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Feeling haunted by tariff talk? Take comfort in how Great Britian was once soothed by a bubbe’s ghost

These are strange times, but that much weirder if you happen to be a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. In one sense, it ought to mean being blasé about such questions as whether Canada becomes the 51st state, something President Trump keeps threatening to make happen. It would just mean easier taxes for people like me and better flavours of Häagen-Dazs, right?

But somehow, I care. I really am dually loyal here. I want the best for the United States, which includes it not imploding just because one president is particularly deranged. And I want the best for Canada—the place where I live and am raising a family—and that starts with its continued independent existence, but extends to it not being cowed in trade war by a tech-bro-helmed puppet regime.

It seems unlikely that we’re about to see the U.S. do to Canada what Russia has to Ukraine—and unclear if the tariffs themselves are even going to happen—but I’m not sure the alleged grownups in charge know what their plans are. I feel no sense of smug for having initially (as in, in 2016) been one of those people saying, yeah right, Donald Trump becoming president, and am not particularly interested, this time around, in cultivated a jaded, this-isn’t-going-to-be-anything stance.

And no, I’m not convinced that by dismantling DEI and deporting campus antisemites, the new administration has Jews’ back. (Insofar as such developments are unambiguously beneficial to Jews. I’d say ambiguously at best, at best.) Jews need to buy eggs too, right? And that’s not even getting into the implications for kosher food prices if tariffs proceed.

Or if you’re more into kosher-style, I highly recommend the Ukrainian potato-onion pierogies from the new Multicook on Roncesvalles. Unmistakably made in Canada as there are women in the window literally making them before your eyes.  

But it’s easy to doomscroll, which is why I suggest that you offset some of your own jaw-drops at the state of intra-North American relations with a sitcom from a time when none of this nonsense was going on. (Other nonsense, but not this nonsense.)

***

Did you ever find yourself wondering, what if Midsomer Murders, but Jewish and a sitcom?

From 1992 to 1994, a British sitcom aired by the name of So Haunt Me. It’s about the Rokeby family, who’ve moved on down to a less-nice house on account of the father having lost his advertising job. Things are looking a bit grim, but also a bit… spooky. Why was that mug moving like that? It’s clear something is afoot, and that it can’t be burglars because they’ve nothing to burgle.

The supernatural force turns out to be Yetta Feldman, a Jewish mother who once lived in the house, and as far as she’s concerned it’s still hers. She freaked out and drove away more than a dozen families but has decided that the Rokebies are honorary Jews and is fine with them staying. She sits in the kitchen, visible only to some of the newly-arrived family members, and complains about her own adult daughter—Carole with an e she specifies—having taken up with an unsuccessful musician. She grimaces when she overhears her this-life counterparts saying they’re going to make bacon. Bacon! But hers is a Jewish house. This she insists upon.

It’s all done very theatrically, where it’s acting rather than wild special effects conveying that one of the people on the set is a ghost. It seems like it might not work, but it does.

So Haunt Me stars George Costigan and Tessa Peake-Jones, both of whom have had Midsomer roles, but do you know who plays their sullen teenage daughter? Cully! Yes, Laura Howard, who plays Inspector Tom Barnaby’s aspiring-actress daughter on Midsomer, apparently got her big break on So Haunt Me. Same actress but a very different character, which I understand is what actual television critics refer to as range.

And then there’s Yetta herself, played by Miriam Karlin, a prolific British-Jewish actress. Like Grandma Yetta on The Nanny, this Yetta plays a specific Jewish mother, stereotypical but not just. Like The Nanny, it’s a show unafraid of Othering non-Jews, of showing the world from the perspective

I am but one episode in—with 18 more to go—and already thinking about the dissertation that someone could write (won’t, but could) about what the show means about the idea of Jews as settlers. Yetta views herself as the original and only authentic inhabitant! That’s why she’s not budging.

Yes, as has been pointed out to me, the haunted-by-Jewish-mother thing is a bit like Oedipus Wrecks, Woody Allen’s contribution to the 1989 anthology film New York Stories. In it, an Allen alter-ego character’s mother hovers in the sky, as a kind of visible spectre, telling him—before an audience of ordinary New Yorkers—how to live his life. Did Mendelson get the idea from Allen?

Not necessarily!

I heard a podcast interview with show creator Paul Mendelson where he was explaining that he had pitched So Haunt Me first, but been told it was too ethnic, and that you couldn’t have a show with kids and a dog. This—the casual antisemitism, ageism, and dog-o-phobia of the television world of 1980s Britain—is why he instead made sitcom May to December, which first aired in… 1989. Once that show was a success, he was given license to do So Haunt Me.

Because this is how I spend my limited time on the planet, I had been wondering whether there was anything Jewish about May to December. Does Scottishness serve as a proxy for Jewishness? (Mendelson himself grew up partly in Glasgow so it might be that Scottishness is serving as a proxy for… Scottishness.) Is the sarcastic humour different from that of other Britcoms? (No, they’re all like that.)

Effectively, no, there is nothing obviously Jewish about May to December, unless you take law offices as inherently Jewish environments. There are the jokes about middle aged soliciter Alec’s adult daughter Simone being a Nazi, but this is meant as, she’s uptight and conservative, not that she is rounding up Jews. Mendelson has said that every episode includes people having cake and coffee, and that this is a Jewish quality, but there is also the thing where Alec pours himself (or is poured) a Scotch when he gets home, which seems gentile-coded.

The only thing I can think of is that the age-gap relationship at the core of the show is played a bit like an intermarriage plot. It’s all about whether others approve or disapprove. The couple’s always surrounded by some mix of disapproving killjoy women and approving, would-if-I-could-saying men. Is Alec’s wife Zoë’s youth a stand-in for non-Jewishness? Is it, deep down, a shiksa plot?

These are all questions I would like nothing more than to ask Paul Mendelson, should he wish to discuss his earlier works on a podcast produced by The Canadian Jewish News. Just putting this out there into the universe. If you will Britcom legends as podcast guests it’s no fairytale.

The CJN’s opinion editor Phoebe Maltz Bovy can be reached at pbovy@thecjn.ca, not to mention @phoebebovy on Bluesky, and @bovymaltz on X. She is also on The CJN’s weekly podcast Bonjour Chai. For more opinions about Jewish culture wars, subscribe to the free Bonjour Chai newsletter on Substack.

The post Feeling haunted by tariff talk? Take comfort in how Great Britian was once soothed by a bubbe’s ghost appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

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Colombia Appoints First Ambassador to ‘State of Palestine’ Amid Deepening Rift With Israel

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro speaks during the inauguration of the International Book Fair (FilBo) in Bogota, Colombia, April 17, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez

Colombia has appointed its first ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, marking a significant diplomatic shift a year after severing ties with Israel and pledging to open an embassy in Ramallah.

On Monday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro officially appointed Jorge Iván Ospina — former mayor of Cali, Colombia’s third most populous city — as the country’s first ambassador to the “State of Palestine.”

A close ally of Petro, Ospina is well known for his outspoken hostility toward Israel following the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

He has previously sparked controversy by comparing the Israel Defense Forces’ campaign in Gaza against the Palestinian terrorist group to the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime during World War II.

In a post on X, Ospina publicly confirmed his appointment, expressing solidarity with the “heroic Palestinian people.” He also pledged to “denounce the ongoing genocide that the Palestinian people are suffering today” and to dedicate himself to advancing their freedom and dignity.

The Colombian diplomat indicated that it is still uncertain whether he will carry out his duties from Ramallah in the West Bank or operate from a neighboring country.

“We will need to discuss with Israel and determine the necessary steps to enable the establishment of the Colombian embassy in Ramallah,” Ospina told AFP. “We recognize that the Palestinian state and the State of Israel must coexist.”

This latest move builds on Colombia’s 2018 official recognition of “Palestine.” According to Ospina, the new embassy will prioritize securing the release of Colombian-Israeli citizen Elkana Bohbot, supporting humanitarian aid for Palestinians, and advancing the recognition of a two-state solution.

Despite decades of close diplomatic and military ties — with Jerusalem supplying Colombia with warplanes, surveillance technology, and assault rifles since the 1990s — Petro severed relations with the Jewish state last year.

On Monday, the Colombian president called on the United States to help stop what he described as “the genocide in Gaza,” while condemning Israel’s defensive campaign in the enclave.

“In the fight for their lives, there are girls trying to survive the bombing of a school by Netanyahu, the genocidal man,” Petro said in a post on X, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There is a decisive complicity in producing this horror in the US and the EU. What we see is produced by Nazis.”

Colombia has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s actions, with Petro backing the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Israel adamantly rejects the allegations.

The Latin American country has also joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the Jewish state of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza.

Israeli leaders have condemned the case as an “obscene exploitation” of the Genocide Convention, noting that the Jewish state is targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.

Last year, the ICJ ruled there was “plausibility” to South Africa’s claims that Palestinians had a right to be protected from genocide. However, the top UN court did not make a determination on the merits of South Africa’s allegations, nor did it call for Israel to halt its military campaign.

Instead, the ICJ issued a more general directive that Israel must make sure it prevents acts of genocide. The ruling also called for the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the terrorist group’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The post Colombia Appoints First Ambassador to ‘State of Palestine’ Amid Deepening Rift With Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Children Attacked in London, Harassed in New York Amid Rising Antisemitism

A Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) car. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

The growing wave of antisemitism across the globe continued to crash down on Jewish teens and children with incidents Monday in the United Kingdom and Friday in New York.

A Jewish teen required hospitalization after a group of approximately seven men used a knife to attack him and two other Jewish boys at northwest London’s Hampstead Underground Station on Monday evening. Police have opened an investigation into the assault and robbery as racially motivated. Hampstead is one of the country’s largest Jewish communities, with a 2021 Jewish population of 8,851.

Jewish security agency Shomrim stated on X that it was “appealing for any witnesses to the incident which took place or anyone with information to come forward … Shomrim is supporting the victims, and we encourage anyone who has been affected or who has experienced any form of antisemitism to get in touch. Shomrim specializes in reporting and supporting victims of antisemitic crime.”

London saw a previous antisemitic attack against adolescents in London on Nov. 25, 2024, when a man threw glass bottles from a high-rise balcony, targeting Jewish girls, one of whom required hospitalization from a head injury.

In February, the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, said that 2024 included 3,528 recorded antisemitic incidents across the UK, the second worst year in the country’s history, following 2023. This included 260 cases at schools, 223 at synagogues or with congregants as victims, and 1,240 taking place on the internet.

Mark Gardner, the CST’s chief executive, praised “the defiance and pride that our community has shown, despite everything it has been through” and described how “those who are complicit in this antisemitism range from social media giants to the Islamist and far left extremists who celebrated the Hamas terror attacks.”

Students in Brooklyn also experienced antisemitism, when they reported their charter school’s bus driver pulled the vehicle over to the side of the road in order to evangelize his religious beliefs, including the claim of collective Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This resulted in one Jewish pupil crying and the students arriving 30 minutes late to class at Brooklyn Prospect International Elementary Charter School, the New York Post reported.

The driver reportedly said, “The only one who can deliver you isn’t religion, it’s Jesus.”

In response to a student’s question about Jesus and Judaism, the driver said, “Yes, he was a Jew and basically Jews — his own kind — killed him.” He added, “They basically killed him because he said he was the son of God … These were religious leaders who killed him.” Some students texted their parents in real time during the driver’s antisemitic sermonizing. At one point he distributed white hats with black crosses and asked students to pray with him.

One parent told the New York Post that the driver “definitely held the kids captive.”

The school has since suspended the as-yet unnamed driver, sent a note to parents informing them of the incident, filed a complaint with the service who provided him, and requested a new person to fill the role.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) 2024 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents recorded 860 incidents (9 percent of the total nationwide) in K-12 schools in the US, a decrease of 26 percent from 2023. The most prominent of these antisemitic acts was swastika vandalism.

The Brooklyn school bus incident took place just two days before a protest outside the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn, which resulted in police officers removing the demonstrators. The activists seemed intent on disrupting members of the global Hasidic movement within Orthodox Judaism as they were conducting a Torah ceremony.

According to the ADL’s audit, New York — the state with the largest Jewish population in the US — led the country in antisemitic incidents, with 15 percent of the total. The incidents included 912 cases of harassment (second highest nationally), 443 acts of vandalism (highest nationally), and 82 assaults (highest nationally). Comparable to the country as a whole, 58 percent of the state’s incidents included anti-Israel sentiment. New York’s colleges also experienced more incidents than those of any other state.

Sixty-eight percent of incidents occurred in New York City. The ADL reported that “the targeting of Orthodox Jews has become particularly concerning, with Brooklyn alone — home to numerous Orthodox Jewish communities — accounting for 39 percent of all assaults in the state. This reflects a dangerous pattern of escalating violence against visibly Jewish individuals.”

The post Jewish Children Attacked in London, Harassed in New York Amid Rising Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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‘Pod Save America’ Hosts Accuse Israel of ‘Genocide’

Pod Save America hosts on tour. Photo: Screenshot

On a recent episode of Pod Save America, hosts Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor, alumni of the former Obama administration, slammed Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza as a “genocide” and accused the Jewish state of killing at least 100,000 people in the enclave — a number that even exceeds the figures put out by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

“[The Palestinians] are — this is a population that lives in a place that has been entirely destroyed, right. Like almost every structure destroyed or damaged,” said Rhodes, an adviser and speechwriter in former US President Barack Obama’s White House. “I talked about in the interview, but like the death toll is much higher than you know they can report anymore. It’s probably like somewhere over 100,000 people. They’ve not let any food into the Gaza Strip.”

Rhodes dismissed Israel’s new plan to control aid distribution in Gaza, arguing that the Jewish state has only allowed a “dribble” of food to be delivered to civilians. He falsely accused Israel of “entirely killing civilians at this point,” not mentioning the military campaign is aimed at targeting Hamas.

“That’s a genocide,” Rhodes said. “And people don’t like to hear that term, but I don’t really know what other what the military rationale is to starve children and bomb innocent people in tents.”

After a two-month pause, Israel has allowed aid trucks to resume entering the Gaza Strip. According to Israel, around 170 trucks entered Gaza on Monday. Since allowing aid deliveries to restart last week, over 600 aid trucks have been allowed into the war-torn enclave. Israel says that it ceased aid deliveries to pressure Hamas, the terrorist group which rules Gaza and regularly steals aid for its own purposes, to release the remaining hostages it kidnapped from southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Vietor, who also served as a speechwriter for Obama, then cited Drop Site, a new pro-Palestinian news outlet, as a “great” publication that, according to him, has done valuable work in hiring journalists to document the ongoing war in Gaza. However, critics have accused Drop Site of being apoloigists for Hamas. The outlet’s lead reporter, Jeremy Scahill, has described Hamas as a “resistance,” echoing the terminology used by supporters of the internationally designated terrorist group.

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza, the Pod Save America podcast, known for its sharp Democratic analysis and former Obama staffer hosts, has struggled to address the ongoing war in Gaza with the same clarity and confidence that characterizes much of its political commentary. While the hosts have tackled other contentious issues, their discussions on Gaza have been sporadic, cautious, and often notably brief, drawing criticism from some longtime listeners.

The show, which typically provides liberal commentary on American politics, has appeared hesitant to engage deeply with the complex dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Initial episodes after Oct. 7 expressed horror at the violence but largely emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense. As civilian casualties mounted and global criticism of Israel’s military actions grew, the podcast’s treatment of the topic remained limited — often sidelined in favor of domestic political issues such as the 2024 US presidential election.

The reticence to engage in discussions centered around the Israel-Hamas war has sparked disappointment among parts of the show’s progressive audience, particularly younger listeners who have pushed for a more critical stance on US foreign policy and military aid to Israel. 

Additionally, the show has also been under pressure from progressive staffers, who have urged the show’s hosts to adopt a more critical stance against Israel. According to reports, many of the show’s staffers wear keffiyehs — a traditional Arab headdress that has been repurposed after Oct. 7 to indicate support for the Palestinian cause.

The post ‘Pod Save America’ Hosts Accuse Israel of ‘Genocide’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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