Sigh In A Storm

I won the Toronto Fringe Festival’s 24-hour Playwriting Contest a few years back from a field of over a hundred entries. Got a sold-out reading at the festival and people absolutely loved it; one of the best nights of my life, honestly! We were going to pursue a future for it, but then COVID happened. But it’s currently getting a potential second wind at another theatre company, so fingers crossed.

There are Jews who have European backgrounds and *some* of them have benefited from eurocentrism or being white passing, but in moments of crisis or need the social tides that create white privilege have never seen Jewish people as part of that group. Whiteness is a social category which has changed with time and attitudes and, at least for now, it has never and still doesn't include Jewish people.

Continuing to use the term "white Jews" is ignorant at best and harmful at worst. Even converts once converted are othered and can no longer rely on any previous white background to save them if they are identified as Jewish.

She is currently in the process of being forced out of her job by open, unrepentant antisemitism (literally had HR tell her, "your feelings aren't based on reality" and chide her for reporting her immediate supervisor's antisemitic actions, because she didn't consider how it might upset the supervisor or harm the supervisor's career in a conversation that started, "we can't have this conversation if you're recording it.) She has concluded that they covered their tracks well enough that trying to hold her place of work accountable would be more difficult and stressful than she can handle.

Fortunately, she's going to be okay--the antisemitism in her field is open and blatant enough that all the Jews are banding together to protect one another, so she already has another job lined up.

But if there is anyone who could be considered a "white Jew," it's this woman.

judaism predates the concept of race. when you convert to judaism you become wholly jewish in every way that matters, both to jews and to antisemites, because we are a people. we arent a race, we arent an ethnicity, hell we arent a concept that the western world seems to be able to comprehend. there is no real translation in english for עם.

PBS and NPR were never beholden to the US government.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created so that the US government could fund public media without public media being influenced by the government. It was a private non-profit funded by the government, not a part of the government itself. This is by design. This was a good thing. It meant that even small local TV and radio stations, could afford to create media for the public good, without government influence.

This meant TV and radio stations for poor communities. For non-english speaking communities. For rural communities. For minorities. It meant that free and accessible media could be created for everyone, even if the government didn't like it.

That's why conservatives defunded it.

Because if they couldn't control it, and if it helped the people they hated, then they would have to destroy it. Do you really think that a fascist government would defund their own propaganda machine?

Not only is the idea that PBS before being defunded was propaganda wrong, but ignores the fact that defunding it is going to have long-term negative effects on vulnerable communities.

Ultimates #22 (2026)

“we don’t sell that here, sorry.”

“but it says hot coffee on the sign.”

“yeah, sorry, we aren’t in charge of the sign.”

“it says hot coffee right there on the sign.”

idk why corporate puts up signage for things we don’t sell, or why that guy thought we didn’t know about the sign, or why he thought we would have hot coffee if he pointed out the sign again

-XYZ is Catholic

-XYZ is bisexual.

-XYZ is Muslim.

also wikipedia:

-XYZ is of Jewish descent.

-XYZ has Jewish parents.

but later on they clarify that she freed herself from being “ethnically charged” so it’s all good now