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Sundown: Palestinian Stations Raided

Plus meh, and meh

by
Marc Tracy
February 29, 2012

• Israeli soldiers raided and shut down two private Palestinian television stations in the West Bank over alleged technical violations. [WP]

• Israeli soccer star Itay Schechter was subjected to anti-Semitic taunts while practicing for his German club. In Germany. Gevalt. [Deadspin]

• Jonathan Sarna, author of Nextbook Press’s forthcoming Ulysses S. Grant book, on “America’s Haman,” who really didn’t turn out so bad. [NY Jewish Week]

• “Meh” is of Yiddish derivation. Well, it would be. [Boston Globe]

• Fun fact: the first Arabic typewriter ever was ordered by … Theodor Herzl. [JTA Archive]

• The fascinating life of Russian mathematician Yuri Manin. [Simons Foundation]

Some fringe Illinois Republican congressional candidate is basically a Nazi. He even marched in the ‘70s! I thought the best contemporaneous response to that came from then-Weekend Update anchor Dan Akroyd (can’t find the video):

While admitting that the swastika symbol is abhorrent to Jewish citizens, the Illinois Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the American Nazi Party has a constitutional right to display the swastika in a parade down the largely Jewish suburb of Skokie, Illinois. Weekend Update, in the interest of fair and impartial journalism, would like to remain neutral on this matter—and if any American Nazi members would like to come to our newsroom, we’ll gladly bend each and every one of them in the shape of a swastika, free of charge.

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