israel’s slaughter.
Friday’s zoom call is for paid subscribers.
Book Tour
(We’ll update this every week.)
On Tuesday, April 1, I’ll be speaking at Penn State.
On Monday, April 7, I’ll be speaking at the Harvard Divinity School.
On Tuesday, April 8, I’ll be speaking at the Harvard Kennedy School, and then later that night, at First Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the Palestinian human rights activist, Issa Amro.
On Wednesday, April 9, I’ll be speaking at United Parish in Brookline, Massachusetts.
On Tuesday, April 29, I’ll be speaking twice in Washington, DC: at Noon at Georgetown University and at 6 PM with Mehdi Hasan at Busboys and Poets.
On Sunday, May 4, I’ll be speaking at Kehilla Synagogue in Oakland/Piedmont, California
On Sunday, May 25, I’ll be speaking with Debbie Whitmont at the Sydney Writers Festival in Sydney, Australia.
On Tuesday, May 27, I’ll be speaking at the Wheeler Center in Melbourne, Australia.
Book Reviews and interviews
Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza was reviewed (negatively) in Britain’s Fathom Journal. I also discussed it on Budd Mishkin’s podcast.
Sources Cited in this Week’s Video
Things to Read
(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)
In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Alex Kane details the shifting focus of the Anti-Defamation League.
Rashid Khalidi and Adam Shatz on Columbia University’s surrender.
Etan Nechin on how the right took over Israeli media.
Hossam Shabat’s last article.
See you on Friday,
Peter
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
So, I’ve spent the last couple of months since Trump returned to power, I guess you know, in a state of some shock and some despair, and also perhaps some shame, if I’m honest about it, because I don’t really feel like I have done enough in my own really small way to respond to with this really naked effort at establishing an authoritarian regime in the United States. I mean, I did speak at one protest. But I really haven’t been out kind of out in the streets and, you know, and again I can make excuses like everybody else about other things that I’m doing. But I really just have felt like I haven’t really in my own way, kind of risen to the occasion. And so, I feel a little bit like I’m throwing stones from a glass house when I condemn others.
But I do think that, you know, one of the excuses I might make or one of the reasons I think in general we haven’t seen the kind of mass movement against Trump that we need is that I think a lot of people have been demoralized by seeing how many people in positions of power, people of institutions—and institutions that are far more powerful than us—have capitulated when they’re actually in a much stronger and less vulnerable position, whether it’s Jeff Bezos of the Washington Post, or these other tech moguls, or the president of Columbia University, or some of these big law firms.
And so, I think I was surprised by how emotionally I reacted when I read in the New York Times on Saturday that there were that there were a couple of law firms that actually were not capitulating. I got the hardcover of the newspaper on Saturday of the New York Times because I don’t have my phone on Shabbat. So, I was reading this story, and I had this very strong emotional reaction when I read about this firm Jenner and Block, this law firm that unlike some of the other big firms is not capitulating to Trump, not making a deal behind closed doors, but basically fighting him in court. And not just doing that, but they’ve created this website called Jenner stands firm to basically publicize their fight and to ask for support.
And, you know, again, I don’t know much about Jenner and Block. They could be doing all kinds of bad things and have bad clients. I don’t know. But it just made me realize how hungry I was to see some significant institution actually not knuckle under, you know. And I began to think, you know, imagine if this weren’t just this law firm, but it wasn’t just Jenner stands firm, but it was like, you know, the University of Michigan stands firm, Harvard stands firm, you know, the University of Texas stands firm, that CNN and MSNBC stand firm, the Washington Post stands firm. And you just had this cascading of different institutions just saying no, you know, we’re not going to. We’re going to fight you with everything we have in the name of the survival of American liberal democracy, and the principles of whatever work we claim to do, whether it’s academic freedom, or independence of the press, or the right to provide counsel to your clients or all of these building blocks of old democracy that these different institutions claim to be to be serving, you know.
And, you know, I understand that inside these institutions, people will say, well, we’re going to lose because Trump is, you know, he runs the federal government and they’re much more than us. They may well lose. I mean, standing on your principles, you could very well lose. But, you know, it’s not as if appeasement works well with Trump, right. I mean, he’s a classic bully, so appeasement doesn’t work. And so, it just seems to me If you may lose either way, why not at least go down with your head held high while retaining your dignity, while acting in a way that you can speak with pride about to your grandchildren one day, you know, when people look back at this moment of unique national peril.
I mean, isn’t that better than debasing yourself, like disgracing yourself, abandoning the principles you claim and believe in, and then losing anyway, like Minouche Shafik, the former president of Columbia, who went in front of Elise Stefanik and those Congressional Republicans, you know, and through her own faculty members under the bus, and yet, basically was forced to resign anyway. And now, they’re coming after Columbia and they’re arresting Columbia students and they’re taking away Columbia’s federal financing. I mean, did that work out well for her, right? She lost everything. She lost not only her job and not only the institution is crumbling, but she lost her self-respect.
And so, just watching some institution—whether they win or lose—just maintain their self-respect in the face of this monstrous attack on American freedom was for me something that was just really powerful to see. And I would love to see it become a trend. I mean, I don’t romanticize America. I know about America’s deep history of authoritarianism and white supremacy that goes deep in our history. But it’s also a proud country. This is a country of a lot of really good, proud people who, for all of the country’s flaws, like really believe in the idea that America can be a country that moves in the direction of equality under the law and of basic decency. And I just think we’re a bigger and better country than so many of these people are behaving. We’re just too big and good a to knuckle under to someone like Donald Trump without a fight. And so, I’m just grateful to these folks, whoever the heck they are, Jenner and Block, for putting up a fight. And I would just love to see other institutions doing that so that it can inspire more of the rest of us.
Share this post