Phoebe Maltz Bovy

Phoebe Maltz Bovy

@phoebebovy.bsky.social

https://phoebemaltzbovy.substack.com https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/745513/the-last-straight-woman-by-phoebe-maltz-bovy/ Opinion ed., The CJN, contributor columnist, The Globe and Mail. Half of Feminine Chaos.

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Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Canada really is the wonderland. We knock it, and yet.

kevinwglass.bsky.social@kevinwglass.bsky.social

—as well as the lack of disposable income in Britain, thanks to lower salaries. “Things in the UK that are considered luxury items are very common” in America, like a dishwasher and dryer, she adds.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Yes, this sounds bad. I’m not sure who said it didn’t? I think the kind-of-guy would agree that it sounds bad.

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social

This would be a good time for the Zionists who claim to be against West Bank settler violence - which is the only thing this rabbi’s partner was organizing against - to speak out. jewishcurrents.org/emorys-hille...

jewishcurrents.orgEmory Hillel Fired its Rabbi Over Her Fiancé’s Criticism of IsraelHillel cited fear of right-wing donors when it fired Rabbi Nikki Golomb.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

When I’ve regretted Toronto not having these I’m realizing it’s the 2003 (?) version I’m picturing. In NYC they went downhill when they embraced health food. Yet the one in Bruges may be the best place there to sit for lunch with kids.

Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social

Intrigued by the UK’s last remaining Pain Quotidian, and the chain’s transition from “perfectly fine mid-market” to “over-leveraged and making the food worse” to “charging a huge sum to tourists who don’t know better. Is it just going to remain there forever on its one profitable site?

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Absolute best sort of reply 'oh you're not answering me that's because you don't HAVE a reply' as though this were the only possible reason for not posting on command.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

That is alas because the two twitters now each include roastings of the most extreme-case examples of the other.

Thor Benson@thorbenson.bsky.social

Every Twitter post I see on here is part of a series I'm calling "Letters from an insane asylum"

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

The more I think about it, the more I think it’s the ‘this isn’t happening but it is and that’s good’ thing. The question is how it’s going for Jewish and Israeli authors *of books not denouncing (or necessarily addressing!) Zionism.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Anyway, there's an element of 'this thing you say is happening isn't happening, but also it is and it's good that it is.' But yeah someone did need to look into this topic. Someone(s) else still will.

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Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Or: treating it as a data error that ‘how’s it going for Jews with typical politics in publishing’ doesn’t address how it’s going for Jewish authors of books about antizionism who identify that way themselves. If they’re thriving, who exactly is this proving right?

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

If the answer is that you’re welcome in publishing as a Jewish author *if* your politics are not merely not Zionist-self-identified (by some measures most US/half of Canadian Jews) but antizionist (3 people all of whom work at JC, basically), then…?

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

The more I think about it, the more I think it’s the ‘this isn’t happening but it is and that’s good’ thing. The question is how it’s going for Jewish and Israeli authors *of books not denouncing (or necessarily addressing!) Zionism.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Anyway, there's an element of 'this thing you say is happening isn't happening, but also it is and it's good that it is.' But yeah someone did need to look into this topic. Someone(s) else still will.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Very interesting and I'll have more to say later but: some of this is fact-checking, some is also people with fundamentally different politics talking past one another.

Jewish Currents@jewishcurrents.bsky.social

When Josh Lambert and Dan Sinykin tracked publishing deals since 2000, they found—rather than a decline in Jewish literature—that 2025 was the third-best year of the 21st century for book deals that publicly signaled Jewish or Israeli content. jewishcurrents.org/what-pen-ame...

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Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Jews can't say 'we feel discriminated against' and expect eggshell-walking and microaggressions attentiveness. Jews can't even say 'a synagogue was just shot at' and demand these things! So the template for speaking out when hated for who you are simply fails.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Anyway, there's an element of 'this thing you say is happening isn't happening, but also it is and it's good that it is.' But yeah someone did need to look into this topic. Someone(s) else still will.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Very interesting and I'll have more to say later but: some of this is fact-checking, some is also people with fundamentally different politics talking past one another.

Jewish Currents@jewishcurrents.bsky.social

When Josh Lambert and Dan Sinykin tracked publishing deals since 2000, they found—rather than a decline in Jewish literature—that 2025 was the third-best year of the 21st century for book deals that publicly signaled Jewish or Israeli content. jewishcurrents.org/what-pen-ame...

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Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Some Jews post-October 7th have effectively embraced this way of speaking about their experiences. And there *is* data (flawed as all data will be) about Jews as victims of hate crimes versus other groups, for example. But it isn't always about data. Sometimes it is indeed about vibes. Which...

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

...makes sense when you consider what the template had been. But it doesn't work because there's hardly a consensus that Jews are the oppressed as versus the oppressor. Indeed, consider the way the narrative played out with the Jewish (?) woman pretending to be Palestinian thecjn.ca/opinion/pers...

thecjn.caTwo Jews, three apologies: Avi Lewis and Hannah Gann atone, for PalestineWhile Hannah Gann’s lies and apologies are more colourful than Avi Lewis’s, only one of these people is causing harm from an actual platform.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

Very interesting and I'll have more to say later but: some of this is fact-checking, some is also people with fundamentally different politics talking past one another.

Jewish Currents@jewishcurrents.bsky.social

When Josh Lambert and Dan Sinykin tracked publishing deals since 2000, they found—rather than a decline in Jewish literature—that 2025 was the third-best year of the 21st century for book deals that publicly signaled Jewish or Israeli content. jewishcurrents.org/what-pen-ame...

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

What I'm struck by mainly isn't these numbers (which can be found to be basically anything, depending what's included) but rather that there was a long-2010s template for speaking about feelings of discrimination that was not subjected to rigorous fact-checking except by rightwing/heterodox.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

There would *often* be a form of bigotry or violence declared an epidemic, without data backing up that whichever problem, however tragic when it did happen, was happening often. There was a culture of not questioning feelings/lived experience/claims of the marginalized.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
@phoebebovy.bsky.social

It's the thing I just RT'd. Basically: agreed that whether antisemitism harms or doesn't harm Palestinians is to some extent unknowable and definitely immaterial. But there's something interesting in instances when it's cheered on AND seems obviously bad for Palestinians.