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Giffords, Still Critical, Gives Thumbs-Up

And more on the story

by
Marc Tracy
January 11, 2011
Rep. Giffords discusses her Judaism in 2007.(JOI)
Rep. Giffords discusses her Judaism in 2007.(JOI)

Let’s just do this in round-up form, shall we?

• Rep. Gabrielle Giffords managed to give a thumbs-up. Back atcha. [AP/Vos Iz Neias?]

• Just how and how much Giffords will recover depends on several factors, none more so than the exact path the bullet took through her brain. This fact has not yet been disclosed. [WP]

• President Obama phoned the families of the victims and several others, including Giffords’s rabbi, Stephanie Aaron; he plans to travel to Tucson later this week. [ABC News]

• Is alleged shooter Jared Lee Loughner’s mother Jewish? A closer look. [Laura Rozen]

• Was Loughner motivated by anti-Semitism? His motives are probably too murky and mushy to tell, argues Eric Alterman. Should he have had access to the 31-caliber magazine he used? That is an easier question to answer. [The Daily Beast]

• If you are a Jew worried that anti-Semitism played a role in the attack, then you are probably not close to the only one. [TNR]

• Giffords staffer Gabe Zimmerman was in fact not Jewish, as I reported yesterday, the Eulogizer clarifies. [The Scroll]

• Someone calls attention to the fact that Giffords, whom nearly all Jews have claimed as one of their own—and who indeed very much identified as Jewish—is Jewish only patrilineally and intermarried, and therefore “that Giffords would be a second-class citizen in Israel.” [Jewschool]

• Above: Giffords speaking about her heritage at a 2007 Jewish Outreach Institute conference. [JOI]

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