Saturday Mezze: ++ with Corrected Links ++ Four Not-So-Easy Pieces: Harvard Jewish Scholars / Timothy Snyder / Ariella Aïsha Azoulay / Marilynne Robinson
Mezze - المزة - a wide selection of small dishes served as appetizers, including such delicacies as hummus, cheese, eggplant, brains, stuffed grape leaves, calamari, and much more
Family, Friends, and Colleagues,
Yesterday I promised to send you three pieces to read that I feel are important. You're getting four instead. From my earliest days as a photojournalist I quickly learned to be as open as possible to new ideas, new sources, because, as Rumi writes This being human is a guest house / Every morning a new arrival / A joy, a depression, a meanness / some momentary awareness comes / as an unexpected visitor...
I hope that reading these shared pieces - written by thinkers whose work and instincts I admire and follow - might expand your understanding of the issues I care about, how I'm informed... OTOH No way do I mean to suggest that any of the authors whom I quote, or the platforms that publish them, endorse my opinions —
I endorse them. They’re free to endorse whomever they wish!
Salamaat,
Robert
Harvard Jewish Scholars File Amicus Brief With the US Supreme Court
I know the work of some of these scholars. They are raising the bar for everyone.
"... We are part of a group of 27 Jewish scholars of Jewish studies who have filed an amicus brief in Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration. We submitted the brief, drafted by the civil rights attorney Yaman Salahi, because we support the university’s fight against government overreach. Yet in doing so, the institution has committed a different kind of discrimination – one that violates federal civil rights law. We reject Harvard’s troubling assumption that being Jewish necessitates supporting Israel, or that criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza constitutes antisemitism..."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/12/harvard-jews-srael-discriminatory
"Antisemitism" and Antisemitism by Timothy Snyder
Timothy Synder’s clarity is unmatched. His books have a place of prominence on my shelves.
"... Antisemitism is a terrible problem in our battered world, and it is worse from year to year, moment to moment. There are antisemites among Americans, among American young people, and among college students. This is no reason, however, to attack higher education or undermine the legal and moral basis of the American republic..."
https://tinyurl.com/4dyc7k4z
The Interview: Ariella Aïsha Azoulay
An amazing interview; I hope you have the time to digest it all.
"... Jews were protected communities under the ummah – the Islamic nation – since its inception. The destruction of their presence within the ummah is the outcome of several colonial projects but also part of the Euro-American campaign of violence that, in the wake of the Second World War, invented the Judeo-Christian tradition in an effort to absolve Europe of its crimes against Jews and finally ‘solve’ the ‘Jewish problem’ through the sacrifice of Palestine and the conversion of Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians into the enemies of the Jews. The challenge and goal of the book, though, is not to come out with the ultimate category to designate an identity but to make the Jewish Muslim world – a world in which the Jews were Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, Amazigh, Andalusian – imaginable again ..."
https://artreview.com/the-interview-ariella-aisha-azoulay/
Notes From An Occupation by Marilynne Robinson
A loved one introduced me to Robinson’s work years ago. I try not to miss anything she writes.
"... Homegrown insurrectionists would have special knowledge of a culture’s vulnerabilities and sensitivities. They would know how to induce corrosive shame, for example. They might have resentments specific to the culture’s measures of status and accomplishment, which would add piquancy to the neutering of centers of influence. None of this is normal, though it has consolidated itself under cover of the customary transfer of power. It claims a mandate to transform the country fundamentally, to return it to its competitors, if there should be another election, irreversibly changed and damaged..."
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/06/26/notes-from-an-occupation-marilynne-robinson/
NB If you're not a subscriber to NYRB as I am you will only be able to read a few paragraphs of this essay. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism for me to send a 'guest' link as one can with WP or NYT. HOWEVER, if you look carefully you can sign up to read that one column for free.
Salamaat,
Robert
theother.azzi@gmail.com
Let me know what you think