31 Dec 2024

What was it like being Jewish in 2024: Franklin Foer, Masha Gessen, Tony Kushner and more

0 Antisemitism Israel

JL;DR SUMMARY Diaspora Jews faced surging antisemitism and a sense of vulnerability in 2024 due to the war in Israel and Gaza. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski.

At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself.
This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude.
Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from.
But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Places mentioned

Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv District, Israel

"Hello, I'm Alison Kaplan-Summer in Tel Aviv with a special year-end edition of the Haaretz podcast."

Israel

"Throughout 2024, as Israel fought its war on multiple fronts, what was happening in the Middle East was in the spotlight."

New York City, New York, United States

"Jews feared was coming down the pike, but we didn't know when it would arise, and we didn't know if this was just a matter of, of filtering our present day experience through all of our historical memories, through all of our rituals, through this giant cycle of Jewish history that we're all so intimately familiar with when golden ages of diasporas arise, and everything seems like it's going so swimmingly."

Gaza, Palestinian Territories

"He sent me a video that he, you know, he was marking a goal, I don't know. And the only thing I saw on the video was his Star of David, like, flying around his neck. And when he came back home, I said, maybe for a few weeks you should, you know, be discreet or take it off."

West Bank, Jerusalem, Israel

"Described how the political and the personal intermingled during a visit to members. Of their family who live in a West Bank settlement. I was compelled to go visit them because of a Facebook post that my cousin made."

Jerusalem, Jericho, Palestinian Territories

Paris, Île-de-France, France

"Paris Rabbi Delphine Orveilleux is one of the most powerful and prominent voices of French Jewry."