Navigate to News section

Sundown: The Undiplomatic Diplomat

Plus Wisse kvells over Yiddish, Israel sells itself, and more

by
Marc Tracy
February 17, 2010

• The five U.S. congressmen in J Street’s Mideast delegation were “puzzled” by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon’s refusal to meet with them, and his labeling J Street as not “pro-Israeli”. (But why would they expect a diplomat to have good people skills?) [Haaretz]

• The Israeli government launched a new P.R. campaign designed to empower Israel’s fans around the world to win converts to the country’s cause. The campaign’s (Hebrew-language) Website generally puts a conservative gloss on political issues. [NYT]

• Ruth R. Wisse—author of Nextbook Press’s Jews and Power–celebrates the English language’s debt to Yiddish and worries about Yiddish’s future in the academy. [Minding the Campus]

• Martin Grossman, the convicted murderer whose death sentence was protested by many ultra-Orthodox groups around the world, was put to death yesterday in Florida. [Arutz Sheva]

• A former AIPAC official argues that, contra what some on the right say, President Obama has actually been more of an AIPAC president than a J Street one; and this is so, the official adds, because of domestic politics. [Foreign Policy]

• How they remember the six million in Texas. Or how The Onion imagines they do, anyway. [The Onion]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.