From the autumn into spring of 2016-17—a period in which the U.S. was adjusting to its 45th president—I ran the female-focused ‘Sisterhood’ section for The Forward, the venerable New York-based publication, which was figuring out how to reach a digital audience as its newsprint era wound down.

And so, during that time—day after day and week after week—living up to the job description required consistently covering the goings-on of a certain Ivanka Trump.

She had become, you see, the most famous Jewish woman in America—if not the world. It was all a bit difficult to parse, though, because on the one hand, converts to Judaism are Jews, and on the other… her father was settling into the White House. Prior to that year, Ivanka was little more than a name that might be on some clothes at a ‘designer’ discount store. Anyway.

The whole thing seems quaint in comparison with the most visible Jewish woman of the U.S. conservative movement today. Laura Loomer, a member of Trump’s inner circle, rumoured to be a member of his very inner circle if you catch my meaning, has publicly identified herself as a Jewish lady. Just like moi, except, I’d like to think, different in some respects.

Loomer has managed to do the unthinkable and get called out for racism by such figures as Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. You see, Trump warned that the White House would smell like curry if Kamala Harris becomes president. Harris is of half-Indian background, and do you know the background of Trump VP pick JD Vance’s wife? This is what, in normal times, would be called not just racism but bad form.

Times are not so normal, however. Donald Trump used his debate with Harris to spread rumours that Haitian migrants in Ohio are eating pets. Why? For the same reason he picked a running mate with a penchant for insulting childless women (and, arguably, women generally). A running mate whose remarks about “cat ladies” caused enough of a stir that Taylor Swift referenced them in her endorsement of the opposing ticket.

Within the broader cultural-political context, then, there’s nothing strange about a Jewish woman flirting with white supremacy, or really anyone of any heritage doing or saying anything. We are post-facts, post-truth, and all that.

Meanwhile in Canada, we have a Montreal-based social media personality named Rachel Gilmore, who appears to be of the progressive left—in line with her job advocating that corporations stop doing business with content creators who don’t abide by her politics—but is, I think, out spreading the gospel that symmetrical non-ethnic-looking white women are superior. I am, as they say, happy for that for her.

The bonkersness of the U.S. Republican party, though, is old news. I—American and Canadian—am inured. What did still manage to surprise me was the decision, on the part of some self-styled defenders of Israel (I personally think Israel would be better off without their help), in Canada and the States, to proclaim standard-issue Jewish Studies book displays to be antisemitic propaganda.

The post above is indeed funny—I have to agree with you there, pronouns-and-Palestinian-flag-in-bio Jewish guy—because Kurtz has inadvertently called Bibi a Nazi, in the name of opposing criticism of Israel.

There’s also the question of whether Mein Kampf itself should be in a library and it’s like, yes, libraries have books in them, including hateful ones. As one of no small number of Jews whose doctoral dissertation involved researching antisemitism of yore, you do kind of need to find the antisemitic texts to study them. But also, and more to the point: this is not a display of Nazi paraphernalia, but a very normal table of Jewish-interest literature.

There are similar reading-comprehension issues in Eyal Yakoby’s post about some books on display at Penn’s bookstore:

There are two separate questions here. One is whether books by among others Noa Tishby—”Israel’s former Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism”—could possibly be interpreted as “propaganda books demonizing Israel.” (An easy no.)

The other is whether this display could plausibly constitute the entire history section of an Ivy League university’s bookstore. The answer here, too, is not a chance. This is—I can state with confidence, from Toronto, without visiting this bookstore in person—a featured display within the history-book section of a bookstore. This is obvious from the photo itself. It’s misleading at best to suggest Penn has decided that the entirety of “history” consists of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, let alone that it has done so in a way that only showcases antizionist interpretations.

There’s a partial truth, as is so often the case. Yes, Jewish matters, specifically pertaining to Israel, are massively over-represented in terms of the outside world’s interest. And yes, as Andrew Koss has argued, many Jewish Studies academics are less than enthusiastic about Zionism. So if you go to the bookstore or whatever you probably will find more documentation—much of it by Jewish authors!—of Israel’s failings.

The big Jewish media story of the week, however, is the tumult over at the Jewish Chronicle, Britain’s answer to The Canadian Jewish News. (In strict chronological terms, they came first, but you get the idea.) The paper had been running articles of questionable accuracy by a freelancer, Elon Perry, with a similarly hazy CV.

Some of its more prominent contributors—authors and journalists whose very presence in a publication gave it credibility—have resigned.

Because things have a way of spiralling, there are now posts from people of an antisemitic persuasion taking glee in the fact that The Zionists (a.k.a. Jews) are being revealed to be the lying, conniving genocidal maniacs they knew we were all along, as well as posts from people who see it as antisemitism to cast too close a glance at the goings-on of the Jewish parochial press.

It almost seems as if there could be a third position, one that doesn’t take ineptitude or shadiness (whichever it turns out to be) at any one Jewish organization as an indictment of the Jewish people. Here’s hoping.

For more original Jewish culture commentary from Phoebe Maltz Bovy subscribe to the free Bonjour Chai newsletter on Substack.

The CJN’s senior editor Phoebe Maltz Bovy can be reached at [email protected], not to mention @phoebebovy on Bluesky, and @bovymaltz on X. She is also on The CJN’s weekly podcast Bonjour Chai.