Features
Mud: Shtetl to Shoah
By DAVID TOPPER A Note to the reader: I will preface this story with a remark about me. I often write stories and poems using the pseudonym Dee Artea (pronounced D R T, my monogram) when writing in a female voice. But this is the first time I have put Dee into a story.
I’m trying to decide what to do with the document that you’re reading. You’ll see shortly, I’m sure, what I’m talking about – that is, if you read on.
I don’t know what to do. I’m stymied. And it’s all because of this new assistant I hired. Dee Artea, who refuses to tell me anything about her past. Not where she’s from, her family, nor even the origin of her name. Nothing. Beyond her being Jewish, I don’t know anything about her.
Well, to be precise, I didn’t hire her, and I guess calling her an assistant is not quite right either – since we’re living together. So, I can’t really fire her, can I?
Which is why – or, at least, one reason why – I’m stymied.
Plus, it just occurred to me that you may agree with her point of view – and then, so-to-speak, take her side on this matter. Well, so be it. Still, what to do?
Many readers will agree with me. My point-of-view, I’m sure. Yes. I am.
There you go. That’s my friend Dee, butting in and making her point. Forcefully, I would say. What should I do about her, short of putting a password on my computer?
In the meantime, I need to bring in some back-story.
It all started when Dee saw my heart-rending book of Roman Vishniac’s photographs of Jews living in the Pale of Settlement in the 1930s. … Wait, before that: I wanted to write something for the local Jewish paper about the pogroms of the late 19th & early 20th centuries as precursors to the Shoah. … No, that’s not it, either. … I need to go … further back. Yes, here goes.
I first met Dee, who was out of a job. I think she got fired for insubordination and th—
That’s what my boss called it. Actually, I was just correcting his mistakes. Proofreading and such.
Okay, anyway, we met one warm day this past spring when I was sitting on a bench in the English flower garden in Assiniboine Park, reading a book. As she walked by, she noticed that I was reading a book of stories by Sholem Aleichem, so she sat down beside me and started a conversation. She immediately told me that Sholem Aleichem (meaning “peace to you”) was the pseudonym of Solomon Rabinowitz, born in the Ukraine in 1859 and one of the most famous Yiddish writers of fictional stories of shtetl life; but, having witnessed a vicious pogrom in 1905, he emigrated, and eventually settled in New York City for the rest of his life – all of which I already knew (well, maybe not the exact dates).
It was quickly clear that Dee was bright, Jewish, and knew a lot about some of the same things that fascinate me in Jewish culture and history. We “hit it off” as they say. Indeed, it was uncanny how much we thought alike – well, at least, on most things. When we parted and decided to meet on this same bench the next day, I thought to myself: bashert.
That’s a very strong statement, I’d say. Don’t you think?
Yes, indeed.
Well, clearly, I liked her. But I must say that I wasn’t attracted to her. She was friendly and all, but not physically appealing. To be honest, she looks a lot like me – which isn’t a compliment, since I’m a man. We are moreover about the same height, complexion, and body weight. There’s nothing particularly feminine about her physique and manners. Nonetheless, over time (really the short time we’ve been together) I’ve moved beyond these external matters, as we’ve become closer, a lot closer, as intellectual – and I might even say, as spiritual – mates.
Despite looking alike, we have different personalities. I’m the rational, level-headed guy, calm (at least, externally so) under pressure. Whereas Dee is passionate, compulsive, and readily shows her emotions. Of course, there is nothing unusual about this classic male/female dichotomy. Cliché? Well, so be it.
You know, there’s a reason for all of this, eh?
In subsequent meetings – initially in the park, then later in my home – I showed her my writings and told her about my research and plans for an essay on the 19th & 20th century pogroms, as portending the Shoah. She was very knowledgeable on this topic, and diligently read over the draft of my essay, correcting my mistakes as she went along. Her proofreading I found very helpful and not at all intimidating. Her changes to my original draft made it a much better essay. And I’m thankful to her for it.
As you should be.
Once she moved in with me, she had access to all my books. Quickly she read all the stories I have by Sholem Aleichem, which was the catalyst of our relationship, as you know. Next came Roman Vishniac’s book, mentioned before. Specifically, it’s called A Vanished World, published in 1983, with 180 photographs of life in the shtetls in Eastern Europe between 1935 and 1938.
Either Dee found it, or I pointed it out to her – but, in either case, she read the book and devoured it. She could not stop speaking about it for days – yes, days. She was that obsessed with it.
Yes, and I’m still obsessed because these pictures are almost too painful to look at. They break my heart. They should break yours too.
Yes, I agree. And it occurs to me that this is a good time to bring in some more back-story. Here goes. Roman Vishniac (1897–1990) was born in Russia and grew up in Moscow. In 1918 the family moved to Berlin (ironically because of the rise of anti-Semitism in revolutionary Russia). Hence it was from Germany, although sponsored by – namely, paid for – by the JDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), that Vishniac made several trips into Eastern Europe to photograph Jewish life. He frequently used a hidden camera to capture everyday life in the world of the shtetl (Yiddish, for “little town”), as immortalised, as was said, in the stories of Sholem Aleichem.
Since his trips took place in the years 1935-1938, the title of his book, A Vanished World, had a doubly tragic meaning: that the world of the shtetls was gone, but so were the lives of the people in the photographs, almost all of whom most likely perished by coldblooded murder. Vishniac himself narrowly avoided being another victim of the Shoah, but luckily ended up in 1940 as a refugee in the USA – alive, yet penniless, trying to make a living by taking pictures of people in and around New York City.
You know, he once took a series of pictures of Einstein.
I know.
Ah, of course, you would know that. Oh, and did you know that there is a crater on the planet Mercury named Sholem Aleichem?
Yes.
As I suspected.
As mentioned, many of Vishniac’s pictures were taken in the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe. This was a clearly marked area, roughly comprising Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of western Russia and eastern Poland (including Warsaw). It was the creation of Imperial Russia under Catherine the Great and was controlled by the Russian army. Recall, for example, that the Jews in 16th century Venice were segregated or quarantined into what was called for the first time a “ghetto.” Well, I would call the Pale of Settlement that began around the late 18th century, a ghetto writ large. Except for Jews with specific professions, businesses, or other situations (such as Vishniac’s father, when they lived in Moscow), all Jews were forbidden to live or even to just be anywhere outside the Pale (such as in Russia proper) – a rule that was strictly enforced until 1914, around the start of the First World War.
Since Vishniac grew up in Moscow, he had a childhood that was fundamentally isolated from Jewish culture.
Yes, that’s true. Thus, those years in the Pale were his first exposure to shtetl life. Incidentally, to be accurate, the area over which Vishniac roved in those years 1935-1938 encompassed more than the Pale. It also covered other parts of Eastern Europe, such as Austrian Galicia, the Kingdom of Romania, and the Kingdom of Hungary – for they too had shtetls scattered throughout their lands.
Nonetheless, having so many Jews concentrated in such small areas between the east and the west, made them (crudely put) sitting ducks. Or, switching metaphors, the Jewish shtetls were islands in a sea of Christianity, prone to occasional violent storms or even hurricanes of hostility, often resulting in the loss of life. This was true, first with the series of pogroms out of Imperial Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the Pale of Settlement; then, later, as armies criss-crossed Eastern Europe during and between the two World Wars. Whether it was the German army moving east, or the Russian army moving west – it didn’t matter. With the breakdown of the rule of law, murder became ordinary: gentile neighbours just walked in and killed Jewish neighbours, confiscating their homes, belongings, and land. The lawlessness often led not only to brutality, where Jews could be slaughtered where they lived, but also to sadistic acts of humiliation, torture, and rape – before being butchered. Then there were the mass executions where men, women, and children were marched into nearby forests or open fields or over ravines or along riverbanks by German army units, often accompanied by local militia (collaborators), and shot point blank – the bodies then dumped into mass graves or allowed to float down rivers to a grave in the sea.
Do you know what happened in Latvia under German occupation?
Sadly, I do. In German-occupied Latvia, a blue bus of commandoes (Germans and locals) traveled the countryside for six months (July – December 1941) killing the Jews of the towns and villages, murdering over 22,000 innocent children, women, and men – one-third of the population of Jews in Latvia. They went on to assist in other killings, so that the entire Jewish population of Latvia – minus a few survivors – died in the Shoah. These Nazi mobile killing units, roaming throughout Eastern Europe, slaughtered more than one-million Jews – often wiping out entire communities. Such extreme, excessive, meaningless, malicious, senseless, and unprovoked cruelty – is unique in history.
Importantly, today sites of these past atrocities are being excavated in Eastern Europe, as this mass murder is finally, painstakingly, and painfully exposing its gruesome tale.
Yes, finally. Historian Timothy Snyder has called these the European “killing fields.” Let me put it in perspective this way. Probably the common mental image of the Shoah for most of us is that of emaciated prisoners in a concentration camp, such as Auschwitz. However – and this is not commonly known – in fact, more Jews died in these killing fields than in all the camps combined. It’s what has been called “the other Holocaust.”
As you know, I too have read Snyder’s book. I agree with him when he says that “the crime of the Holocaust was unprecedented in that it was the only such attempt to remove an entire people from the planet by way of mass murder.” Indeed, he calls it “the single most murderous outburst in human history.” You know, I sometimes have trouble sleeping at night, knowing so many died in vain, while I’m living peacefully in my bubble in Winnipeg.
Yes, Dee, me too, as you know.
But back to life in the shtetls throughout Europe because there’s more I want to say, starting with another topic that deeply haunts me.
Ah yes, the other Vishniac book.
This other book is titled Children of a Vanished World, published in 1999 (after Roman died) and it is edited by Mara Vishniac Kohn (Roman Vishniac’s daughter, who chose the pictures from her father’s massive oeuvre) and Miriam Hartman Flacks (a Yiddish scholar). The text is in Yiddish (with English translations), plus some poems and music. The main motivating force of the book (for me, at least) is the imagery: 70 black & white photographs, exclusively of children, making it another “Vishniac book” that tugs deeply at the reader’s emotions. So many child Shoah victims: 1.5 million, who perished in the madness of hate – epitomized in these 70 or so innocent faces.
So difficult to look at these pictures and not imagine how, in addition to their already hard lives in the shtetls, they were destined to experience a horrific fate.
To me, the photographs reveal how the life of many shtetl dwellers was, in itself, miserable.
Yes, life in the shtetl was much worse than most of us realize. Actually, it’s there in Sholem Aleichem’s stories, if you look closely.
True, although there were also wealthy Jews here and there. Rich merchants, for example, usually living in large cities, such as Warsaw, Cracow, or Lviv. Perhaps epitomized by the Rothschilds in Paris.
Remember Shalom Aleichem’s story “If I were Rothschild?” An amusing little story where he dreams about what he would do with all that money, starting with paying for his Sabbath meal, then further helping his family, friends, others, and then all the Jews of the world. In fact, with all that money he could end all wars. But then he realizes that the source of all this trouble is money itself, and so he eliminates money altogether.
And so, he ends by asking: How will I now provide for the Sabbath? – thus coming full circle. Which brings me back to the lowly life of most Jews, especially in the Pale and other shtetls, which was economically bleak, with many living in poverty. Women worked almost exclusively in the home, of course. Men were primarily tailors, artisans, shopkeepers, carpenters, cobblers, push-cart peddlers, and tax collectors – as such they often interacted with their non-Jewish neighbours in the village and sometime at weekly fairs. Few Jews farmed because (with some exceptions) Jews were not permitted to own land. When they did own land, what was allotted was often of poor quality for growing crops. Overall, therefore, they were forced to live in the shtetls, where the buildings were shabby wooden structures, and the streets were unpaved.
Yes, and unpaved roads turn to mud when it rains. Mud, mud, lots of mud. Allow me to quote from a landmark book on shtetl life: “In the summer the dust piles in thick layers, which the rain changes to mud so deep that wagon wheels stick fast and must be pried loose by the sweating driver, with the assistance of helpful bystanders. …When the mud gets too bad, boards are put down over the black slush so that people can cross the street.”
Yes Dee. And because of the extensive poverty, Jewish organizations within the shtetls set up a social welfare system, with free medical treatment for the poor. According to some historical statistics, no shtetl in the Pale had fewer than about 15% of Jews receiving tzedakah (charity or relief). Some sources say the number was even as high as over 30%.
There is nothing to romanticize about in such a life. Believe me. A life steeped in mud.
Agreed. Nonetheless, and against these grave odds, the Yiddish-speaking culture flourished. Valuing education and intellectual proclivity, most males were literate (unlike many of their gentile neighbours, such as the peasants).
Here’s a line from a story by Sholem Aleichem: “Earlier in the day the ice had begun to melt, and the snow had turned into waist-high mud.”
The modern Yeshiva system developed too; here students learned Hebrew under a melamed (teacher), of course Hebrew being the alphabet of Yiddish. Showing Jewish fortitude and resilience, they were able to make a life out of the bleak world of the shtetl.
“Joseph the Righteous took my hand and we leaped across the mud. Night was drawing closer and closer, and the mud became deep and deeper. I imagined I had wings, I was being wafted in the air.”
For them the “shtetl” was not the place: it was the people. And the “home” was not the house: it was the family.
“I was plodding through the mud alongside Methuselah, … who pulled his legs from the mud.”
Such dogged spirit produced Sholem Aleichem, whose most well-known creation was Tevye the Dairyman.
“Well, from all the good luck, nothing is left, but nothing, nothing but mud.”
From his stories of Tevye came the Broadway musical and film Fiddler on the Roof. One of the highlights of Fiddler is the scene showing a pogrom, which disrupts the otherwise joy of a wedding scene.
“They slogged through the clay mud and seated themselves on a log.”
As depicted in the play and film, however, this pogrom is mild as far as pogroms go; it’s more like a nasty act of vandalism.
No wonder Philip Roth called Fiddler “Shtetl Kitsch.” And Cynthia Ozick said it was an “emptied-out, prettified romantic vulgarization” of literary master Sholem Aleichem’s Yiddish tales.
One of the first series of pogroms took place in Odessa in 1821, where 14 Jews were killed.
“Around here the mud is so deep that it took the wagon all night to pull through the town.”
But in the late 19th century and into the 20th century it got worse. A series of about 200 pogroms took place from 1881-1884 in the Pale. Thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed. At least 40 Jews were killed and there are reports of 100s of rapes. The next wave was 1903-1906 and much bloodier with over 2000 Jews killed.
“For a time, it even looked as if I might spend Passover axle-deep in mud.”
Thus, from the 1880s to about 1914, over 2 million Jews emigrated out of Russia ending up primarily in the UK, USA, & Canada. I’m sure many readers are where they are today because their forefathers and foremothers came over in one of those human waves.
“She admits that she’s a tinderbox. When a bad mood hits her, she’ll throw mud at anyone.”
Sounds like you, Dee. You, the passionate one.
“We greeted and shook hands, with me knee-deep in the mud.”
But this is enough, already. Stop it. Yes, Sholem Aleichem called attention to the role of mud in shtetl life. So Dee, you’ve made your point.
Time to end this tale. … Now!
And, Dee, you know what? Despite my original misgivings about your insufferable intrusions in my story – I’ve decided to keep them where they are, for they force me to acknowledge the hardship of the Jews in the shtetls. Considering that this culminated in the Shoah, I see them as appropriate for such a terrible tale that is often difficult even to fathom.
From mud in the shtetl to mud in the mass graves – mud has become for me both a reality and a metaphor for all the pain and sorrow of our people in Europe before the rebirth of Israel.
Albert Einstein was mentioned by Dee, and so I’ve added this, to give some levity to what is otherwise grim and depressing.
As mentioned before, when Vishniac was a new immigrant in New York he earned a living by photographing people. One day he traveled to Princeton, New Jersey, where Einstein lived. Vishniac falsely told the guard at the Institute where Einstein worked that they had known each other in Germany, and thus gained access to Einstein’s office. Einstein was sympathetic to a fellow Jew, a refugee too, and thus allowed Vishniac to take pictures of him while he was working in his office that day doing mainly mathematical calculations, either on paper at a desk or on several blackboards on the walls. Among the many famous portraits of Einstein is one by Vishniac, which you will find on the Wikipedia website for “Vishniac.” I must say, however, that I question the assertion there, that it was Albert’s favourite portrait of himself.
I also wish to point out that throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s, Einstein, using his celebrity status, worked tirelessly writing letters and such, to get Jews out of Nazi Europe – and was successful in many cases.
Since Fiddler on the Roof was mentioned above, here are a few comments on it, considering the theme of this story.
First, Fiddler was preceded by the Yiddish movie Tevya by Maurice Schwartz in 1939, a symbolic year, with the start of the Second World War. Although once thought to be lost, a print of the film was discovered in 1978, and it is now in the US National film Registry by the Library of Congress. In black & white, with English subtitles, Tevya is worth watching for historical reasons, but otherwise it also romanticizes the lives of the Russian Jews. Indeed, it ends, not with a pogrom, but a mere eviction of Tevya and his family from the village they were born into. Incidentally, there were also some earlier theatre productions based on the life of “Tevya the Dairyman.”
As for Fiddler – music by , by , and book by Jose – it was first a stage musical in 1964. The title comes from a painting by Marc Chagall (who made a harrowing escape from the Germans by being smuggled out of Nazi-occupied France in May 1941), and as such, the set and scenery of the stage productions mostly reflected the brightly coloured palette of his paintings. The 1971 film, in colour, was probably grittier and more realistic than most of the stage productions. Nonetheless, after watching it again, I must say that it lacks the necessary mud. There’s lots of dirt, well-packed dirt, and the occasional dust – but no mud. Not until the very end, when all the villagers are leaving Russia in the winter, with a layer of snow on the ground; and, at one point, a wagon gets temporarily stuck in a (muddy?) rut, but it’s immediately pushed out – a brief moment, a fraction of a second. That’s it.
Here’s a short, Annotated Bibliography.
- Sholom Aleichem, Favorite Tales of Sholom Aleichem, trans. by Julius & Frances Butwin (New York: Avenel Books, 1983). Note: most sources spell his first name as Sholem. This book contains 55 story stories. Of course, the quotes about mud are clearly Yiddish exaggerations – but, in having done so, they speak of the true misery of shtetl life.
- Wendy Lower, The Ravine: A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021). This is an extraordinary work of historical research. But it’s an extremely painful book to read, for it takes the reader through the details of a specific murder of a woman and a child in the Holocaust. Now, multiply that horror by millions. This book is in the Winnipeg Library system.
- Timothy Snyder, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2015). This too is a painful-to-read chronicle of the “other Holocaust” in Eastern Europe, which at the time was the heartland of world Jewry. Multiple copies are in the Winnipeg Library system.
- Roman Vishniac, A Vanished World (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1983). Out of print. Many of the pictures are mesmerizing. I treasure my copy.
- Mara Vishniac Kohn and Miriam Hartman Flacks (editors), Children of a Vanished World (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1999). There is a copy of this book in the Winnipeg Library system. As said: it’s heartbreaking to look at these pictures of children – and to contemplate their fate.
- The archives of Vishniac’s estate were deposited in 2018 in the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life in the Library of the University of California, at Berkeley. For the scholars – or future scholars – out there.
- Mark Zborowski & Elizabeth Herzog, Life is with People: The Culture of the Shtetl (New York: Schocken, 1952). 1995 reprint. This is the “landmark” book mentioned in the story. The quotation is from page 61.
Features
He was a privileged Jewish kid from NYC’s Upper East Side. Donald Trump was his greatest invention.
By Ann Levin August 31, 2026
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump
By Kai Bird with Susan Goldmark
Scribner, $32, 528 pages
By the beginning of the new millennium, Roy Cohn, the red-baiting scourge of the McCarthy hearings, lived largely in the pages of U.S. history books, trotted out on occasion to illustrate how America always manages to overcome its worst nativist impulses. But just in case someone never knew or had forgotten about Cohn’s malign influence on U.S. politics, Tony Kushner brought him back as a villain in his brilliant drama of the early 1990s, Angels in America.
Then, in 2016, Donald Trump was elected president and suddenly, Cohn was breaking news again. The very next year, when Trump was furious at then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from an investigation into whether Russia meddled with the election, the president cried out to his advisers, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”
Now, as if in answer to that question, Kai Bird has written a magisterial biography of the notorious lawyer and Trump whisperer that is indispensable reading for anyone who wants to understand the current political moment. Bird, the co-author of American Prometheus, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert J. Oppenheimer and inspiration for the Oscar-winning movie, began it in 2022, a couple years before Trump’s re-election. He collaborated with his wife, Susan Goldmark, who did the research for this riveting account of the unseemly, outrageous life of the hustler and con man about whom Trump once said, “If you need somebody to get vicious, hire Roy Cohn.”
Though Cohn has been long gone from public life — he died of AIDS at age 59 in 1986, insisting to the very end that he had succumbed to liver cancer — Bird demonstrates how he practically invented the dark political arts of resentment and division adopted by his former client, protégé and future president of the U.S.
Indeed, over the recent 4th of July weekend — decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union — Trump used Cohn’s divisive, inflammatory rhetoric in back-to-back speeches, including one at Mount Rushmore, branding his political opponents as evil, godless communists.
Bird walks us through Cohn’s life decade by decade. He grew up as an only child in a wealthy Jewish family on the Upper East Side and attended elite private schools, where his boyhood friends included Si Newhouse Jr., heir to the Condé Nast media empire, Gene Pope Jr., who would go on to found the National Enquirer, and, improbably, Al Lowenstein, later a well-known liberal Democratic activist and politician.
After Cohn graduated from Columbia Law School, his father, a judge, pulled strings to get him a job in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, where he made a name for himself as the boy prosecutor who sent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair in 1953 for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets. His tactics were highly irregular, including private meetings with the trial judge.
Not long after that, he went to work as chief counsel to Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, using his position to force U.S.-funded libraries abroad to purge 30,000 books on the flimsy pretext that the authors were communists or Soviet sympathizers. He was also a central figure in the so-called Lavender Scare, when hundreds of federal employees thought to be gay lost their jobs because they were deemed a security risk.
By the 1960s, Cohn was back in New York, hanging out at the Stork Club and 21, squiring Barbara Walters around town, and representing mobsters though still living at home with his mother at 1165 Park Avenue. Over the next decade he would be indicted three times by U.S. Attorney Robert Morgenthau Jr. for bribery, perjury, extortion and other white-collar crimes. In each case, he managed to beat the rap though months before his death he was finally disbarred for unethical conduct.
After Cohn’s mother died in 1967, he moved into a stately townhouse on East 68th Street, where he established his law practice and stopped the pretense of dating women though he never publicly came out as gay. Then, in 1973, Cohn met his most consequential client. At the time, Trump was the 27-year-old son of a Queens real estate mogul trying to break into the Manhattan market and living in a rent-controlled studio on East 75th Street with a view of a water tank on an adjacent building.
Cohn advised the family on how to fight a Justice Department lawsuit accusing the real estate company of violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent to Black tenants. Over the course of the litigation, Cohn taught Trump his signature moves: Keep your name in the paper. Never settle. Countersue. Claim victory. Don’t pay the bills.
Cohn also advised Trump on his first major real estate deal in Manhattan — buying the dilapidated Commodore Hotel on East 42nd Street, next to Grand Central Terminal. To get the deal done, Cohn worked his extensive connections to New York’s first Jewish mayor, Abraham Beame, a player in Democratic machine politics and an old friend of Cohn’s father.
For more than a decade, Trump continued to model himself after his mentor, adopting his penchant for personalized license plates and his snarling, scowling demeanor. Bird argues that in the decades since Cohn died, the McCarthyism of the 1950s has morphed into a nativist, America Firster politics that transformed the Republican Party into one of resentments against the old establishment, multiculturalism, globalization and liberal culture — in other words, the MAGA movement of today.
Cohn’s “values, his unethical behavior, and his political mindset have survived and replaced the values of the establishment he so resented,” Bird writes. “Perhaps his life is proof of the ability of one individual to change the arc of history. Certainly, he gave us the narcissistic politics of Donald Trump.”
Ann Levin is a writer and book reviewer who worked for many years at The Associated Press. Read full bio →
This story was originally published on the Forward.
Features
WoW Anniversary Events: Rewards, Realms and Limits
“Anniversary” means two quite different things in World of Warcraft, and players routinely talk past each other because of it. There is the annual in-game celebration that arrives every November with limited-time rewards. And there is the Anniversary realm project — the fresh-start Classic servers that began with the game’s 20th anniversary and have been progressing through the old expansions ever since.
In August 2026 the second of those is the one that matters. The Anniversary realms are deep into Burning Crusade content and about to take their biggest step of the year.
Where the Anniversary realms stand right now
| Milestone | Date |
| Burning Crusade pre-patch | 13 January 2026 |
| Burning Crusade Anniversary Edition launch | 5 February 2026 |
| Phase 2 — Overlords of Outland | 14 May 2026 |
| Phase 3 | 27 August 2026, 3:00 PM PDT |
| Arena Season 3 | 2 September 2026 |
Phase 3 is a substantial content drop. It brings Black Temple — nine bosses in Shadowmoon Valley, ending with Illidan Stormrage — and The Battle for Mount Hyjal, five bosses ending with Archimonde. Alongside the raids come the Netherwing daily faction, the path to epic Netherdrake flying, and epic gems.
For much of Europe, Asia and Oceania, the 27 August launch time actually lands late that night or on the 28th. Worth checking against your own reset if you intend to be there in hour one.
Why the timing is awkward this year
Phase 3 lands nine days after Midnight Season 2 opens on 18 August. Players who follow both versions of the game are facing a genuine collision:
- 18/19 August: Midnight Season 2 — the Venomous Abyss raid, a new Mythic+ rotation, a new Delve season
- 25/26 August: Story Mode and Raid Finder Wing 1 in retail
- 27 August: Black Temple and Mount Hyjal open on Anniversary realms
- 2 September: Arena Season 3 on Anniversary realms
Two raid tiers and a PvP season opening inside a fortnight is more content than most players can absorb, and both sides punish latecomers — retail through the weekly Vault cadence, Classic through attunement and raid lockout culture.
What the annual November event gives
The other anniversary — the yearly celebration — has historically followed a consistent formula, and it is worth knowing what kind of thing to expect rather than the exact contents of any given year:
- A limited-time event zone or hub with vendors
- An event currency earned from daily and repeatable activities
- Timewalking-style content revisiting older raids
- Cosmetic rewards, mounts and pets available only during the event window
- Account-wide bonuses that make the event a good catch-up window for alts
The defining characteristic is the deadline. Anniversary rewards are time-limited, which is exactly why they generate a rush of activity in the final week of the event every single year.
The limits nobody mentions
Both kinds of anniversary content come with real constraints, and they catch people out:
- Time-limited means time-limited. Missed cosmetic rewards may not return for a year, or at all.
- Anniversary realms progress on a fixed schedule. Phases open globally at an announced time; there is no catching up on your own pace when your guild has moved to Black Temple.
- Attunements matter in Classic. Phase 3 content historically requires preparation done before the phase opens, not after. Arriving on the 27th unattuned means watching week one from outside.
- Arena seasons are separate from raid releases. Season 3 starts on 2 September, not with the raids on the 27th.
- Fresh realm economies are volatile. Prices for consumables spike hard in the days around a phase launch.
A preparation checklist for 27 August
If Phase 3 is on your calendar, the useful work happens in the next two weeks rather than on launch day:
| Task | Why |
| Finish outstanding attunement steps | Week-one raid access depends on it |
| Bank consumables now | Prices spike in the days before a phase |
| Sort your reputation grinds | New factions arrive; old ones still gate gear |
| Confirm your raid roster’s availability | Nine-boss and five-boss raids need full groups |
| Save gold for epic gems and flying | Both become significant sinks immediately |
Where services fit into anniversary content
The deadline structure of anniversary content is what drives its help economy. When a reward is available for four weeks and then gone, and when a raid phase opens at a fixed hour globally, the value of not being blocked rises sharply.
The recurring situations are fairly consistent: attunement chains that need a group you do not have, a limited-time mount with a deadline, catching an alt up before a phase opens, or simply the collision described above where retail and Classic both demand attention in the same fortnight. A wow anniversary boosting service tends to be aimed squarely at those deadline problems rather than at difficulty — the content itself is fifteen years old and well understood; what is scarce is the twenty-five people and the calendar slot.
What it cannot do is give back a reward window that has already closed, which is why anniversary planning is worth doing in advance rather than in the final week.
Retail or Classic: choosing where to spend August
For players who genuinely cannot do both, a rough guide:
| If you want… | Go with |
| Current-content progression and a live meta | Midnight Season 2 |
| Nostalgia with a fixed, unhurried schedule | Anniversary realms |
| Solo-friendly play | Midnight — Delves and world content |
| A guild-first social experience | Anniversary realms; Classic raiding is more communal |
| Time-limited collectibles | Whichever has the closer deadline |
The honest answer for most people is that splitting attention across both leads to falling behind in both. Pick one for the next month, and revisit in October when Midnight’s season has settled and Phase 3 has been farmed.
The takeaway
August 2026 is an unusually crowded month. Midnight Season 2 opens on the 18th, Anniversary Phase 3 brings Black Temple and Mount Hyjal on the 27th, and Arena Season 3 follows on 2 September. All three reward players who prepare in advance and penalise those who show up on the day.
Do the attunements now, bank the consumables now, and decide which of the two games you are actually playing this month. That decision, made deliberately, is worth more than any amount of scrambling on launch night.
Features
Musings from Dizengoff Street – by Bruce Brown (updated Sept. 1)
(Posted Sept. 1) Can you be more of an international embarrassment and liability? Yes talking about Israeli’s antagonist extraordinaire and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Declaring that Israel should kill ’30-40 Gazans a day’. Seriously?!?! His actual statement may have been more refined and qualified. But it doesn’t really make a difference. That’s the takeaway. Like whose side is he on anyway. Talk about giving our detractors ammunition to delegitimize our little shtetl. Hello?!?!
And a few days later. Showing off in front of a gallows site under construction at a high security prison. Seriously?!?! The death penalty for terrorists. Right or not – I think the former. But like can you give us reason to be compared to an extremist state. That’s the takeaway. Like whose side is he on anyway. Talk about giving our detractors ammunition to delegitimize our little shtetl. Hello?!?!
Serenity now!
(Posted August 28) Kites. Color. Childhood. Hamas and friends should watch Mary Poppins with the final kite flying scene. Remember that song, Let’s Go Fly A Kite. Ya, I know. Somewhat ethnocentric. But still…. I have fond memories of flying kites with my kids. Down the Mediterranean shoreline in Tel Aviv. At the Ness Tziona kite flying festival. Along the green grounds of the Weizmann Institute. Laughing and running. Looking to the sky with awe. Multi-shades and fancy. Kites.
With your fist ‘olding tight
To the string of your kite
…oh, oh, oh!
Lets go fly a kite
Kites. Fun. Laughter. Innocence.
Kites. Not an instrument of war.
(Posted August 25) How principled can you be! Ireland -one of the most anti-Israel and foggiest countries in the EU- insisted that its government’s new, 60$M executive jet NOT be equipped with Elbit’s FalconEye navigation system, which helps pilots navigate in fog -how ironic- and other difficult weather conditions. Without this unique system the plane must be diverted to alternative airports. This a part of the government’s official boycott of Israeli goods. So good luck to Prime Minister Michael Martin in landing his aircraft in Dublin.
And despite some negative sentiment towards everything Israel, Elbit achieved over 32$B in backorders with Europe driving much of its export growth. On a more personal muse. The morning after Iran’s first attack on Israel (April 13 2024), I woke up not with fear and panic. Well. Okay. Some of that. But also great excitement regarding an investment opportunity which developed overnight. Actually it was the wife’s suggestion. After Israel successfully intercepted over three hundred missiles and drones – showcasing the strength of Israel’s defense industry- my wife had a eureka moment. What better public relations for Israel’s defense industry. Let’s buy stock in Elbit, a key player in that ecosystem. We did. And about eighteen months later we cashed in. With about 150% profit. This is not an endorsement to buy… blah, blah, blah….
Again. Good luck to Prime Minister Martin.
(Posted August 21) Sometimes musings are terribly sad. But should be shared.
Happy belated birthday beautiful Ariel. Turned seven on August 5th. Thought about him and his younger brother Kfir and mother Shiri. All murdered by Hamas shortly after their unbelievable and surreal abduction on Oct 7 2023.
As I was driving home today. “I Thank You Child” by Zakk Wylde shuffled onto my Spotify. Always kills me, this song. It was played by Yarden, the father who himself was held hostage, at the funeral of his family. For Ariel and Kfir. The lyrics chilling. The frequent drum rolls haunting.
It was you who made living all worth the while
Oh, I thank you, my child
Comfort in your eyes
For the warmth inside your smile
Faith’s done gone astray
It was you who made living all the while
All my fears repressed
Oh lovin’ you child it’s the best
This song. Written almost thirty years ago. Finds its devastating meaning today. With the Bibas family tragedy.
How.
Listen to the song here:
(Posted August 18, 2026) And the beat goes on in the strait. A bit quieter lately although may be heating up again with the 60day ‘ceasefire’ officially expired. And while Iran occasionally lashed out over the last two months, they did not attack Israel. How do you spell deterrence. According to my Yiddisha mama, its spelled ‘Pftt. Pftt. Pftt‘.
(August 14, 2026) Despite three years of varying degrees of warfare. Moody’s biannual report of the Israeli economy was quite positive. Basically, the report saw no pressures on Israel’s credit rating. While the macro data remains strong, Israel still faces a complex geopolitical situation further complicated by upcoming elections (we pondered about how crazy that is in an earlier muse). And Israeli’s inflation rate for the first half of 2026 fell to a historic five year low of 1.2% (vs Canada’s 2.6%). As for my own pocketbook. Haven’t had an infamous Israeli bank overdraft in years. So all is fine.
If that’s not enough economic voodoo talk for one musing. According to one famous barometer. Israel moved to second place in the Economist’s Big Mac Index. Introduced in 1986, this tasty indicator compares the purchasing power parity across countries by measuring the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac -which most can relate to- against the benchmark U.S. burger. So while a Big Mac in the U.S. costs $6.22. In Israel it costs $7.67, the second most expensive place to buy the hamburger in the world, Switzerland being the most pricey at a whopping (no reference to Wendy’s) $9.04. While the cheapest Big Mac can be enjoyed in Indonesia at only $2.38. Canada ranked 22nd of the fifty-four countries considered, at $5.85. Parity. Smarity. I’m going for my Big Mac fix. Just after I finish writing this muse….
(August 11, 2026) Bravo Boy George. We certainly will dance again! And what better way than with his new reggae tune. Now Boy George is dealing with a hostile backlash against his just stand for Israel. Having to withdraw from London’s East End production of Jesus Christ Superstar where he was going to play – guess it. King Herod. Never a big Culture Club fan, but I am anyway -as a sign of support- going to download his greatest hits to my Spotify library. And hoping to have a chance to buy a concert ticket should Boy George perform in Israel. Kind of reminds me of Bob Dylan’s 1983 song Neighborhood Bully. Also in defense of Israel. I’m going to download that song as well. Although don’t think he was hounded the way Boy George is now. Sign of the times I guess.
+++++
Coming clean. I sometimes find myself chanting, to no one in particular, that snappy little ditty ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ Now why can’t we come up with something as catchy. With such an impressive gene pool of great Jewish songwriters. George Gershwin. Irving Berlin. Burt Bacharach. Carole King. Neil Diamond. Leanard Choen. Paul Simon. Gene Simmons, Amy Winehouse. Bob Dylan. And yes, even the Buddhist Boy George. And still… gurnish! No wonder we’re losing the global PR battle
(August 8, 2026) Outside Basimta Café in Central Jerusalem. Love the red shirt against a tiny sea of black. Not sure I am shrugging because of the ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat or the lack of an ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat. For the last six weeks Israeli headlines shouted about the cafe chaos. With the ultra-religious blocking entrances and storming the café. While shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Upsetting the secular amongst us just wanting to enjoy our Saturday iced matchas. So the wife and I thought we would check it out. And. Yes. Buy something to support the business. Uproar. Not. Blocked entrances. Not. Storming the café. Not. Albeit there were police barriers separating the devout protesters from the coffee drinkers. The protesters being just a few dozen black clad, pious Jews. Mostly teenagers. And yes. Shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Certainly underwhelming in its reported mayhem. Reminds me of the famous saying misattributed to Mark Twain – “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.” But I did enjoy my iced matcha.
(August 6, 2026) Here we go again. Another round of forever negotiations. As someone who negotiates for a living. The way things are going in the straits. If I had to recommend a book on the subject to a new hire. Between The Art of the Deal, A Presidential Edition by Donald J. Trump or The Real Art of the Deal by the Mullahs of Iran with a special forward by the IRGC. Well. I would choose the latter.
(August 3) Bravo Yoav Segalovitz, Liberal Yesh Atid MK and Monsour Abbas, United Arab Ra’am MK and party head. For breaking a glass ceiling where a Jewish lawmaker joins an Arab political party. No less a political earthquake in my little shtetl. Which can significantly impact coalition block arithmetic and posturing and strategy in the upcoming elections. Now Ra’am can be considered a legitimate ‘Zionist’ partner when forming coalition blocks and potentially pushing the ‘center left/right’ party over the 60 seat majority threshold. In our crazy parliamentary democracy defined by a multi-party (about fourteen!!), proportional representation system. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Israel’s proportional representation model of governance is the best parliamentary democracy system except for all other forms of working democracies. Stay tuned for more amateurish political musings as we move towards Israel’s 26th national election – five of them held since 2019.
(August 1) Although both sides say they are open to diplomacy. Neither really trusts the other. And American military action, or its threat, continues. I read headlines in the middle of the night -it’s a nervous habit lately– that the Dynamic Duo of Trump and Netanyahu may again strike in unison. Possibly this weekend. Yikes! Prompting me, at 2:30 AM, to dash around the house stocking my safe room. Bottled water. Canned food. Medicines. Documents. The beat goes on….
If it’s crazy here. It’s insane in Italy. With a recent online ‘Jew Hunt’ in the Milan area. Before being removed, the digital forms urged reportings of Israelis and Italian Jews staying in local hotels. The infamous Global Sumud Movement -yes, the one coordinating ‘peace and humanitarian’ flotillas to Gaza- was somehow connected. Although they deny involvement?! This deranged decree was looking to identify Zionist tourism and Zionist neo-colonization in Italy. I’ll stick with stocking the saferoom.
Then there’s New York Mayor Mamdani, a Global Sumud Movement supporter, threatening to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he comes to New York. But since discovered he has no legal right for such a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic antic. Maybe Mandami should be arrested! Or at least impeached. For being a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic mayor.
Here’s a post Bruce sent us Friday, July 31:
WARTIME MUSINGS
Should credible threats against FLOTUS and ‘FSOTUS’ (first son..) not be justification to attack first.
As for yesterday’s summit. Netanyahu really can’t win. Explainer. If Trump now attacks without victory its ’cause of Netanyahu. If Trump now attacks with victory its ’cause of Trump. And, in Israel, if Trump doesn’t attack -victory or not- Netanyahu failed in his eighth meeting with Trump. And if Trump does attack -victory or not- half the country will vilify Bibi anyway. Missing a permutation?
Ya. I know. Kinda’ need a definition of victory for that musing to work.
And here in my little shtetle. We go to sleep unsure if there will be a code red in the middle of the night. And if not. We wake up thinking it will be tonight. How do you define stress?
Seemed like an appropriate way to end this musing.
Bruce Brown is a former Winnipegger who made aliyah to Israel over 35 years ago. Bruce first began writing for us – in his own inimitable style, in 2012, during what was known as “Operation Pillar of Defense.” His occasional musings on aspects of life in Israel that were far from what you’d typically read in other reports from Israel were hugely popular – both in the print Jewish Post & News and on this website.
We’re now glad to report that Bruce is back writing for us – this time on a regular basis. We will post Bruce’s reports as they arrive – with the date of each post at the beginning of that post.
Here’s some information about Bruce – and awards he’s received for his writing:
Bruce Brown. Canadian born. Now living in Israel (for a long time). Bruce works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. He received the Americal Jewish Press Association’s award for writing excellence in 2019 and 2015. And wrote the1998 satire, “An Israeli is….”. Bruce’s visuals are AI-assisted and created with ChatGPT under his inimitable visual concept and creative direction. Bruce’s musings are political, social, economic and personal. With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic, irreverent and mischievous insights.
