Features
Remembering a forgotten book: “Winnipeg Stories”
By IRENA KARSHENBAUM We take for granted that books will always be available to buy, but in fact, many books go out of print. Personally, I prefer rare titles as they are the most interesting.
Over the years I have assembled a library of hard-to-find works, some of which I have found while traveling. In St. Julian’s, I bought Oliver Friggieri’s “Koranta and other Short Stories from Malta”. In Prague, I picked up “Franz Kafka and Prague”, “The Prague Golem: Jewish Stories of the Ghetto” and the beautifully illustrated “Jewish Fairytales and Legends”. (I love folk tales.) Years ago on the discount table at Chapters, I found Brazilian Moacyr Scliar’s “Max and the Cats”. (How can this great work be relegated to the discount table?) I was quite proud of finding “Chess” by Stefan Zweig, only to be questioned by my mother on how I did not know Stefan Zweig, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. There is “The Postman” by Chilean, Antonio Skarmeta, that I fell in love with after watching the movie based on the book; also “Moses Ascending”, by Trinidadian Sam Selvon, who spent his last years in Calgary and who was a guest speaker in one of my English classes 30 years ago. A year later, I read in the Calgary Herald that this great writer, who could not get published in his last years, had died suddenly. There is the painfully honest “Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada” by Cuban writer, Zoé Valdés. I almost felt my stomach bloat from the protagonist’s constant hunger.
My latest (embarrassing) habit is looking for rare books in free little libraries I encounter on my walks. In one of these, I found a copy of Kinky Friedman’s “The Mile High Club”. I didn’t know Kinky Friedman — a former Texas governor hopeful and writer of such memorable songs as “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore” — was also a fiction writer? In reading the book – wowza, a breeze of non-politically-correct fresh air.
This leads me to “Winnipeg Stories”, a collection of short stories I fished out of a garbage bin in Calgary, thrown there by a book sorter who told me the book would never sell on account of it being so old.
Published in 1974 by Queenston House, the paperback edition with a red cover and a black ink drawing of a tree-lined street sold for $2.25 when it was released. The back cover reads, “Winnipeg Stories is an entertaining collection of short stories… From lively comedy to poignant reminiscence, from the Great Depression to the present day, here is a collection of 16 stories by Winnipeggers and former Winnipeggers.” Out of the 16 stories, four are by Jewish authors and these, in my biased opinion, are my favourite.
The collection opens with, “Courting in 1957,” by David Williamson and reads like a Leave-it-to-Beaver-saccharine-sweet tale about, you guessed it, dating in 1957. With this first piece, I thought that maybe “Winnipeg Stories” should have been left in the garbage bin. I persevered, though. The next story, “My Uncle’s Black-Iron Arm” was by Mort Forer — a Jewish sounding name, I wondered?
“My Uncle Solomon was given only second-class respect in our family because he was without learning.” Quickly I knew I was reading a story with a Jewish subject. The story seemed to pound with a metaphorical fist, recounting the tragic events of Uncle Solomon’s life that took him from the struggles of Czarist Russia to Winnipeg, where his life never changed for the better.
I sat silently thinking about Uncle Solomon and the bitter fate he was dealt.
Who was Mort Forer who wrote so powerfully about the Jewish immigrant experience? The collection lists biographies of all the contributors. Forer, who was originally from Brooklyn, lived for a time in Winnipeg and was “presently residing in Toronto. He is also the author of the well-acclaimed novel, ‘The Humback’ ”, published in 1969. A Google search of the author’s name brought up no Wikipedia page, no obituary or any other information, other than what was written in “Winnipg Stories” about him.
My initial impression of the collection – that I was reading some naive fluff, was turned on its ear. I continued with renewed interest.
In Miriam Waddington’s “Summer at Lonely Beach” the narrator remembers his (I think the narrator is a he, although I can’t be certain) childhood summers spent at Gimli. The mother has a friendship with an “emancipated” Miss Menzies, who stays at the aptly named Lonely Beach and who is “married, but did not care to live with her husband, a Mr. Warren. He had no sympathy or feeling for intellectual things and expected Miss Menzies to live with him on a farm in Alberta.” The narrator learns about the complexities of life by observing his mother’s friendship with Fanya, as Miss Menzies is named, listening to them speak Russian, reading Pushkin and comforting each other as women do who have been abandoned by their men.
The story is a glimpse into another time, into another place, that feels remarkably familiar. Or is it that all Russian Jewish homes are sort of similar?
Waddington, who was born Miriam Dworkin in Winnipeg and was part of the Montreal literary circle that included Irving Layton, had her story published eventually in its own collection, “Summer at Lonely Beach and Other Stories”, by Mosaic Press in 1982. The collection is now out of print.
(Ed. note: Irena, not being from Manitoba, is obviously unaware that the name “Lonely Beach” is a play on “Loni Beach” in Gimli.)
Ed Kleiman contributed “Westward O Pioneers!” about a womanizing English professor of the Catholic faith,who eventually meets his amorous match before they head west to an unspecified location. A Winnipeg Free Press obituary published September 7, 2013, states that Kleiman was born in the North End to Jewish parents from Russia and is described as “one of Canada’s best short story writers.” He was the author of “The Immortals” (1980), “A New-Found Ecstasy” (1988) and “The World Beaters” (1998), all of which are now out of print.
Author of “Raisins and Almonds” and “The Tree of Life”, both of which are out of print, Fredelle Burser Maynard in “That Sensual Music” writes poignantly about her desperate attempts at dating, set in stark contrast to the dating successes of her older sister, Celia.
Burser Maynard’s writing sizzles with subtle hints of eroticism: “She was applying scarlet fingernail polish that day, painting each nail with long sure strokes, then holding out each hand, fingers spread, to study the effect. “No problem,” she said. “There’s a list of boys who’ve already asked somebody, right? So you take out your yearbook, cross out those names, pick who you want from the ones that are left. And you vamp that one.””
Who was Joan Parr, whose name appears as editor on the cover of “Winnipeg Stories”? Her obituary — she passed away on November 5, 2001 — states she grew up in the Icelandic community of Winnipeg’s West End, married, raised two daughters and, in 1974, started Queenston House Publishing, “which she put her heart and soul into and as a result was awarded the Woman of the Year in Arts in 1981. Joan helped to launch the careers of many Manitoba writers through her work in publishing.”
If we remember and write about great people who are no longer with us, why can’t we write about books that are no longer in print? It is the stories in these lost works that give voice to the forgotten, yet great writers, who wrote to be read, and probably never expected to disappear with time.
Irena Karshenbaum writes in Calgary .
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.
