The other day, I got a marketing email from a business coach. The subject line was: “$80K Months + IVF.” Her message? She was going to be vulnerable about how her life isn’t as great as her business receipts, ostensibly making space for the rest of us in what she called “the messy middle.”

Cheers to her if she could hit massive sales while doing IVF. And I wish her nothing but success with her fertility process.

But in my experience — my own personal experience with IVF and the experiences I’ve heard from friends, family, and online communities — it’s fucking HARD to be productive while doing IVF. That’s true whether you work for a boss who doesn’t understand why you’re late to the office on random mornings with almost no notice and more irritable than usual and possibly carrying a medical kit with you to the office, or whether you work for yourself and have to figure out how to book your client calls around medical appointments you can’t anticipate, without any safety net of leave. It’s hard to manage all the moving pieces — logistic and emotional — and put your energy into anything other than tricking your body into creating life.

Heck, it’s hard enough to sit down when your ass is sore from shots!

So the message I got staring me in the face as I scrolled through my email was “You’re just not doing enough.”

I have had “capital E” Events in my life the past few years since quitting my day job to focus on my coaching business, writing, and advocacy. A diagnosis with a (second) chronic condition, infertility, pregnancy loss, successful pregnancy, multiple relatives passing, difficult birth recovery, two major moves, job losses, family illnesses, war…to name a few. My business has been successful and even provided the roof over our heads when my husband lost his job. But is it as successful as I imagined it would be when I first took this bet on myself? No.

I don’t have $80K months.

Subscribe now

I started to wonder, am I being too soft on myself for not achieving as much as I apparently could have? Everyone in my life tells me I’m too hard on myself, and yet, here is this coach, who was achieved massive success while she’s “getting up at 2am” for IVF injections. My shots were at 6am — a walk in the park, comparatively! Maybe I just needed to work harder, push through it, lean in.

Lean in.

The advice sold to millennial women like myself that we could “have it all.” That we could be powerhouses and moms, we could handle everything and then some, we could be #girlbosses and carry all the mental loads at home and at work and if we didn’t, it was our own fault.

We’re increasingly rejecting that bullshit, as our bones ache from burnout and our skin is singed from false promises. Read or listen to anything by , whose book Can’t Even gave us permission to recognize society’s role in perpetuating burnout, and you’ll hear echoes of this: women redefining ambition, reassessing the mental load, resetting expectations of themselves.

I see this in my coaching practice all the time, too. I work with so many women who are rethinking work. Some of them are leaving behind the passion roles that caused them to burnout in favor of “boring” jobs that offer stability, health insurance, and benefits. Some are leaving their full-time roles and the pressures and obligations that come with them to carve a new path for themselves. Get laid off at 45 from your dream job? It’s time to build something new for yourself — where you call the shots, you control your time, and you can flex your work.

When I coach clients on this path, I tell them it’s not easy. It’s a trade off to do your own thing. You will most likely earn less. You will work different hours. There will be times you cannot take vacation and times you wish you had something to do. Your workload will ebb and flow. Sometimes, you’ll be terrified about your next paycheck. Sometimes you’ll feel at the top of the world. Sometimes, you’ll be free to meet a friend in the middle of the day for coffee, get a massage, pick your kid up from daycare early. Sometimes you won’t speak to another human who isn’t paying you for days on end.

The whole purpose of going out on your own is to define success on your own terms.

And yet…my Instagram and LinkedIn feeds and Gmail inbox are filled with coaches selling the opposite. Things like:

“In less than 18 months, we’ve grown from $0 to $270K/mo using social media to grow our business…anyone with 1-2 hours per day can do this.”

“You’re not stuck because you’re not doing enough. You’re stuck because you’re doing too much of the wrong thing. The ones who break through to consistent $30K+ months aren’t working harder.”

“I just built a simple consulting business…And grew it to over $400K/year working only 8-10 hours per week.”

These are all real ads I got scrolling on Instagram as I write this essay.

The ads, of course, include conventionally pretty women with perfectly done hair and super cool Madewell-casual-chic-but-also-a-blazer! outfits, sipping coffee, or kicking their legs up,1 being fun and flirty and effortless. Their lives are perfect. They’re Jessica AND Elizabeth Wakefield all at once — cool and pretty and smart and focused. They’re just messy enough to be relatable.

Maybe they even went through a personal challenge.

Like IVF.

For a few thousand dollars, you can pay these women to teach you how to be them.

But even if you don’t join an accelerator, or a VIP day or a hot seat or a mastermind, the message is clear and harmful: you can have it all.

The same message we rejected from the C-suite, coming to our small businesses.

You can create a coaching empire. Earn more than you ever dreamed of earning in that role that sucked your life, and you don’t even have to support the capitalist machine that won’t love you back, and, yes, you will still have time for motherhood, vacations, self-care, chronic illness, infertility…

Repacking Lean In Philosophy is a pretty smart marketing strategy, and maybe for these gals it does yield crazy lucrative results. We bought that nonsense for years! This is the exact pitch that hooked your target buyer in the first place, but also feeds on their anger at having been duped. You couldn’t have it all there…but you can here! You spent $60K on grad school that sold you a false promise, certainly you can invest $5K in my program that will ACTUALLY CHANGE YOUR LIFE?!

I’ve joined a free webinar here and there from these kinds of coaches and learned a valuable tool or two. Their Facebook groups (“funnels”) are filled with hundreds of coaches craving the kind of success they showcase. Hundreds of coaches who work 40+ hour weeks and don’t make six figures. Hundreds of coaches — mostly women, some explicitly and intentionally so — who are made to feel like they are failures, wrapped in empowerment language.

You’re a high achiever!

You’re a go getter!

You can do it!

…so why aren’t you?

That’s not empowerment. That’s not coaching. That’s preying.

On women.

Who cannot have it all, because women are human, and humans cannot have whatever “all” is.

We can have clarity, we can make choices, and we can accept our limitations.

Which, to me, is more important than $80K months.

Subscribe now

Share

It’s the mosque down the street from the synagogue, the languages on storefronts changing from Russian to Hebrew to Urdu within a matter of blocks, the women in hijabs and mitpachot, the loose fabric of kameez woven into the tapestry of the neighborhood alongside the stark wool of bekishes.

I live in a neighborhood in South Brooklyn, with Jews and Muslims from all diaspora backgrounds. Orthodox Jews from all mini-denominations. Descendants of Holocaust survivors living side by side with refugees from Syria and Russia, Iran and Ukraine. One block over is a Pakistani enclave, and there’s a robust Uzbek community peppered throughout. Hijabi women, women in burkas, Muslim women with their hair uncovered. All of us, living in peace side by side.

The antizionist protestors who flooded my street one night to protest an event at the synagogue on the corner, found too many cops protecting the perimeter, and pivoted to blocking people from entering nearby Jewish business before running through the residential neighborhood screaming so intensely I closed all the lights in my apartment just in case, weren’t the local Muslim community. They weren’t the people whose kids play in the playground down the street alongside my daughter and the other (visibly) Jewish kids.

My New York is a little like Israel: Jews from all backgrounds and Muslims living parallel lives, maybe not without tension, but certainly an exercise in the regularness of coexistence. I thought my New York was not at war.

New York magazine just declared one.

I’ve written before about NYMag’s descent into blood libel, and my complicated relationship with a publication that I deeply love. In the last few years, I’ve taken to playing a game whenever my issue arrives in the mail: find the random references to Israel that are squeezed in apropo of nothing. Like it’s Highlights and I have to find the hidden picture on each page.

My favorite in recent memory? Mentions of Israel in the salacious piece about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit. Passing, subtle references to Jewish control. No big deal.

This week’s issue, the “SWANA Editon” with the “Habibi City” cover story, takes a different tack. Jewish pundits are all over the piece with warranted and necessary criticism.

I’m writing this piece knowing I am part of that noise.

I’m also writing it from the perspective of a loyal fan (I own a New York Magazine coffee table book; I used to collect meaningful issues and still have a few, like the abortion map, that feel too important to discard; my subscription runs through 2041 as long as it won’t be dangerous by then for them to know where I, a Jew, live). I’m writing from a place of media critique, using my American Studies and Journalism education and media career background. Finally, I’m writing from my vantage point as someone deeply invested in Muslim-Jewish coalition building, not someone hunting for ways to “validate” Islamophobia.

I’m writing this piece because I cannot stay silent. And I’m hoping you won’t, either.

I came across the term SWANA a few weeks ago, when reading a casting notice. I’m fairly ingrained in DEIA work and was confused as to why I had never heard of this identity marker. The notice listed a bunch of Middle Eastern and North African countries as possible places the desired actor would be from, and instead of Israel wrote Palestine. I wanted to learn more.

I quickly found that SWANA - Southwest Asia and North Africa - is an identity marker designed to replaced MENA - Middle East and North Africa - by removing the colonial lens put upon the region by the term “Middle East.” This is not unlike East Asia vs The Orient. Fair enough, I suppose. But the term’s grounding in a decolonial framework means that Israel is excluded from this region because it is perceived to be a country of colonizers. Israel and SWANA are like Harry and Voldemort; neither can exist while the other survives. Zionists are, by definition, not SWANA. The term pretends to be a geographic, ethnic signifier. Instead, it is a political leaning wrapping itself in immunity from criticism. In our current landscape, you cannot oppose someone’s cultural, ethnic, or racial identity; to criticize SWANA as antisemitic would be hateful.

SWANA is a white man from the south wearing a Confederate flag emblem claiming it’s his cultural heritage.

Only the target is Jews, so it’s okay.

To be clear: this is not merely my read of SWANA’s intentions. Let’s take it from the writer of the article, Zaina Arafat, herself:

“SWANA. An acronym for Southwest Asia and North Africa, the term has existed since the 1990s but only around a decade ago did it begin taking shape as a cultural and political force, one that has become almost synonymous with the current scene. SWANA included countries from Palestine to Iran to Sudan. But there are ways in which no one label can capture the overlapping shared identities through which people feel kinship - so much so that letters keep getting added to the acronym to account for them all. SSWANA, for example, to include South Asians, many of whom have been crucial to building Muslim clout in the city, their causes and communities interwoven with those from the Middle East…

To be in SWANA community meant embracing shared beliefs: That Palestinians deserve human rights. That what happened in Gaza in the aftermath of October 7 constitutes a genocide. That social justice and social welfare override capitalist concerns. That to care is nonnegotiable. Unlike Muslim, it was not defined by religion…

SWANA suggested a decolonial framework and a way of moving through the world…

While Israel is geographically part of the region, the question of whether Israelis can claim a connection to it, particularly given the political framework of terms like SWANA, is complicated - and it gets more so depending on a person’s ethnic background…

While it has all been beautiful to witness, none of this means SWANA New Yorkers don’t still face xenophobia, Islamophobia, and Zionism — along with the repercussions of speaking out against them.”

SWANA is a trap for well-intentioned allies. It erases Jews not only from Israel, but from the region itself. My Syrian neighbors, forced to flee their homes from rampant discrimination; my Iraqi high school classmates, whose grandparents survived the mass massacre of the Farhud; my Moroccan college friends whose parents and grandparents were exiled — they are all Zionist, so they cannot be SWANA. What does that make them? Per the article,

“Zohran Mamdani is not technically from the SWANA region, but he is deeply embedded in its culture and reflected it back throughout his campaign, dining in SWANA-owned establishments, meeting with SWANA leaders, supporting the word of his wife, Rama Duwaji, and generally making it look fun to be SWANA adjacent - less like a chore for dutiful liberals and more like a party you wish you were invited to. It wasn’t just okay to be visibly SWANA anymore; it was cool. And like that of other New York ethnic groups who had cultivated a sense of cool in response to oppression — Blacks and Latinos particularly - the cultural energy was audacious, subversive, and increasingly covetable by others.”

In this line of thinking, SWANA is about a region except when it isn’t; it equates the region with Islam, except to justify itself as needing its own term. SWANA is mysterious, attractive, and has wide open doors to step into its orbit — as long as you accept the doctrine. And the doctrine? Jews are not welcome here.

SWANA erases Jewish existence in its regional history. Without Jews, Israel, certainly, has no right to exist.

Jews have nowhere to go; not Israel, not the countries that have kicked us, and soon enough, not New York.

Subscribe now

At this point, you may be thinking: well, don’t Jews claim a political stance of Zionism as part of their ethnic identity? Isn’t that the whole argument behind antizionism = antisemitism? So how is this different?

To that I say: Zionism is a term that different people define in different ways, within and outside the Jewish community. But Jews’ ancestral ties to the land is proven archaeologically and is one of the most prominent aspects of the Torah. That Jews have lived throughout the region formerly known as the Middle East for as long as there have been Jews — in Israel and beyond — is historical fact. Moreover, with regards to the tiny portion of Jews who believe that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist (most of whom would argue that Israel as a modern, Jewish state does not have the right to exist, but would not dispute the origins of the people from that land) — Jews still consider them Jewish. We do not remove their identity because we disagree with them.

But SWANA forces a belief system on a geographically-tied group. It purports to assert that these geographic ties mean there’s a commonality across the ethnic groups of the region. But neither geography nor ethnicity are relevant markers of who is SWANA and who isn’t. SWANA identity, unlike its predecessors MENA or Arab, is not a guarantee; it is a choice.

The SWANA Edition spends more time focused on the Jewish/Israeli problem than on celebrating the Muslim culture it won’t even call by name. In doing so, the pieces traffic in antisemitic tropes and distort Jewish New York to fit their narrative. Why not leave us out all together? Do Muslims not have a right to their own cultural celebration without it being about Jews? An effort to shine a light on a cool city subculture — the reason anyone reads New York Magazine — instead mostly fans the flames of interfaith discord, regurgitating an old narrative of us vs them that dehumanizes us all.

One of the most glaring issues with the spread were the constant references to October 7 without any explanation of what happened that day.

In the first article, “Soft Power,” there were 6 mentions of October 7, and exactly zero of Hamas or the massacre that took place that day. Instead, we get things like, “October 7 and its hellish aftermath.” As if the Israelis, like Haman, just picked a random day on the calendar to start a war in Gaza. As if Israel started this war. In the third piece, “Who’s Laughing Now,” Hershal Pandya writes, “In recent months, since the outbreak of Israel’s siege of Lebanon…” a choice of words that belies the truth, that erases that the war might have two sides, that Israel faces rocket fire and attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon and is entitled to respond militarily to those attacks. The fourth piece, “When Eating Out is Political,” mentions October 7 nine times, and it’s only after the article continues on page 76 that we finally get to see that something actually happened that day. And not in a journalistic way, but rather, in a quote from Israeli chefs on Instagram, that the writer made sure to qualify with their own take on the conflict such that the gravity of the massacre could have no weight:

“After October 7, as Israel began its retaliation against Gaza, Abramovitch persuaded Soskolne that they should post about what was going on. On October 9, they wrote on Instagram that they and their friends and family in Israel were ‘suffering from the horrific and brutal acts on Oct 7th’ and ‘suffering from the massive killing in Gaza, the killing of so many innocent people must stop.’ They were both criticized by pro-Palestine posters who saw their sympathy for Israelis and unearned and inundated with texts and calls from pro-Israel Jewish clients telling them to take down the post because it expressed sympathy for Palestinians…They lost those clients…They tell me they now both consider what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians to be genocide.”

That article goes on to traffic in an ancient blood libel. The writer, Madeline Leung Coleman, builds up an argument that Israeli dining has fallen out of fashion — rightfully so, finally! so — to make space for authentic SWANA cuisine. She writes about a restaurant called K’Far, which “a former manager described as a ‘safe space’ for Zionism. She speaks with five former employees who became adamantly anti-Israel in the wake of whatever it was that happened on October 7. A former manager shares their story of the pro-Israel customers who started taking advantage of this safe space.

"“People at the bar felt comfortable saying things to us like, ‘We gotta carper-bomb everyone,’ he says. ‘I was like, ‘Holy, this is a bloodthirsty environment.’”

I’m sure this manager did hear grotesque things, and I don’t defend them. But I also studied media and authorship. There’s a balanced version of this piece that also mentions all the ways in which Israeli and Jewish-owned businesses were attacked. All the hateful, “bloodthirsty” rhetoric coming at Israel and Jews from the other side. Even other quotes about other types of patrons who came to this restaurant who likely spoke the way many of the Jews I know speak - expressing devastation at the whole situation. But no. The writer and editors chose to print the word “bloodthirsty” about Jews without any mitigation, leaving it to rest as fact.

This is the art of the blood libel, the seeds of propaganda. Left unchecked, this can grow, until it’s not a quote attributed to a former manager, still arm’s length from being “fact” as it’s literally one person’s testimony, but rather baked into the reporting, taken as truth.

Absent from this heavily POV-ed dining-as-politics, falafel-as-genocide drivel is any mention of the restaurants that just serve food. Coleman writes about people checking Instagram to see where they want to dine based on politics. I’m one of them. I love trying new coffee shops, and I don’t want to feel unwelcome or unsafe if someone spots my laptop and sees that I do work for something called The Jewish Institute of Television and Cinema. I’d prefer to have a space to enjoy my coffee and work time without Free Palestine stickers that remind me of the war my family is living through in Israel and the soft power war I’m in here. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find some great Muslim-owned spots that don’t get political, and happily give them my business. The kosher spot I frequent down the street from my apartment has no visible signs of Zionism. The most political activism I’ve seen getting coffee in one of these spots was a display of Palestinian-owned olive oil for sale and a sign indicating it was a way to support Palestinians directly. Great! That is what will make Palestine free, not a chant of “From the river to the sea.”

Share

Subscribe now

Maddeningly, the SWANA Edition’s primary pieces - “Soft Power” and “When Eating Out Gets Political” - offer us starting points for great pieces about the potential for bridge-building. But instead of pulling at a thread that could result in something powerful, energizing, bold and truly New York, they shy away from the opportunity and settle into fueling rage. I highlighted the articles as I read them to make sense of the mess that was in front of me. In pink, I documented the moments that felt like they could open a heart, start a conversation, be actually subversive in the way the magazine once was.

For example, this sentence, written about SWANA, was something I’ve been struggling with since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 (see, it’s not that hard):

"we were…desperate to be close to people who knew what it felt like to pretend everything was normal when your family — not just blood relations, but people who looked like you and spoke like you - was living under the threat of annihilation.”

I imagined an article about the Muslim, Arab, Iranian, and Jewish New Yorkers who were living in a different reality from the rest of the city, carrying the weight of war with us to work, to school, to our social lives and having outsiders either pretend not to see it, not care, or turn our personal pain into political capital. Wouldn’t that be an interesting piece that could convene a conversation, not spark online outrage?

Or this moving account of a Kimia Zakerin, an Iranian community organizer, growing up in the city in the aftermath of 9/11 — a city that was healing from a terrorist attack and becoming increasingly Islamophobic:

“In 2003, three days after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she told her fourth-grade teacher she was worried. ‘This doesn’t affect you,’ her teacher responded. Even as a child, she sensed that it did.”

What Jewish child can’t relate to that? And how many of us have stories like this one, about the writer Arafat’s father?

“After 9/11, my father learned his phone line had been tapped; he changed his name from Fawaz to Frank when making dinner reservations.”

This pain of hiding in your city is something we can mutually understand. I’d love to read a piece about the shift in visibility for Muslim/Arab/Iranian culture on the eve of the 25th anniversary of 9/11. I’d love to convene a conversation where Jews, who feel like we have to go back into hiding now, learn about how our neighbors dealt with that. How can we see each other more? What are the underground spaces where that connection is happening? I love magazines because they can be a view into those spaces, they can be the starting point for those conversations. Or as Negar Azimi puts it in a quote Araft failed to see the irony in:

“‘Magazines can offer a community for people who might not know they belong together.’”

Instead of connection, we get an argument that perhaps dialogue with Israelis or Jews is problematic, in an anecdote about whether it’s okay to allow antizionist Israelis into a SWANA space. That anecdote includes disinformation, like that “Arabic speakers are forced to learn Hebrew as a means of survival” and gives breath to the idea that “‘There is within the Arab young generation, the kids who were born here in U.S., an idea that you cannot sit with an Israeli in the same room.’”

It seems, to appeal to this younger generation, the writers embody that perspective. But sprinkled into their reporting is room for another thesis. In Coleman’s piece, she shares:

Galal Cater, one of Mamoun’s sons, says they lived peacefully cheek by jowl with Israeli neighbors…It may have felt like, in a country where most people couldn’t find the Levant on a map, they has more in common than not. Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Arab musicians jammed and recorded together, performed at weddings and bar mitzvahs…As one regular at Israeli-owned Cafe Feenjoon later told a report, though ‘none of us quite realized it, we were the inheritors of the defunct Ottoman Empire.”

Instead of interrogating what happened — how did we get from there to “bloodthirsty?” - Coleman turns to focus on how these restaurateurs adapted their menus to reach a New York audience. That would also have been fine, if she didn’t immediately pivot from there to the modern politicized era. She accepts the brokenness, and it’s impossible to infer anything other than that Israel was the cause of discord, that the community-building of generations past was a mistake by those living in a colonial framework.

In its desire to be affirming instead of interesting, the piece falls flat, like old, bagged pita from a big-box grocery store.

Why spend so much time breaking down a magazine?

Before I wrote sat down to write this, it was because I could sense that this kind of antisemitism wrapped in hot pink vibes would evenutally be dangerous to the Jews.

And then over the weekend, a man attacked services at Central Synagogue.

I don’t think the two things are disconnected. A magazine that has become a cultural icon of this city devoted prime space to stoking anger and demonizing Jews under the guise of celebrating Muslims.

With that kind of dehumanization, how dare we be surprised when our lives are considered cheap? It’s right there, at the center of the discourse.

That’s not the New York I want to live in or the New York I used to love.

Share

Subscribe now

I have a hate-tolerate relationship with AI. Nearly every time I think I can use AI to help me streamline a task, I find it falls short. It helps cut through the enshittification of the rest of the internet, but color me unenthused if your best use-case is solving a problem that only exists because the same people who invented the “solution” broke the damn thing in the first place.

My favorite thing about AI is reading about how it’s changing our culture. In one of my rabbit holes on the topic, I read about someone who farmed out their mental load to AI. I could use help with my mental load — couldn’t we all? I thought about what task I could ask it to take on that would make a meaningful impact, and it came to me quite quickly: meal planning.

Let’s backtrack. For the past few months, I have been suffering from a surge in my allergies. My 12 year “carefree” (ha!) post-Xolair run was the longest stretch I had in my life of feeling stable. And don’t get me wrong - without Xolair, I’d be writing this article from a hospital. But it’s not a cure or a miracle, and I’m in a season of high stress, overexposure, and spring pollen. Not a healthy mix. I realized I have to go back to a strict three-times-a-week rule; back before Xolair, I adhered to a very strict diet of not eating the same foods more than times a week to avoid allergic shock that would render formerly safe foods unsafe, as had happened in 2012 when my allergens skyrocketed past 60 foods.

This means creating menus. Complex menus that feel more like an LSAT problem than a food plan.

And I’m tired! I don’t want to menu plan, and shop, and cook…especially not when I feel sick and stressed.

Menu planning seemed promptable. And it mostly was.

But I was surprised by ChatGPT’s first answer.

Here was my initial prompt (and if you ever wondered what happens in my brain just TO EAT AND NOT DIE, it’s a pretty good window into that whole thing):

I need you to create weekly lunch and dinner menus for me within the following parameters:

1. I cannot eat the same main ingredient more than three times a week (e.g. wheat bread and pasta both have wheat; egg salad and omelets and quiche all have eggs).

2. I keep strictly kosher, so cannot mix meat and dairy ingredients, nor can I eat nonkosher meats (e.g. ham, pork, bacon).

3. The menus must adhere to my allergies -- the uploaded pdf "things I can eat by category" are foods that are SAFE and the uploaded "all allergens alphabetically" are foods that are NOT safe.

4. I do NOT need recipes; I know how to cook. But you should indicate how a food should be cooked (e.g. grilled zucchini vs fried zucchini; baked potato vs. mashed potato; meatballs vs. steak).

5. The weekly menu should be easy to prepare, and allow me to use leftovers efficiently. I cannot eat the same food twice in one day, but something that is dinner one night can be lunch the next night.

6. Sunday + weekday lunches should be especially easy to prepare so I can set and forget or whip something up quickly while working/multitasking.

7. Weekday lunches are just for me. Dinners are for me, my husband, and my daughter. I do NOT need portions, but generally lunches can be simpler (think: soup, pasta, one pan, leftovers), and dinners can include an entree and multiple sides.

8. I observe Shabbat so Friday night dinner and Saturday lunch should always be the SAME and they must include challah bread (both meals combined count as 1x/week - so wheat can be used 2 other times), egg salad1 (both meals combined count as 1x/week - so eggs can be used 2 other times; 2 eggs = 1 portion, so 1 egg in a pumpkin pie, for example, doesn't really "count"), a "meat" (e.g. beef, chicken, turkey) and at least 2 sides. Ideally, whatever is eaten on Shabbat should be eaten again on Sunday or Monday or freezeable.

9. Saturday night dinner is always a kind of pasta or pizza (can be traditional or speciality/gluten free). 2

10. Meals should be healthy, as balanced as possible, and affordable.

11. Please create 4 weeks of menus; the fourth week's menu MUST include pasta and a bagel for lunch on Wednesday,3 which does not have to count toward the 3x/week wheat rule, but if you can make it work to limit wheat otherwise that week, great.

ChatGPT’s initial menu included the following Shabbat meals (bolding my own):

Challah, egg salad, roast chicken, roasted carrots, potato kugel

Challah, egg salad, turkey breast, carrot tzimmes, roasted squash

Challah, egg salad, brisket, roasted carrots, sweet potato kugel

Challah, egg salad, turkey meatloaf, roasted carrots, potato kugel

ChatGPT also assumed that my Xolair bagel needed cream cheese (it doesn’t; safe cream cheese is very hard for me to find and the bread is the centerpiece there, the warm gooey dough). It also recommended a cottage cheese blintz casserole, which is a perfect example of LLMs knowing what words are, but not what they mean or how humans actually use them.

Share

Subscribe now

Read my prompt again. Did I ask ChatGPT for traditional Ashkenazi Shabbat food?

Nope.

Not that there’s anything wrong with it! I love potato kugel and enjoy brisket (Texas BBQ style, though). Tzimmes though? I would more happily live without than with. And sweet potato kugel is always an epic fail. Bagels don’t need cream cheese (or lox…and certainly not chocolate-covered lox). Leaving aside that “casserole” isn’t a word I’ve heard in a Jewish kitchen, a blintz casserole is an insane lunch suggestion when you could just eat a blintz…which, yum, but ever since Trader Joe’s discontinued their cheese blintzes, I have to make them from scratch, and that’s, as we ChatGPT Jews — excuse me, Ashkenazi Jews — say, that’s a patshke.

So I happen to be Ashkenazi. But why would ChatGPT make that assumption?

LLMs analyze the datasets they’ve been given to spit out language that sounds real based on words that are often together. (There’s probably a fancier way to say this). They have, baked into them like cottage cheese into a blintz casserole, the same biases their creators hold. The same biases our culture holds. The same assumptions, the same voices, the same marginalization.

In my work with the JITC Hollybood Bureau to effect narrative change for Jews in film and TV, we’ve hypothesized that there’s outsize representation of Ashkenazi Jews in culture. Our study with the Norman Lear Center found that the vast majority of Jews on screen are white, with most of those being “very white” (there is a skin tone scale…society is broken). White doesn’t necessarily equal Ashkenazi, but it’s implied. And while we didn’t study names, heritage, or customs, I don’t think I could name a major non-Israeli Jewish character who is Sephardi or Mizrahi (and other than Zohan, I’m not sure In could name an Israeli character in an American show, but that’s a whole ‘nother story, and I have no idea what Zohan’s heritage is).

To be clear: I am not saying there is anything wrong with Ashkenazi culture or food. There isn’t! But it’s striking to me that simple words evoking my Jewishness lead AI to make this assumption of my culture. There’s one kind of Jew that’s been fed to AI, and that’s a problem if AI is going to (ew, gross) be the thought leader of the future.

Jewish food is much more complicated than kugel or tzimmes. Wherever we’ve lived, we’ve taken on the local food, but — at least in contemporary times — Jews live in diverse communities and our palates are expansive. I grew up on Middle Eastern food like majadra and kibbeh, and schnitzel is practically an Israeli food even though it’s really German.

In a separate chat, I asked ChatGPT what a Jewish character on TV would eat.

The reply:

A contemporary Jewish character is often more likely to eat:

• Bagels on Sunday morning

• Challah French toast made from leftover Shabbat challah

• Shakshuka for brunch

• Sushi (especially in many Jewish communities)

• Mediterranean food

• Chinese food on Christmas (a famous American Jewish tradition)

• Trader Joe’s snacks and iced coffee

• Their grandmother’s brisket recipe a few times a year

It’s a little closer to the truth, I guess, but still dripping with stereotypes and misunderstanding. Sushi is a staple of kosher restaurants for reasons only God knows, and the primary sushi-in-a-steakhouse diner isn’t shopping at Trader Joe’s or eating Chinese food on Christmas or using words like “brunch.”

It scares me that we’re becoming more and more reliant on AI when it doesn’t know more than we do. AI has a limited scope of knowledge, and a perspective that includes all the social harms we’re working on changing and that we have yet to discover. . I’m afraid that when “creatives” farm out their research and brainstorming to AI to develop new books or screenplays or art, they’ll regurgitate the same tropes we’ve seen a hundred times before. I’m afraid we will find ourselves in a cultural feedback loop, never quite moving forward.

I’m afraid we will lose the people on the margins, narrow our understanding, and shrink our hearts.

I guess I have more time to ruminate on my fears — or make a blintz casserole! —now that my mental load is four weeks of menus lighter.

What a win.

Share

I joined, and one of the many gifts that class offered me was the opportunity to connect with Blair Glaser, a fellow writer, coach, deep thinker, and traveler through the human experience. If you had asked me before the class started if I’d be drawn to a memoir about a woman’s experience joining and leaving a cult-like group, I’d have adamantly told you it was not my cup of tea. But there was something about Blair’s story and her voice that pulled me in — she doesn’t tell the same cult story we’ve heard before or get too woo-woo (though I guess I already believe in signs). It’s a memoir as much about her time in Siddha Yoga as it is about her becoming someone who leaves behind black and white thinking to embrace the grey — and the technicolor. If you’ve read any of my work, you know that’s exactly my cup of tea, only packaged in a world I wasn’t familiar with. Ultimately, what’s better than that in a book?

Needless to say, I was so, so thrilled when Blair announced that her book was published. I devoured it in one sitting. You should too. Read our conversation to see why.

One of the things that hooked me on your story even as early as the proposal phase was how relatable it is - even though I’ve never joined a near-cult, and have always been grounded in my spirituality. But there was something about your insistence that leaving a near-cult wasn’t black and white that really spoke to me. At its core, your story is about how through seeking perfection, you found this extraordinary ability to embrace the imperfect. I’d love to hear more about how you continue to cultivate that kind of thinking in yourself and with your clients. Does it come naturally now or is it something you actively work on? How do you continue to practice this nuanced grey-space thinking in an increasingly polarized society?

Not to be meta about it, but the answer is not black or white. It’s a constant process AND it has become a habitual way that I see things. Even when someone has done something pretty ugly or hurtful, I’m often looking for the other side: what might be motivating this behavior that is not negative? So when I catch myself polarizing, there had better be a good and clear reason as to why. One example goes back to the James Baldwin quote: “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” If someone is set on denying the humanity of a group or someone I love, that is a dealbreaker in terms of earning my respect or having a close relationship.

Many years ago, I had a terrible day and could not stop bursting into tears. A friend who was staying with me who had just gotten back from India was at a loss for what to do so she played me some meditations and mantras. I have no idea what they were but they were so calming and I finally stopped crying. For me, it was just music that recentered me (not a spiritual experience), but it sounds like there’s more to mantras in your spiritual practice -- is it a form or prayer, or is something else happening when you chant? What are the mantra/mantras you still chant, and what do they translate to? Have different mantras worked for you at different points in your life?

It’s nice to hear that you had that experience of being calmed. So many people I know have had similar experiences with Sanskrit chants. Some say it is a trance, others say it is the vibration of the language, but for me, chanting is a mystery. If I do it long enough, it centers me in joy and is usually reliable in uplifting my mood.

I still chant the melodious mantras I learned in the ashram, sometimes with some old Siddha Yoga friends. It leaves me feeling a relaxed, sparkly sensation. Maybe some of your readers have felt this after a particularly deep yoga class. I’ve never really tried other mantras.

There’s a scene in the book where you realize all the Jews at the ashram have been gathered together to represent the organization for a meeting with a rabbi. The way you described that moment felt like you were both acknowledging having been “othered” in a negative way but also kind of proud to have this distinction, like in the othering, you were also in a special subset of devotees. First of all, I’m curious if I’m getting that right. But I’d also love if you could share a bit more about what made the devotions and rituals of Siddha Yoga able to fill a spiritual void for you in a way that Jewish services and rituals could not.

You’re totally getting it right. And as the years have evolved, I see that there were many Jewish practices that mirrored those in Siddha Yoga. (I’m working on an essay right now called, It Took Moving Into an Ashram to Realize How Jewish I Really Was.)

I think the negative impact of going to an Orthodox temple so young and feeling so heavy and bored was, sadly, hardwired. I have tried going to different temples and congregations to feel inspired and I have Jewish friends who have had deep spiritual experiences with Judaism, and that makes me happy. But the ways that Siddha Yoga chanting and meditation pulls me into inner experiences of my Self is difficult to put into words. It has been extremely satisfying on a spiritual level. It really is a mystery.

Your story is, at its core, a coming of age story. I think a lot of people feel lost in their early 20s. You definitely “found yourself,” but I wonder if you think we ever truly find ourselves? Is there anything you are still searching for, and if so, do you seek within like you were able to at the ashram or do you search another way? I guess what I’m really asking is: how do you approach personal growth now?

Thank you for seeing that. I believe the story is at heart a coming-of-age one as well. I can say that I’m done seeking, searching, and finding myself. But I’m not done growing. I continue to evolve through age, through learning new skills, asking new questions, and continuing to let go of what no longer serves me.

One of the most interesting parts of your story, to me personally, is how clear your career story is. I often ask my career coaching clients to think about the things that they do outside of work and the life experiences they’ve had that could suit them for a particular role. When I think about your story - suffering from depression, having a gift for performance and patience, gaining a deeply human spiritual practice, and being a part of an organization that had problematic but admired leadership - the fact that you found a career as a drama therapist and leadership/executive coach focusing on organizational health and as a writer who writes about the importance of human intelligence - it’s so clear why you do what you do and how you do it effectively. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, so I’m curious what questions arose for you along the way, or if each step of your career felt as obvious to you at the moment as it does looking back on it.

I don’t know if you saw or had a chance to read it, but I’m very proud of this essay I wrote, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Vocational Promiscuity, for Sari Botton’s Memoir Land. In it, I review my natural evolution from one job / skill set to another, and how it has been a very exciting and fulfilling way to live – to keep expressing myself in my work in new ways. But there are also many downsides. It’s not great for name recognition or for retirement savings.

Let’s talk leadership coaching for a moment. Do you ever share your experience at the ashram with your clients and why you have such personal insight into the power a leader has? And similarly - have you ever coached someone who you worried could hold the kind of power Gurumayi or Baba had, and if so, how do you navigate that?

So funny, I do talk about it with my clients, and I did write about toxic “guru” CEOs for Fortune. But as you might imagine, the kinds of power hungry leaders who might need my services won’t seek them. I’ve been introduced to some powerful leaders who could really benefit from my wisdom and it’s never been a good fit. They often have a hard-earned overconfidence in their own perception of things, which makes them closed off to the kind of feedback and counsel I can provide. Many have an egoic need to surround themselves with people who will bolster their power in a way that consolidates it rather than creative a more collaborative environment.

Has anyone from your time at the ashram reached out to you about your book? If Gurumayi read it - what do you hope she would think...and do you even care?

Nobody has reached out, which is fascinating because the ashram was always very protective and litigious. I think it’s a sign that the organization is poorly resourced at this time. But I like to imagine that Gurumayi would feel at the very least indifferent, and the most, proud and relieved. Relieved because my book is not an exposé, and I show her in some of her best light. At the same time, I don’t let her off the hook for how she has handled the scandals. Sometimes I wonder if she, too, was a victim of Mukatananda’s sexual predation, and I try to cut her some slack.

Tell us about your process. I remember you’d spent some time working on your proposal before the workshop where we met. How much had you written of the book before you sent out the proposal? How did you go about finding a publisher? What was the editing process like?

I wrote about three drafts of the manuscript before working on the proposal. First, I queried agents, about fifty of them, which in the scheme of things, isn’t a lot. I got a few responses, and some “requests for full,” which was exciting, but ultimately, no bites.

So I paid for a developmental edit by someone who had worked in a top-five editing house and started querying again, including submitting to independent publishers. The book sits right on some interesting genre lines: it is definitely a coming-of-age memoir. It is also a spiritual book — but not quite — and a cult book — but not quite. So there was interest, but several agents wanted me to push it more squarely into one of the genres, and I refused. Two small indie publishers saw the value in the nuance of my story, and I took the offer from Heliotrope, the older, more established one that had published some amazing authors.

I’m working on my own memoir and one of the complicated elements is that I’m telling my story with real characters. Some of them are people I love but who might not love every story I tell about them. Some are people I have zero contact with but who would probably be super angry to read how negatively they impacted my life or how poorly I perceive them. How did you navigate that with your writing, especially given that some of the people you write about are identifiable and public?

The answers to these questions really require a writer to get clear on their values. I know writers who reached out to each person in their memoirs to let them know about the book and invited them to read / fact check / request changes, or who disguised them so they were barely recognizable. I changed names and some identifying features, but only reached out to my immediate family. I had a lawyer review the manuscript to check my vulnerability to being sued by the organization, which was very small, with almost no chance of winning.

If someone I haven’t spoken with in 30 years has a problem with how they are portrayed, then I am absolutely willing to have a conversation, hear how they remembered it, and apologize. But. I am very clear that the story is not about them. I think people in my life would consider me a very caring person so it was surprising to learn that as an artist, above all, I valued my own truth and my own voice in telling this story. I knew I hadn’t maligned anybody and I wasn’t willing to compromise the narrative for another person’s feelings.

You mention in the acknowledgements that you had other books in the works but this what poured out of you. But now that it’s out - what do you plan to write about next?

I have an essay coming out in an anthology about Mother’s and Daughters next year. And after that? Let’s just say: I have plans. :)

Order This Incredible Longing

Blair writes thoughtful essays on what it means to be human on her Substack, The HI (Human Intelligence) Stack and convenes community in her monthly circles to help people work through challenges and connect in these deeply troubling times. I highly recommend subscribing for a dose of empathy, inspiration, and creative spark — and if you’re a leader in any capacity, it should be mandatory reading.

Subscribe to The HI Stack

Chocolate-Covered Lox is my avenue to explore my big ideas and questions about how to create a more inclusive, empathetic, and just society. It’s made sustainable by subscriptions — unpaid and paid — and amplification. If this works interests you, please consider supporting it by subscribing, sharing, or commenting.

Subscribe now

Share

Ever since that college class, I fell in love with the sestina format but have never been able to make it work in a way that felt right. Until now.

I’m honored to share my poem, A Sestina of Grief and Legacy, that was published in the gallery. Check out all the other amazing art to celebrate Jewish voices while you’re at it!

read the poem

Poetry is heavy light, and that's exactly what my friend Matti and I accomplished when he had me as a guest on his podcast It’s Gonna Be Fine. I LOVE his podcast. It’s new and doesn’t feel new -- you feel like you're jumping right into a conversation you’ve always wanted to be a part of. He covers my favorite topics - what the hell is going on in American culture, pop and not - through a lens of curiosity, insight, and optimism. He punctuates so you can laugh with him, like the great multicams of yore. He digs into the political without ever getting political. As I said to him before we recorded, he talks through why we are cannibalizing each other without ever telling us which of us he’d eat. Because that’s not the point - the point is that it’s gonna be fine, if we are inquisitive, thoughtful, and try to be good.

Matti was gracious enough to invite me to join him for the latest episode! We talked TV, the broken criminal justice system, social media addiction, the broken health care system, and well, it’s gonna be fine. Probably.

Check it out and subscribe! And listen to the previous episodes because they are GOOD and I’m still twirling them around in my mind.

listen to the podcast

Subscribe

Watch the video

Some backstory…an unofficial directors’ statement, if you will…

0This is my sixth year making films for the organization’s teen program, and my eighth film for them overall, but it also marks a few “firsts” for me.

The first time I collaborated with a Muslim producer, a friend who I came to know through my experience as a participant in one of NewGround’s programs. The first time I helped design the actual project the students worked on.

The first time my parents’ home in Israel was hit by pieces of a downed Iranian ballistic missile.

We’re two and a half years into this war. I don’t quite have the words to describe what having sisters, brothers-in-law, nephews, a niece, my oldest friends in the world, and occasionally, my parents in a war zone for this extended period of time feels like. It’s nothing like what they are going through, and God forbid I make that comparison. But it’s hard to walk through the world like everything is fine when it’s really, really not.

That said, everyone is “fine” -- in that my parents are in the US, the missile hit their building’s parking lot and didn’t do too much damage, and my sisters’ families who live nearby, while they’ve had close calls, have been mostly able to make it to their shelters and haven’t been hit.

Three days after the strike and while my sisters’ families were in and out of bomb shelters, pre-production started in full-force. Writing the script. Going over the elements for the art. Locking in final details. I had to -- and more importantly, was able to -- put aside the tension in my soul and in my body to make sure my voice was second to the students’ and the organizations’, and that I was giving equal space to the Jewish and Muslim narratives. The teenagers who were in LA, who were not personally responsible for any of it, and whose family members across the Middle East were just like mine.

We are being tested by division right now. By hate, by exploitative leaders, by algorithms that feed on our worst instincts and regurgitate that feast back to us. This film was a personal opportunity to see beyond myself, and I hope it will be a collective one, as well.

Thank you for taking the time to support my art, these courageous teens, and Jews and Muslims.

Watch the video here, and if it resonates with you, please share it.

Watch the video

Subscribe now

Share

Cool!

Except, I’ve been deceived by many a food allergy app that doesn’t really work. And my spidey sense was going off really intensely, because to-go food that’s fully automated sounds really terrifying — the safest places I’ve found for my food allergies are places where I can ask questions to a real human, build relationships, and have the looming threat that someone might witness my death impacting how they cook for me. This isn’t foolproof by any means (shoutout to the restaurant that charged my friend for both our meals after lying to me about the ingredients and watching me run out the door with near-anaphylaxis and Benadryl scattered on the table) but I always feel safer knowing that I’ve spoken to someone who has skin the game.

Not only is to-go food tough, but the entrepreneur’s claims that food allergy patrons wouldn’t have to read the labels anymore felt so out of touch to our lived experiences. Most people with severe food allergies that I know read the labels three times for safety — once in the store, once at home, and once before we eat — and even then, we can find that there was a hidden ingredient or that we were too tired to read properly. When she demoed her website for the Sharks, the ingredient info wasn’t prominent. If your mission is to make food allergy diners feel safe, you’d make the ingredient lists prominently available so that we could double check that your system was working. This is life and death for us; either you understand that or you don’t.

Subscribe now

After the episode, I went to her site to test it out. I selected my allergens, though not all the foods I’m allergic to were options. My husband wondered if they only include ingredients they use, so there’s no need to select allergens that aren’t in their kitchen at all. Fair enough. Some of the categories were weird, too. Dried fruits, for example, doesn’t account for the fact that I can eat dried versions of fruits I’m not allergic to, and cannot eat dried versions of fruits I am allergic to. Similarly, “non-dairy ice cream” can have any number of ingredients. It’s not like you can do a skin prick test for “non-dairy ice cream.” Is it soy based? Oat? Do they use xanthan gum? Is it flavored? I was getting less and less trustful that this company actually understands food allergies, but continued selecting any category that either included an allergen or was too vague, like the above.

The “Fearless Dining” technology did its thing. It told me my “power” is “certified gluten free” and suggested things for me to order. Just like the college nutritionist who told me to eat chicken parmesan because it was gluten free when I asked her how to eat more vegetables! Maybe she’s consulting for them now?

My Fearless Dining personalized menu recommended things I had indicated I was allergic to, like a strawberry smoothie or an avocado smoothie. It recommended things I didn’t understand, like a set of 6 pizzas with nondescript toppings. It recommended a Thai chicken curry with spinach, an ingredient it hadn’t asked me about but that I can’t eat, and the picture of the curry was a muffin, so not really helpful in terms of understanding what I’d actually be getting.

When I clicked through to see the recommended items, the ordering page didn’t include full ingredients. For example, the “Power Balls” they recommended to me listed the following on their order page — and that’s it:

Five Chocolate Chip Pancake Balls served with Lakanto Sugar-Free Maple Syrup (Dairy-free)

We are proud to be fully certified gluten-free through the Gluten-Free Food Program (GFFP), endorsed by the National Celiac Association. Not only are our restaurant and manufacturing facility certified, but every member of our team has also completed a gluten-free certification class—because your safety is our priority.

What are the balls made of beyond the syrup and I guess chocolate chips? Rice flour? Oats? Almond flour? Tapioca starch? Xanthan gum? Who knows? I looked up Lakanto Sugar-Free Maple Syrup separately and it has a long and confusing ingredient list (fruit juice…but which fruit? natural flavors…from what?) and are made of monk fruit, which I had indicated an allergy to.

Look, if you want to build a startup with a not-super functional website and be lax about ingredients in your food, fine. You won’t be the first.

But to go on national television and tell 1.44M viewers (plus more in replays and reruns) that your mission is to make food allergy families safe when there’s absolutely nothing about your company that indicates that you understand the severity of food allergies, the experience of food allergy customers, or the liability you are exposing yourself to in making false marketing claims is just plain wrong.

PowerSoul Cafe claims to be mission driven, but I think the company is using the guise of a mission to sell products. They offer a dangerous, false sense of security to their “target” market, and will fail with our community soon enough. But they are also selling faux concern to the wider public - a customer without dietary restrictions should in theory feel good about supporting their business, because doing so signifies a consciousness of others’ needs and support for people with, as the entrepreneur calls it, “food disabilities.”

My food disability isn’t a marketing ploy. It’s a life threatening condition that demands to be taken seriously. I am not a revenue stream, an untapped market, or a growth opportunity. I’m a person who needs to eat, and who doesn’t want to die.

Does that mean I will support businesses who keep me safe with every dollar I have? Yes. I am brand loyalist to really allergy-friendly companies like Abe’s Muffins and Enjoy Life. I am a brand loyalist to companies that treat me respectfully when I ask questions like Jack’s Gourmet and Nana’s Tortilla Factory, and who became Friends of Spokin when the FDA unrolled their disastrous FDA policy in COVID. I eat in restaurants where I feel safe and welcome and recommend them to others — shoutout to Lula, Trattoria Natalie, Beverly Hills Thai, Long Beach Beer Lab, Pizza Time, Al Ha’esh Israeli Grill, The Bagel Factory, ShaqShuq, The Bay Cafe. The brand loyalty, the revenue, the market share only comes when you lead with honesty, transparency, and genuine understanding.

PowerSoul Cafe didn’t get a deal, but not because any of the Sharks outlined my concerns. They took her claims of safety at face value. Their issue was with her valuation and lack of financial clarity.

Investors read the fine print before they invest.

Food allergy families read the ingredient labels.

And any person with food allergies know there’s no such thing as Fearless Dining.

Share

Subscribe now

I’m talking about his Blue Square Alliance’s Super Bowl ad that has drawn wild ire from loud voices in the Jewish community.

I first saw the short version, which I thought was poignant, shareable, and had a strong message of allyship. After hearing that I was standing alone in my views, I watched the longer clip, which was less so. The longer version is a little cringe-y and uncreative, and loses the impactful message that standing up against Jewish hate is important and not just reserved for Jews. Kudos to all the editors out there, who can really change the tone of a story when they cut and sharpen.

But the response to this ad — Tablet magazine’s Liel Leibovitz calling it “the single most embarrassing, idiotic, abominable, counterproductive, no good, very bad ad in the big game’s history” (I guess he’s never tuned into the broadcast before) — is wildly overblown. And, quite frankly, dehumanizing.

One of the biggest arguments I’ve seen is that the Jewish kid in the ad is weak, trembling, and nebbish, only to be rescued by a strapping Black Muslim kid. The David in this ad is no warrior king; he’s a loser even before “Dirty Jew” is slapped on his backpack. Why, the argument goes, can’t the ad combat antisemitism by showing proud, strong Jews who fight back? Leibovitz goes so far as to suggest a better ad would be the IDF taking down Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

How on earth would that encourage others to join the fight against antisemitism?

Here’s the thing: Jewish pain and Jewish pride are not mutually exclusive. When we refuse to acknowledge that Jews do feel scared because we’re being endangered; that we do feel pain when terrorists shoot up our Chanukah parties; that we do feel lonely and isolated when our deaths invite silence or whataboutism, we become dehumanized.

Subscribe now

Jewish pride is important. We are a people with incredible stories, a rich culture, an impossible history, and extreme resilience. We should celebrate our heritage and find empowerment in our identities. We should self-actualize and not go into hiding. We must fight back when we’re attacked, just as we always have. We are the descendants of David, a king who led us through battle after battle with great success and strength.

But we are also descendants of Solomon, a man of peace and wisdom. We are descendants of Aaron, who was shaken to silence in his grief. We are descendants of Sarah, who laughed through her pain. We are descendants of Jonah, who sank to the depths of despair before and after rising to the task before him.

We are entitled to be vulnerable. We are entitled to the entire spectrum of the human experience. Some of us are tall and strapping; some of us are small and brittle; some of us are both and in between.

We cannot let our calls for Jewish pride eliminate the visibility of Jewish pain. When Jewish pride becomes toxic masculinity, it becomes counterproductive in the fight against antisemitism, not only because it detaches us from our own humanity (a win for Hitler!) but also because it mixes the messages to the outside world, worsening the problem. We don’t get to say we’re angry that our nonJewish friends don’t see our pain if we call out any public displays of pain and scream online that we don’t need anyone to stand up for us because we’ve got this. We don’t get to shout statistics about the increase in antisemitic violence, hoping to be taken seriously with increased budgets for security, education, and inclusion, if we lash out at ads that show that Jews are harassed. We don’t get to call out the antisemites who accuse us of ancient tropes of bloodthirstiness and violence if we shout that the only way Jews should be seen in the Super Bowl is as a military force to be reckoned with.

We also must understand that there is A LOT of work to be done to combat antisemitism, and not every organization can do all of it. We should understand this, because it’s literally in our texts - “The day is short and the work is plentiful…it is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.” Some organizations can fight with Jewish joy. Some with Jewish pride. Some can focus on antiZionism. Some can focus on white nationalism. Some can ask for allies. Some can build resilience within. Some can join forces with other groups combatting hate. Some can emphasize Jewish particularism. Some can ask for real action. Some can create community. Some can educate. Some can raise awareness through a blue square and a hashtag.

Some can afford Super Bowl ads. Some cannot.

I don’t know if this is the ad I would have made (certainly not the long version), but I do know that flagging antisemitism as a real problem on the biggest platform in the country is a big deal. I do know that helping our pain be seen by millions — and the model of allyship between a Black Muslim and a Jew being seen by millions — is more likely to inspire a drunk, chicken-wing devouring audience to care about antisemitism than a war movie or a detailed explanation of blood libels or a parade of happy Jews singing songs. I do know that there’s a limit to what the FCC will show during the Big Game. I do know that the time for a meaningful discussion of antisemitism is not between an ad for Doritos and another for Tide.

Kraft’s Patriots have multiple rallying cries: Do Your Job for when we’re scared we’re falling behind; Let’s Fucking Go for when we’re amped up; I Heart Drake Maye for when we’re relieved; We All We Got, We All We Need when we see our boys working together.

Maybe some day his Blue Square Alliance will, too. But maybe it’s okay that there’s a few of us in this fight. We can spread the ball around, so to speak, with lots of messages that take us to the end zone of eradicating antisemitism.

But in recent years, the series has gotten political more than cultural. Instead of “Reasons to Love New York,” it has read as “Reasons to Love Our Chronically Online Progressive Monolithic Echo Chamber That We Engage With From Our Home Offices In Crowded One Bedrooms Across New York.” That didn’t real do it for me.

This year, I’m back in New York, rediscovering my own reasons to love this city. When the issue arrived, I couldn’t help but wonder…would this be my last year of reading the issue? Sure, I’m subscribed through 2041, but now that I’m here and don’t need it anymore, would one more year of one-note politics in place of raw culture finally do me in?

The big front of book article, directly preceding the cover story, didn’t portend good things to come. It could have been titled “Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Bari Weiss Edition,” and literally linked media moguls and titans of industry who happen to be Jewish to “Masters of the Universe.”

But I turned the page, and turned back time.

Reason after reason was void of politics. Even the requisite blurb about Mamdani was actually about his high school teacher. Musing on subways. Restaurateur feuds literally no one cares about. Wacky art. Museum architecture.

The New York and New York I wanted to return to.

Subscribe now

My own rediscovered reasons won’t be prefaced by poorly masked antisemitism.

I’m hoping to build on this list as I keep settling in to the city. There’s a Nelson Mandela quote I loved in college: “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” New York and I both have a little more wear and tear, so it’s not exactly apt - this is more of a question of finding that the city and I can both bend together.

1. You get to depend on the kindness of strangers. I made the mistake of going to the [American] Museum of Natural History during Christmas break week, with a stroller. The entire global population was there. I discovered that there’s a ban on having an unfolded stroller on those iconic steps. I dragged my toddler and a folded stroller up the flight and through the winding line. The man in front of me asked if I needed help. I said I didn’t. He told me I did. I thanked him for his kindness as he lifted the stroller the rest of the way. He told me it wasn’t kind - it was necessary. Later, when I was faced with the “least bad” marble staircase to make my way to an exit, I found a similarly mired stroller-having dad, whose lot in life had bestowed upon him a toddler, and infant, and no additional adult. He was at his wits end trying to find a way out, and having just talked to an info booth worker and a security guard, I knew we were in the best possible place. I cut him a deal - I’d help him lift his stroller, he’d help me with mine, and we’d both find ourselves free. While we’re doing this exchange, another woman offers to help me with my stroller. I explain we’ve got a deal, and she acquiesces. In this moment, I feel the warmth of city, the rush of a memory when my friend sneezed in Herald Square and a stranger handed her a tissue without stopping her stride, and I know that New York Cindy is back.

2. Subway friends are the antidote to algorithms and AI. Since COVID, I’ve felt this deep lack in my life for engaging with people I don’t know. The tiny human connections that don’t matter at all and are also the only things that do. On this same museum misadventure, I found my daughter to be the delight of the subway car, there and back. She’s the delight of most places, to be fair, but the exchanges of “hi!” and “bye!” that she had for each passenger who sat across from us and played peekaboo (and sometimes, when there was no one, just the greetings to the empty platforms) made the air sing with humanity. I shared a laugh and a round of happy new year with a couple guys at our final stops. When a tourist asked me how to get to Penn Station when we’d already past it, I answered and was joined by two of the New Yorkiest women I’d ever seen in explaining that she had to turn around at the next stop. Sure, the subway is a haven for “me time.” For books, for music, for podcasts, for rest. And it’s also the perfect place to get out of our screens and our doomscrolling and our robot-driven void and remember that the world is filled with other humans (and creatures) just trying our best.

   

3. I’m channeling my inner Bambi and learning how to walk. Going for a walk in Southern California is a choice. It shouldn’t be a hard choice. The weather is mostly perfect, the flowers are always in bloom, you’ll always see at least one dog, and in my last neighborhood, I could smell the ocean. And yet, it’s a capital C-Choice to walk, not drive. The streets and sidewalks don’t anticipate or accommodate your existence and in some parts of town, homelessness is too rampant to feel safe or have space. Now, I walk nearly every day, even in the elements, because driving (and looking for parking) is the Choice. It turns out fresh air is good for you, even if it’s also cold and raining. More excitingly, it turns out I can. There were times in the last few years that my leg pain was so debilitating I couldn’t bear walking a few blocks, let alone the mile I do twice a day now. Even on the days I’d rather not (and there are many), I can and I do and I know I’m better for it.

   

4. I have so many pairs of shoes and I need them all. I used to be a shoes horse, if that’s a thing. And then I developed nerve issues in my leg, and getting my foot into anything other than a simple slide, sandal, or surfer sneaker was torture. I missed shoes. But here I am, in the land of the cold, and the sandals won’t cut it. I’ve forced myself to find boots — new, delicious Uggs; snow boots so the Uggs don’t get ruined; autumn-y “fashion” boots. I’ve trained my foot to wear sneakers for when the canvas ones are too cold, and learned that I can wear tights to make the canvas ones warmer. It’s exciting to heal enough to wear multiple types of shoes, but more than that, I’m finding that switching my shoes helps me orient my day around a purpose. Today is a day for snow boots. Tomorrow might be a comfy day for Uggs. Or maybe I’ll “dress up” to be out and about in the world. I have options, and I have options because they’re necessities.

   Subscribe now

As I wrote the above, the part of me that used to ache for New York is making way for a new voice, the one who misses Southern California. The obvious reasons - weather, sun, beach, palm trees - and the ones I didn’t know until I lived there.

The way the light hits the 405 or Coldwater Canyon when you’re stuck in the worst traffic of your life about to hit the valley. The way just walking through Beverly Hills feels like you’ve gotten a raise. The cacti and succulents. The coffee shops in Long Beach, particularly Gaucho Cafe on the sand, and the classic LA staple Urth. The Long Beach Public Library, which is run with such love and devotion for books and the community. The greatest emergency room I’ve ever been in, and from what I understand from other people who have given birth, unparalleled delivery and postpartum care. Craft beer culture. Being driving distance from some of the best vacation spots in the world (god, I miss San Diego and its zoos and vibes and sea lions), and only a short flight to Hawaii. Grocery stores with lots of types of salsa. Being able to make plans no matter the weather - and cancel them because the people, not the snow, are flaky. The topography of mountain-beach-city that defies all logic. Outdoor shopping malls.

Subscribe now

Like my relationship with New York, my relationship with my home cities is complex. Can I love New York even though SoCal is better, and the opposite is equally true? Can I love a magazine that could contribute to the death of my people? These questions aren’t equivalent, but the answers are the same:

Life contains multitudes, it’s going to come and go as it pleases, and you have to find the good where you can.

[And when that fails, there’s always Boston — the land of the standing-up-against-antisemitism New England Patriots and Drake “Drake Maye” Maye, and the reminder that the good guys — even when we’re hated — always win.]

Subscribe now

Share

This post was supposed to be an interview with my best friend since I was 5 — a wonderful, joyful, simple celebration. And now it’s much more. Now it’s an interview that’s an act of defiance. Being publicly and proudly Jewish is an act of defiance. Celebrating our Jewish culture and wins amid destruction is an act of defiance. That’s what the Maccabees fought and won for, and that’s the miracle we celebrate for the next eight days. The miracle that we’ve won against all odds and will keep on going even when it seems impossible.

It is such an honor to witness Talia Benamy authoring her first published book. I say “published” because, fun fact, her first book was also my first book. In fourth grade, we co-wrote the first book in a series called Cat Wars (or was it Cats’ World? It was nearly 30 years ago). It followed a group of 30 cats who go to war with each other when their own left the house. One side was the 14 black and 1 dark gray and the other had 14 white and1 light gray, and the plan was to have the gray ones switch sides partway through the series (a twist!). In the first book, the owner leaves the house for a sleepover with her friends, Josie, Valerie, and Melody. An acceptable allusion or intellectual property theft? You decide.

Talia’s first real book, Twinkle Twinkle Hanukkah, is far better, both in concept, originality, and execution. It’s written to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and is a “charming, lyrical picture book [that] celebrates the history of Hanukkah while engaging little ones in a fun sing-song read aloud.” You can learn more and buy a copy here.

In addition to being a wonderful person and author who loves writing stories that center Jewish identity and bring light into the world, Talia is the editor and backlist manager at Philomel, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, where she works on books for kids and teens. In her non-book-focused time, she loves travel, nature, politics, and being an aunt to a whole host of niblings. Talia lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she was born and raised. Without further ado, our conversation.

Share

Subscribe now

How did you get the idea for Twinkle Twinkle?

Talia Benamy: I thought of the title first, and the concept as a whole pretty much sprang from there. I love the idea of telling kids about a holiday and a tradition through the tune and rhythm of a song they already know -- it gives the whole thing a feeling of familiarity and warmth that I think goes hand in hand with the warm feeling of the holiday itself, with its light, its togetherness, and its overall joy.

You’ve spent your career editing children’s books. How did that help you on the other side of the table as a writer?

TB: I definitely had a bit more of an idea of what to expect from the process of creating the book than I would have as a first-time author who wasn’t also an editor. And I’m also lucky in that I had any number of colleagues who could give me advice and feedback along the way in places where I wasn’t totally sure what next steps to take. That said, I think every book is different, and certainly working with different editors, imprints, and publishers is different, so there were also plenty of pieces of this that were brand new to me!

Has your perspective as an editor changed now that you have the experience of being an author?

TB: I absolutely have a newfound appreciation for how much effort an author can put into the parts of the book that go beyond just the writing! With most books, authors can play a large role in helping to promote the book, to get it in front of audiences only they can reach -- and while that’s always something I knew in theory, I now know it in practice. And I’m now even more incredibly grateful to every author who puts in that effort!

Was there anything that surprised you about the process of being an author?

TB: Most people outside of the publishing industry don’t realize that the author and illustrator don’t generally actually work together -- all of that communication goes through the editor and designer. As an editor myself, I of course did know this going in, and still, it was bizarre! Aura Lewis did such a phenomenal job on the art, and I’m endlessly grateful to her for that, and it was so strange to be making this book and not communicating with her at all.

I love the book itself but one of the things about the book that’s so special is the note at the end about Chanukah. Why was it important to you to include an explainer?

TB: I’m glad you like that part! I really wanted this book to be accessible to all kids, whatever holidays they celebrate and however familiar they might be with Hanukkah. I’ve read it to Jewish kids at Jewish schools and to groups of kids from a range of backgrounds at public schools and at bookstore storytimes, and each time, every kid was excited to hear more about the elements of Hanukkah that had come up in the rhyming verses. So I’m glad that we were able to add that piece in, and I hope that it helps kids (and their grownups, whether in schools, at home, or anywhere else) feel even more excited about reading a book about Hanukkah.

There’s a movement of renewed Jewish pride that I know you are a part of in a big way in your political advocacy work. How do children’s books like yours help instill that pride in the next generation? Is there anything you want to share about the connection between Chanukah and Jewish pride?

TB: I love this question, because it touches on something I’d had in mind from the get-go when writing this book -- which I did well before October 7th and the renewed sense of Jewish pride that you’re referencing. I could, of course, have had no idea about the world into which this book would publish when I wrote it, but the feeling of wanting to instill Jewish pride and Jewish joy has been a throughline from day one. There is so much to love about our Jewish culture and heritage and traditions, and sharing that love with the next generation has always felt so meaningful to me. Hanukkah is a holiday that tells so many stories: of Jews standing up for their right to hold on to their traditions, of shining light out into the darkness and bringing more hope into this world, of the power of symbolism to make miracles feel tangible and maybe even attainable. Telling those stories through this holiday and through this book are my way of trying to bring that pride, that joy, that love of being Jewish to young readers, and I hope they feel it on every single page.

A lot of people want to write kids books and either don’t get around to it or don’t know how to navigate the publishing process. Can you share a bit about your creative process and your execution process for this book?

TB: To those who are interested in writing anything, for any audience or any age, my first piece of advice is this: Be prepared for it to take a long time. I started writing this book close to three years ago, and it just came out in September -- so know that this is not a quick process, even if your book only contains a couple hundred words. Beyond that, for anyone truly interested in navigating this seriously, I recommend taking a look at this excellent guide from Penguin Random House (full disclosure: that’s where my day job is) for a few pieces of really solid advice.

I don’t remember us reading a lot of Jewish books as kids, but there are a few that I can recall. So this question has two parts: Why do you think there are more Jewish books now or that more people are reading them? And did you have a favorite Jewish picture book as a kid?

TB: I’m honestly not sure whether there are more Jewish kids’ books now than there were when we were kids or whether we just weren’t aware of them then. Though to be honest, there are also just more books being published now, period, than there were when we were kids, so maybe the ratios bear out? Either way, I think it’s a great thing to have more Jewish books in the world, and especially to have more Jewish books that showcase more types of Jews. In Twinkle, Twinkle, Hanukkah, we were very intentional about showing different types of Jewish families, Jews of different backgrounds, and so on; and there are so many other Jewish books out there that highlight Jews of color, Sephardic Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Ladino Jews, and on and on. I think the world as a whole, and certainly the world of publishing, has become more invested in trying to learn more about a variety of cultures, and that’s a wonderful thing. As for a favorite Jewish picture book, I’d have to say Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins. I think I still have my copy of it on a shelf at my mother’s house somewhere, and it’s never not a delight.

Do you have a favorite rhyme in the book? The one I always come back to is “Mighty mighty Maccabees, fought the Greeks and won with ease.” Partly because I can hear you when I read that line, but also because it’s such a subtle nod to the miracle of Chanukah, that we somehow won this war that we were not at all well-positioned to do.

TB: I love that you love that one. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite (it’s like picking a favorite child!), but if I had to, I think I would say that it’s the one at the end about how “Jews around the world all share our traditions everywhere.” It is, to be clear, a slight stretch, because Jews in different parts of the world certainly have different traditions. But there are some things -- like lighting Hanukkah candles -- that transcend those differences and that keep us connected as one people across continents and languages and centuries, and that aspect of Judaism is so powerful to me. We make up 0.2% of the world’s population, we have been cast aside and thrown out of our homes and made to feel other than or less than over millennia of history. And yet, wherever we have landed, we have carried on traditions that have kept us connected through the years and despite our differences. Our peoplehood is one of our greatest strengths, and I’m proud to have been able to end the book by highlighting it.

Now that you have a taste for being an author - can we expect to see more? Or are there any other projects you’re working on that people should know about?

TB: Nothing that I can share at the moment, but stay tuned for more down the line. And in the meantime, if you’re looking for great Jewish books, check out the Jewish Book Council, which does excellent work bringing Jewish books and authors to readers everywhere; and if you’re in the market for books for young readers, whether picture books or books for older kids, Philomel (the imprint I work for) has a list we are endlessly proud of. Happy Hanukkah and happy reading!

Buy Twinkle Twinkle Hanukkah

Share

I wrote earlier this year about the bloated salaries of major nonprofit leadership. These organizations get so much money - the AHA raises $900M annually and has over $1.2B in assets! - and their CEO pay rivals that of corporate America. They do important work, but also get mired in the same corporate bullshit large for-profit companies do. Spending months preparing process overview documents and getting sign off. Hosting big fancy dinner parties to talk about the work they will be doing. Creating strategic partnerships that maybe undermine their communities’ actual needs but are flashy and cool. These are all real examples and you can reach out to me privately to name names.

But the scrappy nonprofits, with fewer resources at their disposal, fight for grants and donations with all they have while simultaneously getting the work done. Sure, a lot of small nonprofits can be toxic. That’s what happens when rich people with an idea who don’t actually know how to run an effective organization suddenly have employees. Or there are too many projects they want to bootstrap that are impossible to accomplish with a 40-hour work week so the underpaid employees with bleeding hearts end up beaten down. But no one stretches a dollar quite like a small non-profit, and I believe that if you really want to change the world, your charity will make more of an impact if your $10 goes to a small org than to one where the CEO has dog show money and then some.

Here are the organizations I personally support when I can. There are many more out there who are worthy - whatever your pet cause is, I encourage you to think small. And remember that support looks like a lot of things for a small org - money, volunteering, liking and sharing a social post, signing a petition.

The Elijah-Alavi Foundation

This organization - literally a mom and pop shop - was founded by the parents of Elijah-Alavi Silvera, in his memory. He tragically lost his life to an anaphylactic reaction at daycare that was fully preventable. The foundation works to pass legislation to make childcare centers safer for kids with allergies, educate and raise awareness of childhood allergies and asthma and how to prevent reactions, and provide resources to parents and caregivers. They’ve passed groundbreaking legislation in multiple states, including NY and California, and working on more. They are a small organization started from unspeakable pain that has accomplished so much in such a short period of time, and has already saved children’s lives.

https://www.elijahalavifoundation.org/

Food Equality Initiative

The government shutdown brought food insecurity into the national conversation for a hot minute. But one aspect of food insecurity that’s not talked about enough is that there are people who have food allergies, celiac disease, or other medically necessary diets who do not have enough money to afford food. There’s also a higher cost of food for food allergy friendly diets. A recent study found that families who have a child with a food allergy are 39% more likely to experience food insecurity. But food pantries are not always stocked with safe foods, and some programs, like WIC, have limited options for special diets. Food Equality Initiative was founded to combat that divide. They offer a mix of grocery delivery (mostly local — see:scrappy nonprofit), education for food pantries, and advocacy around “food is medicine.” Full disclosure: I used to write for their magazine, which was an award-winning publication — and not easy for a small org to keep up.

https://www.foodequalityinitiative.org/

If the cause impassions you, but you also want to support your local community, donate free-from foods to a food pantry. Look into community fridges to donate perishable items like produce that a family with a special diet can prepare safely themselves.

JITC Hollywood Bureau

I’m the Director of the JITC Hollywood Bureau, so your support affects me in a very direct way. But let me tell you about the work we do — that I started to do 100% as a volunteer simply because I believed in the mission. We are a narrative change organization dedicated to improving representation of Jews in film and TV. Many studies have shown that the way a group is portrayed in the media has an outsize impact on people’s sentiments toward that group. Will & Grace is a classic example of how bringing delightful gay men into our living rooms every week was the beginning of a new era toward LGBTQ inclusion. We’re less afraid of people when we have relationships with them, even parasocial ones! Since Jews make up only about 2% of the US population and are victims of 69% of religiously-motivated hate crimes and the #2 targeted group across all hate crimes (racial, ethnic, gender-based, sexuality-based, religiously-motivated, etc.), it’s safe to say that many people hate us, and many people will never meet us. But when we’re on screen in a positive way, an authentic way, a way void of harmful stereotypes and ancient antisemitic tropes that are now back in fashion, we can change that relationship. Through the bureau, we conduct studies to assess the state of Jewish representation (about a year ago, we launched the first study in 25 years and the first-ever on Orthodox representation on screen), advise studios on authentic, diverse, and positive Jewish representation and how to accommodate Jewish storytellers, celebrate great Jewish representation, and provide resources to creatives to help them tell more Jewish stories that reflect our lived realities. There’s a lot of ways to combat rising antisemitism, and one strategy that has worked for other communities facing centuries of hate is to humanize us through the characters we fall in love with. It’s time for Jews to tell our stories without shame or hiding.

https://jitchollywoodbureau.org/

M54

I was blessed with the opportunity to grow spiritually at Chabad of Brandeis, and continue to be inspired by how my dear friends Peretz and Chanie Chein have taken their wisdom, grit, tenacity, vibrance, entrepreneurial spirit, and love to new heights with M54. The Magic of 54 Turner Place is real, and M54 is a nonprofit that spreads that magic through personal growth and organizational workshops. They are answering the call to provide spirituality in a world that is increasingly demanding, whether it’s for individuals, couples, families, leaders, or organizations. I don’t know a better way to express what they do other than to say the following two things: first, I trust Peretz and Chanie with my life; they have guided me through my most joyous occasions and through multiple different tragedies, and second, if you ever find my writing to be inspiring, much of my own spiritual growth and worldview was developed within the walls of their home.

https://m54.org/

NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change

I got involved with NewGround by accident in 2013. I was tasked with finding someone from my synagogue’s young professional group to perform in their Spotlight Storytelling event. It seemed like less effort to just do the performance myself than to send lots of emails (I may not have good judgement on things like “effort.”). It was transformative: I shared the stage with Muslims and Jews from wildly different backgrounds from my own, all of us sharing stories of times people had stood up for us. Before the performance, my co-performer’s Pakistani grandmother told me she’d be my family rooting for me in the audience. Me? A modern Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn, the surrogate granddaughter of a woman from Pakistan? In the decade-plus that’s passed since that event, I have been a part of an incredibly community of changemakers. NewGround is dedicated to forging relationships between Muslims and Jews that can exist within conflict. The work they’ve done since October 7, 2023 alone is astounding. The message behind NewGround’s work isn’t to leave the messiness outside the interfaith room, like many similar spaces. It’s not all peace, love, and understanding. It’s about bringing your truth to a space where people will find it hard to hear, and listening to their truths that you find uncomfortable, and through that process, rehumanizing one another so we can hopefully change the tide and stop the brutal violence that exists between our communities and in this climate in general. I’ve directed and produced several shorts for the organization, in addition to completing two of their fellowships, and the most recent film, Echoes, is the first that lets the audience into the room where change happens. And change does happen, even if it’s a tiny slice opening in your heart. I shared something in a session that made a proudly antiZionist Jew rethink their stance on “from the river to the sea” as not antisemitic — and was aided in doing so by a Muslim woman I respect, who later said that the death of Sinwar was complicated. I don’t agree with her, but I also know she doesn’t want to kill me or my Israeli family, and (see above hate crime statistics) that’s no small thing. NewGround is a tiny, scrappy organization that shows up in so many ways in the hardest moments, and is driven by people who truly want the world to be safer for us all. We’re being bombarded by divisiveness and trapped in echo chambers, and NewGround provides an antidote by saying, “it’s okay to have an unpopular opinion, but have it in community.” I’ve witnessed all this firsthand, including that they can’t do this work without more support.

https://mjnewground.org/

Yesh Tikva

Newsflash, but IVF or any assisted reproductive experience/fertility challenge is HARD. Yesh Tikva is a wonderful organization that makes it less hard. They provide support groups, resources, and care packages for people dealing with infertility. I was a donor long before I needed their support; they partnered with my synagogue for an infertility awareness Shabbat where members of our community shared their stories and explained their pain, a cry that would reverberate loudly for me during my own experience — feeling completely unseen, unsupported, and isolated because of this taboo medical condition. When I felt like all I needed was for someone in my life to send me balloons to acknowledge that what I was going through was just absolutely horrible and exhausting, it was my friend Kimberlee and Yesh Tikva who came through.

https://yeshtikva.org/

There are similar groups who support people from all backgrounds (not just Jewish), as well as policy advocates to protect our rights that have become, disgustingly, under threat. I’ll shout out AllPaths Family Buiding.

There are so many other small nonprofits that could benefit from your support, and my causes aren’t necessarily yours. That said, today happens to be my birthday, and if you feel like celebrating by supporting one of the causes I care about and/or put work into, thank you.

The bigger picture, though, is that in this world that is really broken, where so many of us have a desire to repair it, it’s important to look for the people doing the not-so-visible work, the people who give everything they have and then some to champion a cause, rather than assuming that the big names are the most effective. Are some small organizations not going to handle your dollar well, and some big ones really doing important, complex, expensive work? Yes. Of course. So do your research, find your cause, and give wisely.

And enjoy this video of the multi-award winning Bichon Frisé, because we could all use some fluffy cuteness.

And a lot of people have a lot of opinions about how to help. And a lot of opinions about other people’s opinions about how to help. There’s an initiative to put shelf-stable food in Halloween buckets (in addition to candy), so that kids can grab snacks that are more robust and won’t go bad. Think protein bars, ramen, chips, cereal cups. There’s backlash to this initiative, with angry thought leaders and influencers suggesting this ruins Halloween for kids who don’t need to be stressed about food and want to be normal, and doesn’t really help anyway. Is it too micro? Are the people who posted the initiative holding the representatives they (may have) elected accountable? Isn’t it better to donate to food banks?

Why are private citizens turning against other private citizens to belittle the ways in which people want to help, when none of us are responsible for this? And when most of us don’t understand it, either.

If SNAP benefits disappear, it will be devastating to families, and that the government has allowed this shutdown to go on as long as it has is unconscionable. I don’t think it matters at this point whose fault it is — the lack of compromise has forced citizens to compromise ourselves, our health, and our safety, and we are paying a steep price. I say that as someone who is opposed to the Trump administration and as someone for whom the consequences of losing an ACA subsidy the Democrats are fighting for are dire. Open enrollment is starting, and without a subsidy, the math isn’t mathing, and I am scared. AND I don’t think it will help that people who are already losing their benefits will lose more of them.

The more I read hot takes and helpful solutions to this problem, the more I wonder if the well-meaning people understand the benefits system. I wrote several years ago about WIC, and at the time, wrote about how I was privileged to not need food assistance. But times change, and I’m in my WIC era. My government healthcare era. I’m barely scratching the surface of what it’s like to be reliant on government support, and I’m doing so with immense privilege and a sort of clear path to a better financial future (assuming that ACA subsidy doesn’t go away because “affordable” is a huge misnomer if you expect “care,” but that’s a different story for a different time).

Here’s the thing: these benefits are so helpful and so necessary, AND NOT ENOUGH and NOT A SOLUTION. I wanted to share a few things I’ve learned in my experience with WIC and Medi-Cal that I didn’t really understand before I was in the system. And I’m doing so because the headlines will go away once the budget is in place, and the fervor of food banks and being an inclusive, thoughtful neighbor will die down, and the millions people who are losing their lifeline right now will hop back onto their half-inflated raft of economic instability and food insecurity into a system that still doesn’t work and that no one is fixing.

There’s a lot of government waste that could be put to better use, like feeding real people. WIC has been a huge help for our family. I laughed recently when the NYC mayoral candidates shared their weekly grocery spend ($125-$175), because if you keep kosher, have food allergies, are feeding a baby, or actually look at your receipts, that is not an accurate number. I can get kind of close to that with WIC, maybe, if I’m truly looking at the food I eat in a given week, rather than the reality of grocery shopping, which is that you have to do a restock pantry shop sometimes, and produce sometimes goes bad before you can eat it. But WIC is also wasteful. I’ve written about this before, but it’s really difficult for people with food allergies or restrictive diets to navigate. I was allotted benefits for fish, but I can’t eat fish, and I was allotted benefits for infant meat, but kosher brands weren’t approved, and 5 gallons of milk for 3 people in one month leaves a lot of milk poured down the drain, I just don’t understand where that unspent money goes. And like, why can I buy Frosted Mini Wheats but not Cinnamon Life, which has less added sugar? What kind of deals are being made with Big Food to get them on that approved list?

Beyond the nickel and diming of it, it’s a complex system to understand. I had to watch an orientation in California before I could access my benefits, and I’m pretty smart but I still sometimes need to scan a label to see if it’s covered. I am one of the best humans alive at reading food labels because I literally will die if I read them wrong and sometimes I still can’t figure out why something isn’t covered when the WIC app gives me a threatening NOT APPROVED screen. A lot of people on WIC don’t have time to go to an approved store and spend 20 extra minutes there shopping (our family has “WIC shopping” as a separate category of errand to make sure we go to the right store with the card and correct intentions), and I can’t imagine maximizing my benefits if English wasn’t my first language. It’s a great program, and the people who work there have made me feel held in really hard times so I am very grateful, but…it’s not straightforward or easy. People don’t fit into one box of “healthy eating” and the rigidity of the program makes it harder to administer and harder to navigate. I’d prefer $3 extra for produce than $6 for gallons of milk I don’t use, and I think Republicans and Democrats alike could agree on that.

Meanwhile, my experience with Med-Cal (California’s Medicaid) has been nothing short of insane. From the parking ticket threat I got when I went to submit paperwork in person because the signage outside the building is deliberately misleading to the inability to speak to a human to resolve an issue until I got our local County Supervisor’s office involved, insane. But worst of all was when the coverage changed because we’d earned like $150 more or something a month…and suddenly our" “everything is free” plan became “free after a household deductible of a little more than $5K a month.” A month. You didn’t read that wrong. I thought I had when I got the letter, but nope. We earned $150 more a month so they mathed that we could now afford $5K+ a month. It’s like when I got an ACA subsidy of $2/month to “help” with the financial pain of my $700+ (for one person) premium. This is so the powers that be can say how many millions of Americans rely on these programs — isn’t it a nice talking point to say you’ve expanded coverage? — but no, we could not rely on what’s essentially not health insurance at all. And because we had Medi-Cal for our daughter, guess what — she was ineligble for Covered California, and the off-market plan was a little over $400/month. I’d rather not have earned the $150.

And that’s what I want to leave you with. The threshold for earnings and actual benefit information.

Below is the breakdown of the maximum SNAP benefits one can access a month - note the word maximum, and understand that not everyone who is on SNAP gets the maximum. The program is designed for you to spend 30% of your monthly income on food, so it’s calculated based on what you earn, up to the amounts listed below. (Here’s a handy guide for further reading).

Eligibility is generally capped at 130% of the poverty line. So if you’re 131%, you’re shit out of luck. Here’s what eligbility looks like in California.

So let’s say you’re a family of 3 earning $3000/month before taxes, or $36,000 a year, in LA. Your take home pay is $2459. You won’t get SNAP. You might still need to live somewhere, and let’s say you all 3 squeeze into a 1 bedroom, which averages at $2170/month. Your apartment probably needs electricity, and maybe gas, and I bet you have to drive to work which means you have a car and pay for gas (or spend endless hours on the bus). How do you eat? Or anything else?

Well-meaning people on the internet are fighting about whether this Halloween should be just KitKats or KitKats and Ramen, because they are suddenly aware that 41 million people will lose their SNAP benefits. But maybe all Halloweens can include Ramen, or calls for food pantry donations, or opening our hearts, because there are millions more people who aren’t getting any benefits at all, or for whom their SNAP allocation is a drop in a bucket.

I keep thinking back to the book that not enough people read, How the Other Half Eats, and a story about a mom who had a couple dollars in her pocket and instead of saving, let her kid buy a candy bar. She could save all the dollars she wanted and she wouldn’t get out of poverty. So she figured her kid deserved to have a treat for once.

There’s power in giving out KitKats. It makes a difference. So does Ramen. So does donating to a food bank. So does voting for people who care, or donating or volunteering for organizations doing the work our elected officials refuse to.

Just like that mom, whose efforts to save would prove futile, we can’t fix global poverty and food insecurity through small actions or debate or even government programs that need to have black and white rules for people who are technicolor.

But we can give kids candy bars, or vegetables, or our time, or our money — whether they fit into the rigid benefits system or not, whether SNAP is shut down or not, because it is never enough but if it’s going to persist being this broken, we may as well find hope, joy, and charitableness where we can.

I wish I could cancel it tomorrow.

After all these years, NY Mag has morphed into an unrecognizable publication. I’d noticed it over the years, but this latest issue is beyond the pale. It is a blood libel on shiny pages. It’s a loaded gun aimed at the Jews who have supported it for decades, and even though they’d never admit it, the ones who still write for it.

This is the cover of the garbage that arrived today:

Now, I concede that the war in Israel is complicated. Netanyahu is extremely problematic, and most of the people in Israel who have had ballistic missiles aimed directly at their homes, schools, and hospitals by an actual genocidal madman for the past two weeks would agree.

But…come the fuck on.

Crimes of the century? The lens of WWII (and implicitly, the Holocaust)? No mention of context? Of the war crimes Israelis face committed against them? Positioning Israel as the gravest violator of human rights IN THE CENTURY, when there are ongoing genocides in Sudan, China, and Myanmar?

What about the “purposeful killing of noncombatants, the decimation of civilian property, the denial of humanitarian assistance” committed by Hamas on October 7, and perpetuated for 630 days with the 50 hostages still being held in Gaza? How did my favorite magazine cover that?

Here are all the covers following October 7:

The only cover story about the biggest attack against Jews since WWII, in the city with the largest Jewish population in the US, was about…protests and doxings? That article, which I read, included a couple of mentions about the atrocities committed by Hamas, but largely focused on the plight of the anti-Zionists.

But this…this editorial choice to put a blood libel and age-old antisemitic tropes as the COVER ART of a magazine, so that anyone who passes it by in a newstand can casually absorb this antisemism…it’s vile.

Suzy Hansen should be ashamed of herself.

David Haskell should be ashamed of himself.

They’ve turned something wonderful into propaganda, and in 2041, when my subscription runs out and the fruits of their labor spreading vicious, harmful rhetoric that endangers Jews comes to harvest, I wonder if they’ll recognize that they, like Goebbels, were not on the right side of the history.

Subscribe now

Share

Wait, let me rephrase.

What would it mean for you to feel seen?

We spend so much of our lives in the public sphere, but in these content ecosystems that make everything seem less…rich. Echo chambers of things designed to make us angry or confirm our worldview.

We see a post designed to instigate us, and boom, there’s the rage, the takedown, the public statements on everything like we’re somehow all corporate communications professionals broadcasting our messages to Instagram, in a way that works with the algorithm so in the end we can pat ourselves because we got likes or comments or reposts and hopefully start the cycle again in someone else’s feed.

We see a lot of posts, but we don’t see a lot of people.

But what if we could break through the noise, sidestep the loudest voices, expand our hearts and minds beyond the polarizing, black and white narratives, and actually see and hear and feel the humans behind these screens?

What if we could do this about the most controversial topics? About Israel and Gaza, Judaism and Islam, topics that cut to the cores of our identities and where there are very real lives at stake?

I’ve directed and produced multiple short documentaries highlighting the important work NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change does, but my most recent film, Echoes, is more special.

The film documents a storytelling project that was completed by the teen cohort, a group of Jewish and Muslim high school students from across LA who met every month throughout the school year to learn about Judaism, Islam, antisemitism, Islamophobia, Israel, and Palestine, and confront their biases, learn conflict resolution skills, and build relationships. The project was designed for them to re-humanize themselves and each other.

The day we shot it, a clip was circulating across social media of men chasing a pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel supporter through the streets of Crown Heights, shouting "Death to Arabs!" after Ben Gvir spoke at 770.

The clip told a totally different story than what I was witnessing. I know from experience that Chabad isn't all (or even largely comprise of) those men, I know that if it had been men in keffiyehs chasing a Jewish woman holding an Israeli flag that all the men in that video would rightfully cry antisemitism, and I know that these radicals don't represent the majority of Orthodox Jews, any Jews or Israelis. And yet, that's what we see when we are glued to our screens, being fed non-nuanced narratives that create rage-inducing echo chambers so that the tech companies can profit off our rage and stoke division.

But that day, I witnessed 22 teenagers who believed in a better future and were actively working to build it. Teenagers who wanted to have real conversations, understand each other, and break free of talking points, propaganda, and black-and-white thinking. And what was happening in that space was just as real, and maybe more important, than what was happening on my screen.

Yes, antisemitism is terrifying and real. Yes, what happened on October 7 was beyond the pale, and the hostages must come home, and the way they were tortured and murdered haunts me, and the terrorist attacks and rocket attacks that the mainstream media ignores to suit their agenda is maddening. Yes, the devastation in Gaza is impossible to witness, and the continued war despite a majority of Israelis wanting it to end is despicable, and yes, the encampments and the weaponization of antisemitism and whatever dumb shit Ye says and cancel culture and…YES. ALL OF IT IS TOO DAMN MUCH.

But we aren’t going to be able to stop any of that by staying angry and getting angrier. Our only hope is to demand more. To demand to see and be seen. In NewGround’s spaces, I have experienced what’s possible when we try to see one another, stand firm and rooted in our own narratives, and open our hearts to hold someone else’s lived experience. Earlier this year, I completed their facilitation training, where I both met someone who was sad that Sinwar was dead, and had that same person help me articulate why saying “from the river to the sea” was antisemitic and hurtful, so much so that an anti-Zionist Jew in the room changed his opinion of the phrase. This is what the teens I documented were working toward, and this is how we effect change.

This film is the first time I can show what really happens in the holy spaces NewGround creates, that I have been so blessed to be a part of.

You’ll see some things that resonate with you.

You’ll see some things that challenge you.

You’ll see some things that mirror your own experiences.

You’ll see some things that feel totally contrary to how you perceive the world.

Most importantly, you’ll see teenagers who spent months getting offline and into hard conversations, teenagers who dug into the pasts they knew and the pasts they didn’t, to try to build a future that’s better than whatever hell we’re living in now.

Here is Echoes.

Share

Subscribe now

I had the pleasure of interviewing Thomas Silvera, author of a brand new graphic novel series, ImmuniForce, which recently launched its first issue, ImmuniForce: The Anaphylaxis Strike. I’ve been inspired by Thomas’s work for many years, as he’s a fierce advocate for food allergies and asthma, following the tragic loss of his young son Elijah due to a severe allergic reaction at a childcare center. Through the Elijah-Alavi Foundation, Thomas has championed groundbreaking legislation for kids with food allergies, and as a creative storyteller, he’s now expanding his mission through the ImmuniForce series. As a storyteller myself, I was eager to dig deeper into his process and how he brought his creative vision to life. Our conversation is below.

About the book: ImmuniForce: The Anaphylaxis Strike is an award-winning children’s graphic novel brings food allergy and asthma awareness to life through engaging storytelling and vibrant superhero action. The story follows a diverse team of young heroes, each with their own unique abilities tied to food allergy and asthma conditions, as they band together to protect their community from the villainous Anaphylaxis and his minions. Set in the city of Allergyville, ImmuniForce educates young readers about the signs of an allergic reaction, the importance of preparedness, and the power of advocacy and teamwork. The book offers both entertainment and life-saving lessons, making it a valuable resource for families, schools, and community organizations. You can buy the book here.

What made you decide to write ImmuniForce?
ImmuniForce was born out of both personal experience and necessity. As a father who lost my son Elijah-Alavi to a preventable allergic reaction and has another son, Sebastin who is neurodivergent and has multiple food allergies, I saw firsthand how isolating and frightening it can be for kids with food allergies and for their families. I wanted to create something empowering that would make kids feel seen, strong, and equipped to face the world, instead of feeling fearful or different. ImmuniForce is my way of giving children the heroes they deserve and honoring Elijah’s legacy by turning tragedy into a tool for change.

Share a bit about your process developing the concept and format. Why did you choose to tell this story as a graphic novel? Why superheroes?
Graphic novels are visually engaging and they reach kids in a way traditional books sometimes can’t. Superheroes have always fascinated me, especially their ability to turn what makes them different into a source of power. I wanted to channel that energy into the world of food allergies, where kids can see themselves as heroes, not as victims. The format allows for vibrant storytelling, diverse representation, and action-packed learning all at once.

As a writer and storyteller myself, I'm always inspired when people can take their vision over the finish line. Can you give us a look into your writing, design, and publishing process?
My process combined a lot of personal reflection, research, and collaboration. I began by sketching out ideas and storylines, then partnered with a talented friend who helped transform those early sketches into the vibrant illustrations you see in the book today. Throughout the process, I made sure the needs and experiences of kids with allergies remained at the heart of every decision. I also worked closely with a friend who is an artist and focus group readers to make sure both the visuals and the story felt real and relatable. Publishing independently gave me the freedom to shape every detail, but it also meant taking on many roles, from writing and editing to marketing and distribution. The journey has been intense, but seeing the positive impact ImmuniForce is having on families and kids makes every challenge worth it.

I particularly liked how each superhero character had a distinct personality based around his or her allergy, and each villain had distinct characteristics related to their allergic or sensitivity triggering ability. Can you share about your creative process for building out character traits based on specific allergens? Did your personal experience with particular allergens or sensitivities factor into your character design?
Absolutely. Each character is inspired by real-life experiences, my own, my children’s, and stories shared by others in the community. I wanted each hero and villain to represent a specific allergy or trigger, highlighting both the challenges and the unique strengths that come with living with allergies. My personal allergies to nuts and shellfish, my son’s allergies, and our day-to-day realities all played a big role in shaping these characters.

I've written before about how my allergies have given me superpowers -- like extreme attention to detail, lots of resilience, and more physical things, like being able to hold a conversation while scanning a room and tracking where allergens are and who is touching what with what cross contact allergens. I really loved that you chose superheroes as your way "in" to this world of food allergies. What do you think some superpowers kids -- and adults! -- with food allergies have? What superpowers do family members of people with food allergies have?
Kids with food allergies develop incredible superpowers: hyper-awareness, resilience, courage, and the ability to advocate for themselves and others. They’re always scanning their environment, managing risk, and making tough decisions, skills that go far beyond the allergy world. Family members become experts in empathy, preparedness, and advocacy. Our entire community is stronger, more compassionate, and more vigilant because of these lived experiences.

The food allergy community is buzzing about your book. I think it gives kids with food allergies the opportunity to see themselves as empowered to face the world around them. What other messages do you hope kids with food allergies gain from reading this book?
I want kids to feel empowered, not limited. I hope they see that their voices matter, that they have allies, and that they can be the heroes of their own stories. It’s also about building confidence to speak up, ask questions, and never feel ashamed of their needs or differences. Most of all, I want them to feel hope.

Who else should read this book? What do you hope audiences outside of the food allergy community will learn from the book?
ImmuniForce is for everyone — parents, teachers, classmates, and anyone who wants to understand and support those living with food allergies. My hope is that it fosters empathy, awareness, and a sense of responsibility to make the world safer and more inclusive. Understanding leads to action and action saves lives.

A lot of your work honors the memory of your son, Elijah-Alavi, and you dedicated the book so beautifully to him and his brother, Sebastin. Can you share more about your motivation to advocate for the food allergy community, and specifically kids with food allergies? How does ImmuniForce factor in to your larger advocacy work?
Elijah’s story is at the heart of everything I do. Advocacy became my purpose after losing him and ImmuniForce is one way I turn that pain into action. The book is a tool for education, awareness, and empowerment, part of a much larger mission through the Elijah-Alavi Foundation to create systemic change, push for better laws, and support families so that no other child is lost to a preventable reaction.

In your bio at the end of the book, you share that you grew up managing asthma and food allergies. We both grew up at a time where there were so few resources and so little community available for people with allergies. What was it like for you growing up with these conditions, and what changes have you seen for the next generation? There's still a long way to go, too -- what are your hopes for the future of food allergies?
Growing up, resources and understanding were almost nonexistent. It was isolating and at times, dangerous. Today, there’s more awareness, support, and community, but there’s still a long way to go. My hope for the future is that every child can feel safe and included, that schools and public spaces are truly allergy-aware, and that we keep pushing for research, access, and policy changes to improve quality of life.

As a new mom, I'm navigating my own relationship to my food allergies now that I have a child -- who at the moment, doesn't have food allergies, but exposes me to allergens. How did your relationship with your allergies change once you became a parent, and especially a parent to children with food allergies?
Becoming a parent made everything more urgent. It wasn’t just about managing my own health anymore, but protecting my kids and advocating for them. I became much more proactive, informed, and vocal. The responsibility is enormous, but it also fueled my drive to create change, not just for my own children but for all families facing these challenges.

I've shared some of the Elijah-Alavi Foundation's work in this newsletter before, but can you refresh our readers on your major initiatives? How can people support this work?
The Elijah-Alavi Foundation focuses on food allergy and asthma education, legislative advocacy, emergency preparedness, and providing resources to all communities. We work to pass life-saving laws like Elijah’s Law, deliver training in schools and childcare centers, and support families directly. People can support us by donating, volunteering, spreading awareness, or simply sharing our story. Every bit helps us reach more lives.

What can we expect next in the world of ImmuniForce?
ImmuniForce is just getting started. We’re working on expanding the series with more characters, deeper stories, and new adventures. There’s a second graphic novel in the works and new allergy villains. We’re also exploring educational resources, school partnerships, and even some fun merchandise to keep empowering and connecting with the community. The mission continues and I’m excited for what’s ahead.

About the author: Thomas Silvera is a dedicated food allergy and asthma advocate, currently obtaining his doctoral degree in health sciences, author, and co-founder of the Elijah-Alavi Foundation. After the tragic loss of his young son Elijah due to a severe allergic reaction at a childcare center, Thomas and his ex-wife , Dina turned their grief into action. He has become a nationally recognized voice for food allergy safety, driving legislative change, developing educational initiatives, and building partnerships to protect children in schools and childcare settings. Through his work, Thomas is committed to ensuring that no family endures the heartbreak of a preventable tragedy.

Buy the book here.

Who gets to decide what causes and communities get support?

In the end, is it always about power and money?

These are questions I have had for a while, in different forms. I’ve been involved in community service/nonprofits for a long time, in different ways. My first “job” was as a volunteer for the Prospect Park Zoo. In college, I planned the first-ever gala fundraising dinner for Chabad at Brandeis and wrote their website copy after graduation. I interned for The Innocence Project, initially because I really liked the professor running that internship, and later because the cause became near and dear to my heart. I volunteered for years at my synagogue, Bnai David-Judea, chairing the young professionals committee and the education committee, and serving as the first-ever never-married woman on the board of directors. I’m involved in the NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change community — I started as a volunteer performer in their Spotlight storytelling program, was then a fellow in their professional fellowship and facilitator fellowship, and for the past several years, I’ve directed and produced several of their mini-documentary projects. I’ve written for Food Equality Initiative’s blog and Free-From Magazine. Currently, I’m the Director of the JITC Hollywood Bureau, an arm of Jew in the City.

All of this is to say, my ethos has always been to follow my passions and give of myself to the causes I care about, whether that’s financially, with my time, or with my expertise. I have always liked to think that others function this way as well — that most of us are driven to make the world a better place than it was when we got here and that we want to dedicate our time and resources to the causes and people we care about.

I also would like to think that the people who are “leading the charge” on these causes are also motivated by a desire to do real good in the world.

But maybe it’s because my work has been with relatively small (or even microscopically small) nonprofits, that I have had these rose-colored glasses.

The big guys, as it turns out, are not always the good guys.

Subscribe now

Right now, the food allergy community is facing a major clash between the biggest leader in the space and everyone else. FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education) has joined forced with the California Restaurant Association to formally oppose pending legislation in California’s senate that would require restaurants to disclose top allergens in their menus like any packaged food. This legislation, the ADDE Act, has support from every other allergy organization as well as the majority of the food allergy community. The bill was drafted by a mother/daughter duo — a nine-year-old girl is learning that her civic activism is being shut down by an organization whose newish CEO earned around $630K.

Why would the foremost organization whose stated mission is to “improve the quality of life and health of those with food allergy through transformative research, education, and advocacy” publicly and formally oppose legislation that would positively impact the lives of Californians with food allergies? Why would they partner with restaurants — who, for obvious reasons, don’t want to have to take on additional liability if their sloppiness kills someone — over families with food allergies?

Their public answer leaves a lot to be desired. They claim to oppose the bill because they want to amend it, but they could have collaborated with the bill writers privately to amend the bill, rather than virtually ensuring it doesn’t make it through the notoriously difficult state senate by formally opposing it with all their power and might. They want to leverage technological solutions…and surprise, surprise…

FARE also recently announced a partnership with EveryBite, a new tech platform that restaurant owners can buy into to get filterable, interactive menus. The platform will enable diners, especially those with food allergies, to search for “safe” menu items, and will help restaurants capitalize on this diner data through upsells and promotions. FARE will partner with the platform to release reports and analysis about the food allergy population.

Let’s say EveryBite was trustworthy — it’s not, in my opinion, as their mobile website still has some Lorum Ipsum text, and I personally wouldn’t trust a company who can’t proofread their own website to verify the ingredient data my life depends on — their platform can never compete with legislation. They will never have every single restaurant adopt this technology, nor can they guarantee that restaurants will keep their menus up to date. There’s no accountability to an opt-in service. And while laws are not perfect by any means, they give food allergy diners recourse if the worst happens. The EU has had labelling laws like this for years, and I found that even though my own allergies aren’t covered by the law, for the most part, the waiters and chefs in European restaurants were by and large more educated about allergies because these laws made food allergies a part of their training and lexicon.

FARE says there’s no financial element to this partnership, and maybe that’s true. But what’s that saying? If a product is free, you’re the product? If a partnership isn’t financially-driven, it’s data-driven. Especially when the partnership’s business model is predicated on selling diner data to restaurants. Seems to me that people with food allergies are just data points to FARE and these “technological solutions.” Not human beings who may want to eat out in restaurants, get the proper information about the food that could be deadly to them when they do, and have accountability in place for restaurants who are negligent.

It would be one thing if FARE were a random organization, but they are the nonprofit leader in the food allergy space. As of their most recent financial information from 2023, they have $31,368,809 in assets — about a dollar for every American with food allergies and their 2023 gross receipts totaled $24,860,809. Compare that to the other big name in food allergy nonprofits, AAFA (Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America), which got 30 smaller organizations to back the ADDE Act alongside them. Their 2023 gross receipts were $7,793,861. And the aforementioned Food Equality Initiative, which is dedicated to providing actual food to people with medically necessary diets like food allergies, had gross receipts of $347,856 — just over half of what FARE’s CEO personally earns.

Donors, who mean well, flock to the big guys, assuming that a large organization will be well-run and effective — and likely because they have more name recognition. But how much are these big organizations really helping the communities they purport to serve?

Would you rather your dollars go to generate reports for a company to use as a sales tool to onboard restaurateurs so they can, in turn, leverage data about the food allergy community for profit?

Or would you rather it go to an organization like FEI that actually helps people who otherwise can’t afford it get access to nutritionally appropriate food that’s safe for their bodies?

Subscribe now

It’s not just the world of food allergies, either. Several months ago, I was invited by the ADL (total assets in 2024: $261,508,202; 2024 contributions $170,898,060) to a “Cocktails and Conversations” event to brainstorm ways to combat antisemitism in Hollywood. A conversation, you’d assume, that would include Jews of all backgrounds, some of whom (gasp!) might keep kosher. The event was held not at one of LA’s wonderful kosher restaurants — lest we support Jewish community business who are often the target of antisemitic attacks (The ADL’s own report cited an 11% increase of antisemitic incidents at Jewish-owned businesses) — but rather at a French brasserie with a very nonkosher menu featuring food like escargot, frog legs, lobster, shrimp, scallops, and oyster. Plenty of Jews across denominations don’t eat nonkosher meats, and there were only 5 vegan options on the menu, including a soup and two salads. Not all Jews who care about antisemitism keep kosher or even strict kosher, but should those that do (like me) have been excluded from the dining experience?

Lest one think this was a one-off, I recently learned that at another event cohosted by UJA (raised $243M in 2023), the main food was not kosher. While they did provide kosher options after some lobbying, it was not an official option, nor the primary option.

That’s not to say you can’t combat antisemitism if you don’t keep kosher. I have no interest in what people observe personally or not. But I find it off-putting that a big-tent organization like the ADL doesn’t automatically make their tent big enough for Jews of all observance levels. I imagine many of their big-ticket donors would find that noteworthy as well.

And yet, organizations like Project Shema, who do boots-on-the-ground work to address contemporary antisemitism through education and trainings, received $150,000 in contributions in 2023, and Jew in the City, where the JITC Hollywood Bureau is housed to actually combat antisemitism in Hollywood, received $334,070 in contributions in 2023 across all its programming. The ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt personally earned $1,168,527 in 2022 according to Charity Navigator (the number also appears as $1,207,978 in CharityWatch and it’s not simple to track his current salary in their very complex financial documents). Either way, the entire contributions to both Project Shema and JITC Hollywood Bureau is only 40% of one leader’s personal salary.

And last I checked, antisemitism is only increasing…so how effective are the old school methods of combatting it?

I’m sure I could dig deeper into any cause — not just the ones I’m personally invested in — and find the same story over and over. The big, household name charities control massive amounts of money and exert their power to control the narratives for the people and communities they serve. That’s not to say they don’t ever do good work, nor that they shouldn’t be compensated for the expertise it takes to run a massive organization — but there’s a lot of money being spent to champion causes and a lot of people still suffering, and the math just isn’t mathing.

What and whose interests are at play when nonprofits control millions of dollars, and their CEOs generate mind-blowing salaries? Who gets a seat at the table when large, rich, and powerful organizations make decisions? How do the people who are directly impacted by a charity’s initiatives get their voices heard and their needs met? How can the little guys with big hearts do their work effectively when met with roadblocks by the big guys with even bigger pocketbooks?

When we give of our time, money, and expertise to charities as volunteers and/or donors and/or advocates, we must remember that we matter as much as the powers-that-be do. We get to decide how aligned an organization really is with their stated mission, and how their actions line up with our good intentions.

We also mustn’t be fooled by the moniker “nonprofit,” because, honestly, that becomes meaningless when salaries for nonprofit leaders are at least 10x higher than the national average salary. Plenty of people in nonprofits are profiting.

And we — the donors and communities who rely on their work — are paying the price.

Subscribe now

If you agree that the ADDE Act is an important safety measure for people with food allergies, lend your voice to the cause to mitigate the negative impact FARE’s opposition will have with the legislators. You can:

1. Contact your California state senator

2. Join a virtual advocacy event

3. Contact me directly if you have ties to California restaurants who may be interested in supporting this bill

4. Post about the bill on social media

5. Share this information with friends and family members who live in California

   I’m not a non-profit, but I like to think my writing and advocacy makes a difference! You can support my work by subscribing to this newsletter. Free subscriptions support this work by making it more visible and amplifying my voice. Paid subscriptions honor the skill and effort this work takes, and help me make this work sustainable.

   Share this post to continue the conversation and spread the word about the ADDE Act!

   Share

This Shabbat is also my daughter’s Hebrew birthday, where she will turn 1 in the Jewish calendar.

My daughter, who is a miracle in so many ways, and has been since she was first conceived through IVF.

As I reflect on this year of motherhood, I know there is so much more to being a mom than how you conceive. And yet. There’s something about my infertility experience — I resisted the word journey for so long, and hate to use it now that I have reached such a wonderful destination, out of respect and empathy for those who have not — that echoes within my motherhood.

In some ways, it’s tugging from the outside. As I was leaving the hospital 36-some hours after delivery, the orderly asked me if I’ll have more kids. First of all, that’s a ridiculous thing to ask a new mom. But also, who knows? I can’t simply answer whether I want more children or not, because I know all too well that wanting is not enough. More and more people ask this question of me. Each time, I am transported back to the clinic, my acupuncturist wrapping up a preparation session to get my body relaxed, the embryologist showing me a scan of the embryo, the doctor and nurse escorting me and my husband to the procedure room, confirming and confirming that there was no mix-up in the lab, opening myself up to the catheter and the ultrasound and the hope…and the 2 times it didn’t work and the 1 time I got the most beautiful, wondrous, baby. A baby who I know wouldn’t be here if the other two had been.

I don’t think other mothers have quite the same gut reaction to a simple family planning question.

A friend who also went through IVF asked me how motherhood was, in the context of some other big life issues she knows I’m struggling with. I started to answer that I didn’t really know — it’s hard and easy, and she said, “It’s hard but not as hard as IVF!” and we laughed with our secret understanding that it’s different to adjust to the ebbs and flows of motherhood, to the changes in your body, to the feeling of being beholden to a schedule and demands that aren’t your own, to the uncertainty and the hope and the fears that you’re doing everything right or maybe not right enough…that it’s different to adjust to all that when you’ve been doing it another form for years.

My body stopped being my own in June of 2022, when I first used a progesterone suppository to see if that would be enough to conceive.

My schedule stopped being my own in September of 2022, when the ultrasounds and blood tests of diagnosis and morning monitoring took precedence over whatever else I had planned.

My surrender to uncertainty and hope and fear started in November 2022, when I finally found the right clinic, and the amazing Dr. Kim told me to let go, to trust him, to remember that he was the expert and I was paying a very high price for his expertise, so the least I could do was focus on everything else that made me me.

Subscribe now

Infertility isn’t simple, nor straightforward, nor one-size-fits-all. For me, it was a deeply painful, wildly isolating time, and its scars still course through my veins. And I am one of the lucky ones, whose IVF experience resulted in a baby to love and hold and nurture and parent!

I am also lucky, because as isolated as I was, as lonely as I was, I did have family and friends who were there for me when I reached out, and kept me grounded. Kept me faithful, and true to my optimistic self. After I had to terminate the first pregnancy, my best friend told me I didn’t get to control the timeline, and that who knows why I needed to have a baby born in another time.

I still don’t know — perhaps I’ll never know — but it isn’t lost on me that the anniversary of terminated pregnancy fell on Reproductive Justice Awareness Shabbat, and my beautiful daughter’s birthday is on Infertility Awareness Shabbat. I feel it’s a reminder that we don’t have a say in how time works or what happens when, and that God has a plan and a sense of humor (maybe it’s all for my Substack content strategy :/ ).

This weekend was chosen by Yesh Tikva because of its proximity to Passover, a time many Jews who struggle with infertility dread because it’s the most child-centered holiday in the Jewish calendar. It’s also a holiday about waiting for the right moment for miracles, growing stronger as a people (family) after prolonged suffering, and surrendering to God. It’s my favorite holiday, for all the usual reasons, but also for deeply personal ones.

My body was literally not designed to celebrate it in full — the food I am most allergic to is horseradish, which is one of the centerpieces of the Seder ritual, the bitter herbs, maror. Many foods can serve as maror, and I am allergic to them all. I could hate this holiday, but instead, I view it as a sign of endurance, and maybe a gift from God that I don’t need a hands-on, experiential activity to understand pain and suffering because I was given empathy in spades and instinctively know how to hold pain with joy. Passover sometimes feels customized just for me, a holiday comprised of everything I love — storytelling, Torah learning, late nights, good food, experimental recipes, questions, curiosity, God, dichtomies, paradoxes, songs, roasted lamb, intricate rituals, family, Jewish peoplehood, bravery, empathy, resilience. Passover is also an important moment in my family history: It is when my grandfather’s family was rounded up to be taken to Auschwitz, where all of them, save him, were murdered. My daughter is the first of his great grandchildren to bear his name, a sign that life goes on, a baby born right at Passover time.

The calendar knows even when we don’t know. The calendar knows that it all makes sense in the end.

Time is taken care of by the universe.

It’s our job to make the space for the people who need it. It’s our job to see their pain, share our pain, and create space for love and healing.

Subscribe now

Yesh Tikva was incredibly supportive of me during my infertility struggles. They helped me find the clinic where I felt like a priority and ultimately had a successful pregnancy. They sent me a care package when I felt completely alone and just needed a present to feel loved. They created a card with a prayer for those struggling with infertility that kept me grounded and spiritual each time I lit Shabbat candles. And they offer so many more services I didn’t take advantage of, but many, many people do. If you are inspired to help people struggling with infertility, please consider donating to their fundraiser in honor of this weekend, or participate in another one of their activities.

I didn’t see the film, but I knew it would win. How could it not? It’s a collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers to tell the story of Palestinian suffering. Oscar bait.

I girded myself for the acceptance speech. Would this be like Jonathan Glazer’s speech last year, when he demonized Israel and minimized the Holocaust while accepting an award for a Holocaust movie about the everyday people who worked at Auschwitz? It’s hard to outdo that grossness, but I was ready.

The Palestinian filmmaker, who was documenting the destruction of his hometown, called out the “ethnic cleansing”of Palestinians. That’s a charged term and a mischaracterization, but one could see how he would get to that ideology, especially when radical settlers who, while a fringe movement, have attacked his enclave with that despicable intent. The Israeli filmmaker then said the following, which many online Jewish activists whose voices I’ve appreciated throughout the last few years of rising antisemitism mistakenly and angrily took as self-hating:

We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together, our voices are stronger. We see each other, the destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end, the Israeli hostages, brutally taken in the crime of Oct. 7, which must be freed. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control. There is a different path, a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people…Why can’t you see that we are intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basil’s people are truly free and safe?”

I was moved by his speech. It was the first and only time someone mentioned the hostages that night, a night devoid of yellow ribbons. The crowd cheered for the release of the hostages, a welcome swell of support from a usually largely silent Hollywood. The Israeli desire for safety was articulated on one of the biggest global stages. The world got to see what people who have been to Israel know to be true - there can be a kinship between the Arabs and Jews, and the people on either side who want the other dead are not a majority.

The reality of Israel is that there is collaboration between Jews and Arabs alongside the terror and war and militarization. The reality of Israel is that many of the people who live there wish for peace, wish for a better path forward, and do small things (like making a movie) to bring that vision to life.

So why are so many of the vocal online Jewish activists angry? Why are some of my group chats enraged?

The argument seems to be as follows: Palestinians rejected peace offers, Israel’s actions are a direct response to terrorism (there was a stabbing as recently as today), the movie used the title of an Israeli song to refer to Palestinian land which is cultural appropriation, and peace is impossible if the counterparts to the process murder babies. Plus, there was a campaign to obscure the documentary We Will Dance Again, about the Nova Massacre, which should have been the one praised at the awards.

Here’s the thing: Hasbara (the PR movement to explain Israel’s positioning and history) will only get you so far. Trading talking points on social media has a time and a place, but that time and place isn’t in responding to nuance.

Does anger get more likes and clicks and engagement? Yes. Is anger a normal feeling after the 514 days, and especially in the wake of the horrors we faced in recent weeks, as some hostages were returned to us alive, some dead, all tortured? We buried our strangled babies last week, so yes, we are angry. But anger is not justification for idiocy.

The Palestinian filmmaker is not the one who rejected the peace deals throughout the course of history. The Israeli filmmaker is not suggesting that Israel cave to terrorist demands. He called on us, the people, to build peace when politicians won’t. To see each others’ humanity.

All the Hasbara in the world can’t explain away someone else’s humanity.

When it’s convenient, Hasbara-niks like to say things about how in Israel, Arabs and Jews work together. When it’s convenient, Hasbara-niks like to highlight that “freeing Palestine” is about freeing innocent Palestinians from Hamas. When it’s convenient, Hasbara-niks like to point to peace activists and show how bold and kind “our side” is.

But when an Israeli who does peace work expresses a desire for a better future, Hasbara-niks call him out with rage.

What a convenient way to get engagement, to further stoke division in a society fueled by rage-baiting tech platforms designed to strip us of our humanity.

The conflict cannot be stripped down to talking points, and it’s not going to be resolved in an Oscars speech.

What we need, now more than ever, is to hope for a better future and find partners to create it. We need to hold tightly onto our humanity and see that same humanity in others. We need to differentiate between the monsters who murdered the Bibas boys and the filmmakers who collaborated across cultural divides. We need to hold space for dual narratives without losing our own.

This is harder work than posting angrily on social media.

This is braver work than spouting facts into a void.

This is agonizing work to do in the throes of grief.

And yet, it is the task we are faced with, so we must rise to meet it.

There is no other way forward.

It’s been on the calendar for years.

And two years ago this Shabbat on the Gregorian calendar, I had to abort a very-wanted and very-unviable fetus that had implanted on my fallopian tubes after an IVF transfer. The swiftness with which I was able to save my life in accordance with my religious beliefs was one that others in less liberal states would not have accessed.

So you can imagine that I intended to write something meaningful about that experience this week.

And then.

It was hell all over again, October 7 all over again, as we witnessed the cruelty of Hamas as they disgraced the bodies of the hostages they had brutally murdered. An elderly peace activist. A baby. A toddler. Their mother, whose body they didn’t return initially.

There are no words to describe the brutality and the injustice.

How can one even fight for justice of any kind in a world so unjust?

Justice, justice you shall pursue. Tzedek tzedek tirdof. This is what we are commanded to do with our lives to retain our land and our peoplehood.

I don’t know how to fight for everything I believe in. Not now, when I’m heartbroken. Not now, when my voice is thin from wailing.

Maybe we had to be commanded to seek justice because it’s so fucking hard.

Maybe we had to be commanded to seek justice to retain our land, and with it, our peoplehood, because seeking justice is what makes us different from the monsters who turned over our (and their) dead with grotesque disregard for human life.

Oded Lifshitz chased justice. In his memory, in his honor, we will too.

In all it’s forms.

Slowly but surely.

I know this: the pain I felt while I waited to find out if the fetus was viable or not, and then if the fetus was going to kill me or not, and then when the Methotrexate killed so many healthy cells as a side effect for weeks, and then as I struggled to conceive again, and then as I held my breath waiting to see if my daughter would be born into this world - that pain was immense, defining, and two years later, no longer crushing.

So maybe this year’s reproductive justice Shabbat has to take a backseat to the gut wrenching pain we are facing to mourn the children and mother and great grandfather who lived.

We can fight later.

The pursuit of justice in an unjust world is timeless.

One of my favorite movies of all time is (500) Days of Summer. If you haven’t seen it (why not???) the gist is that a guy relives the 500 days of his relationship with his dream girl as he grieves the end of the relationship. As is normal with grief, his memories are all out of order, and the movie plays with the rules of visual storytelling to immerse us in his mind. We experience his joy as a musical number, and his heart being shattered by the weight of their relationship fading in a split screen of expectations versus reality. The movie is so great because it’s not a romantic dramedy, it’s an exploration of how time moves when you’re sad.

It’s been 500 days since October 7, 2023, and since that moment, the Jewish people have not experienced linear time.

We danced in honor of Simchat Torah while finding out that our brothers and sisters in the Gaza envelope were being murdered, the dancing abruptly stopping as we shifted to grieve. By October 8, the world was starting to turn on us — it was our fault, the peacemakers who were raped and tortured and burned and killed were oppressors and somehow the brutalities of October 7 wasn’t Hamas starting a war but Israel’s very existence being a constant act of war. Hamas and other terrorist groups took 251 hostages to Gaza, and 73 are still there 500 days later, including a baby and a toddler. Kfir Bibas wasn’t even 500 days old when he was kidnapped.

In the last 500 days, we’ve witnessed military triumphs, Jewish resilience, and community like we’d never experienced before. We’ve lived our lives, celebrating weddings and births and bar mitzvahs and graduations and professional accomplishments and all the good there is to have in life. But all with a giant hole in our hearts. Some days still feel just like October 7, knee-deep in grief, in panic, in fear, in sadness, in horror.

We have cheered when the hostages have been freed, and we are crying endlessly as we learn the degree to which they were tortured, and we fear with all there is to fear what the fate of the remaining living hostages is.

The last 500 days have been a blur. We are in crisis mode, fighting a war in Israel and a war online and a war against the antisemites in our communities and a war against the silent bystanders. Hamas continues to psychologically torture Jews worldwide, and specifically and gravely psychologically torture and physically torture the hostages they are holding. There’s a ceasefire, but they’re still trying to fire rockets, and protestors who claimed to protest for the ceasefire they’ve now gotten are protesting for…what? Our annihilation? The end of Israel? For Jews to go back to the countries we’ve been kicked out of already?

We won’t back down from strengthening our peoplehood, but we also can’t look away from the destruction of Gaza and the calamity that Hamas has wrought upon the people there. We cry for our fallen brothers and sisters and cry out for peace. At least some of us do. Freed hostage Gadi Mozes told his captors he wants peace and when the war ends, he will come back and teach them to farm. We hold hope in our grief, we hold faith in our pain.

We are persistence.

We are broken.

We are strong.

We are mourning.

We are here.

We are.

It will be day 501 soon, and nothing will have changed, except the date in the calendar.

In our hearts, it’s still October 7, 2023, and all the days in between, all at once, and it will still be October 7, 2023 until all of them are home and this war is over. And

maybe then

we can start to properly

grieve.