Abe Silberstein
@abesilbe.bsky.social
Ph.D. Student in History and Jewish Studies at New York University. Interested in modern political history, labor, migration, diaspora, and religion.
Pinned
Abe Silberstein
@abesilbe.bsky.social
· Aug 19
After a long and productive break, I think I am ready to use social media in moderation again. Or until I delete again. Anyway, here goes.
"With his nuanced response, Mamdani is showing that he is trying to represent that city. He is not offering reassurance to one side by abandoning the other; instead, he is straining to hold multiple truths at once."
What does Mamdani's response to synagogue protests mean for Jews? No one will like the answer.
Zohran Mamdani's response to a protest outside Park East synagogue satisfied no one. But it might speak to a crucial truth about Jewish life.
forward.com
November 26, 2025 at 11:32 PM
"With his nuanced response, Mamdani is showing that he is trying to represent that city. He is not offering reassurance to one side by abandoning the other; instead, he is straining to hold multiple truths at once."
A strange headline for a story that contradicts it. Beinart has never supported the academic boycott. When he started boycotting settlements, I think he may have even cheekily called it "Zionist BDS."
Pro-Boycott writer Peter Beinart faces BDS backlash over Tel Aviv University event
Despite Saying He Supports 'Many Forms' of Boycott Against Israel, Beinart Defended His Decision to Speak at the Event, Emphasizing the Importance of Engaging With Israelis. He Previously Criticized B...
www.haaretz.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:18 PM
A strange headline for a story that contradicts it. Beinart has never supported the academic boycott. When he started boycotting settlements, I think he may have even cheekily called it "Zionist BDS."
I completely forgot there is a conspiracy theory that JVP was founded by non-Jewish Arabs, and the origins for this is in Hatem Bazian hitting a share on twitter button for a JVP petition.
November 25, 2025 at 7:15 PM
I completely forgot there is a conspiracy theory that JVP was founded by non-Jewish Arabs, and the origins for this is in Hatem Bazian hitting a share on twitter button for a JVP petition.
Reposted by Abe Silberstein
While the situation in Gaza remains desperate, the biggest short term risk is in the West Bank. The settlers'+IDF relentless campaign of terror, and the PA weakness could lead to sudden collapse and dramatic escalation in ethnic cleansing and carnage.
Sobering findings of @ecfrmena.bsky.social report by @tahanimustafa.bsky.social & @hlovatt.bsky.social about Palestinian politics in the West Bank. ecfr.eu/publication/...
November 25, 2025 at 5:04 PM
While the situation in Gaza remains desperate, the biggest short term risk is in the West Bank. The settlers'+IDF relentless campaign of terror, and the PA weakness could lead to sudden collapse and dramatic escalation in ethnic cleansing and carnage.
Reposted by Abe Silberstein
Great example of what I was talking about, here is Hen Mazzig saying something he knows is untrue but that he thinks you'll believe.
In 1988 the Jordanians ceded its claims on East Jerusalem and the West Bank with the expectation that the Palestinians would soon receive their state.
In 1988 the Jordanians ceded its claims on East Jerusalem and the West Bank with the expectation that the Palestinians would soon receive their state.
November 24, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Great example of what I was talking about, here is Hen Mazzig saying something he knows is untrue but that he thinks you'll believe.
In 1988 the Jordanians ceded its claims on East Jerusalem and the West Bank with the expectation that the Palestinians would soon receive their state.
In 1988 the Jordanians ceded its claims on East Jerusalem and the West Bank with the expectation that the Palestinians would soon receive their state.
Reposted by Abe Silberstein
The Israeli police raided today the Palestinian National Theatre in East Jerusalem, and prevented a children play from going ahead.
November 24, 2025 at 4:59 PM
The Israeli police raided today the Palestinian National Theatre in East Jerusalem, and prevented a children play from going ahead.
Reposted by Abe Silberstein
Everything wrong with political journalism in one graf. This is not a policy proposal that exists but that doesn’t matter, what matters is that someone “won” by asking it bsky.app/profile/larr...
What a strange framing and characterization. How does one describe his blatantly dishonest, racist question about taxes as “press[ing] the Mayor-elect on his policy proposals”? In what way does this lying troll emerge as a “winner“?
November 24, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Everything wrong with political journalism in one graf. This is not a policy proposal that exists but that doesn’t matter, what matters is that someone “won” by asking it bsky.app/profile/larr...
Why stop at taking away phones, or high school? Only send them to colleges where they will hear the party line and be protected from reality. Make sure they're transported from home to school in windowless cars. Lock them in the basement. Screen all potential friends and partners for wrongthink.
Former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz says Jewish students shouldn’t have smartphones until they finish high school — so they don’t see the “carnage” Israel and the U.S. have carried out in Gaza.
Video: Mel via X (@Villgecrazylady)
Video: Mel via X (@Villgecrazylady)
November 24, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Why stop at taking away phones, or high school? Only send them to colleges where they will hear the party line and be protected from reality. Make sure they're transported from home to school in windowless cars. Lock them in the basement. Screen all potential friends and partners for wrongthink.
Reposted by Abe Silberstein
Elon Musk donated $277 million to Trump so he could steal the federal government’s data, dismantle the nation’s infrastructure, and stop foreign aid from going to nonwhite people. It’s a quid pro quo breathtaking in scope, corruption, and damage, & completely unprecedented in American history.
Bye bye, “DOGE”.
It no longer exists as a “centralized entity”, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/world/us/dog...
It no longer exists as a “centralized entity”, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/world/us/dog...
November 23, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Elon Musk donated $277 million to Trump so he could steal the federal government’s data, dismantle the nation’s infrastructure, and stop foreign aid from going to nonwhite people. It’s a quid pro quo breathtaking in scope, corruption, and damage, & completely unprecedented in American history.
Reposted by Abe Silberstein
The media doesn't treat the Trump regime's allegiances with neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes as antisemitism, but Zohran's belief in Palestinian liberation is treated as antisemitism.
It's completely backwards and insane. Zohran will protect American Jews; the fascists will target American Jews.
It's completely backwards and insane. Zohran will protect American Jews; the fascists will target American Jews.
WELKER: What is your message to Jewish New Yorkers who feel you won't be tough enough in your response to antisemitism?
MAMDANI: That I am looking forward to being the next mayor and fulfilling the commitment I've made to Jewish New Yorkers to not only protect them but to celebrate and cherish them
MAMDANI: That I am looking forward to being the next mayor and fulfilling the commitment I've made to Jewish New Yorkers to not only protect them but to celebrate and cherish them
November 23, 2025 at 5:21 PM
The media doesn't treat the Trump regime's allegiances with neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes as antisemitism, but Zohran's belief in Palestinian liberation is treated as antisemitism.
It's completely backwards and insane. Zohran will protect American Jews; the fascists will target American Jews.
It's completely backwards and insane. Zohran will protect American Jews; the fascists will target American Jews.
I hope someone better equipped than me responds to Susan Neiman's awful essay on "wokeness" in the New York Review of Books in which she casually butchers postmodernism, postcolonialism, Agamben, the history of post-dictatorship Chile, and—worst of all—trivializes struggles for dignity and equality.
November 22, 2025 at 11:11 PM
I hope someone better equipped than me responds to Susan Neiman's awful essay on "wokeness" in the New York Review of Books in which she casually butchers postmodernism, postcolonialism, Agamben, the history of post-dictatorship Chile, and—worst of all—trivializes struggles for dignity and equality.
Something here is weird. David Koch has been dead for several years and his name is on the ballet theater, not the opera house.
Protesters Interrupt a Performance of ‘Carmen’ at the Met Opera
www.nytimes.com
November 22, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Something here is weird. David Koch has been dead for several years and his name is on the ballet theater, not the opera house.
Reposted by Abe Silberstein
Supreme Court justices worried Bolsonaro would flee to the US embassy. Yet again, the US is a risk to global democracy and a place that the world's dictators see as a potential refuge from accountability.
veja.abril.com.br/brasil/morae...
veja.abril.com.br/brasil/morae...
Ao ordenar prisão, Moraes viu risco de fuga de Bolsonaro para embaixada dos EUA
'Rememoro que o réu, conforme apurado nestes autos, planejou a fuga para a embaixada da Argentina', disse Moraes
veja.abril.com.br
November 22, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Supreme Court justices worried Bolsonaro would flee to the US embassy. Yet again, the US is a risk to global democracy and a place that the world's dictators see as a potential refuge from accountability.
veja.abril.com.br/brasil/morae...
veja.abril.com.br/brasil/morae...
With limited powers Zohran Mamdani is trying to defy the hegemonic political economy in NYC that has held, with the slight exception of De Blasio, since the late '70s. Trump or Hochul can each easily screw him, the way Cuomo screwed De Blasio. That may happen anyway, but that is yesterday's context.
November 22, 2025 at 2:21 PM
With limited powers Zohran Mamdani is trying to defy the hegemonic political economy in NYC that has held, with the slight exception of De Blasio, since the late '70s. Trump or Hochul can each easily screw him, the way Cuomo screwed De Blasio. That may happen anyway, but that is yesterday's context.
Reposted by Abe Silberstein
Tbh this is why the talking point of "there are 2 million Arab citizens in Israel, and they're treated equally and with respect!" always boils my blood. Any cursory examination of the history Bedouin Palestinians in Israel will show you immediately why this is not true.
In another astounding ruling, the Israeli supreme court orders the eviction of Beduin Palestinian Ras Jaraba village to make way for the expansion of the city of Dimona. 500 residents, whose ancestors have lived on the land since Ottoman time, will be expelled to establish a Jewish neighbourhood.
November 20, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Tbh this is why the talking point of "there are 2 million Arab citizens in Israel, and they're treated equally and with respect!" always boils my blood. Any cursory examination of the history Bedouin Palestinians in Israel will show you immediately why this is not true.
Reposted by Abe Silberstein
your movement has to be like 8 levels removed from reality to think that some of the starving kids in gaza also having serious medical conditions makes Israel look better. it's completely insane. they just think because it's an additional fact it's somehow exonerating.
Jewish Federations applauds Olivia Reingold, a staff writer at Bari Weiss's Free Press, as she victory laps her (ghoulish and erroneous) reporting that some of the children Israel was starving to death and denying medical aid to in Gaza had pre-existing conditions.
November 19, 2025 at 5:29 PM
your movement has to be like 8 levels removed from reality to think that some of the starving kids in gaza also having serious medical conditions makes Israel look better. it's completely insane. they just think because it's an additional fact it's somehow exonerating.
Maybe let's not say the "Epstein class?"
“'Are you on the side of the forgotten Americans or on the side of the Epstein class?' That seems to me a powerful challenge and a fair question. What comes after Trump? A party, a movement, and a candidate with a compelling answer to this challenge and question." www.thebulwark.com/p/the-epstei...
The Epstein Saga Has Only Just Begun
The next phase will involve ensuring Trump complies with the disclosures. Let us distrust and verify.
www.thebulwark.com
November 19, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Maybe let's not say the "Epstein class?"
"According to Leo Ferguson, a member of the Black Jewish Liberation Collective’s steering committee, another troubling post–Oct. 7 trend is that people who voice criticism of Israel are increasingly labeled 'fake Jews.' Black Jews often already face that accusation because of their race."
Some Black Jews feel more ostracized from Jewish communities post-Oct. 7, survey finds
In a survey of 104 Black Jews, 62% of respondents reported “increased marginalization” in a Jewish community or space after Oct. 7.
forward.com
November 19, 2025 at 4:12 AM
"According to Leo Ferguson, a member of the Black Jewish Liberation Collective’s steering committee, another troubling post–Oct. 7 trend is that people who voice criticism of Israel are increasingly labeled 'fake Jews.' Black Jews often already face that accusation because of their race."
The Walter Benjamin premium.
At $236.4 Million, Portrait by Klimt is Second Most Expensive Painting Sold at Auction
www.nytimes.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:29 AM
The Walter Benjamin premium.
Reposted by Abe Silberstein
NARRATOR: Roth quite clearly did not name call & we need our leaders to stop granting <every bad faith premise> of the far right authoritarians' lawless assault on higher education before we push back.
November 18, 2025 at 10:10 PM
NARRATOR: Roth quite clearly did not name call & we need our leaders to stop granting <every bad faith premise> of the far right authoritarians' lawless assault on higher education before we push back.
Ganz does not disappoint.
November 18, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Ganz does not disappoint.
No, no, no!
Raskin: We are a big tent. We must be a huge, vast tent. I say this is a party that’s got room for Marjorie Taylor Greene if she wants to come over.
November 17, 2025 at 5:42 PM
No, no, no!
Since it was a campaign pledge, and Mamdani is presumably more serious about them than your typical NYC politician, I think he needs to make a good faith effort to keep Tisch. But she needs to agree to implement Mamdani's policies to the letter. The Mayor is not the one who should be compromising.
Keeping Jessica Tisch as NYPD commissioner is an unforced error for reasons concerning her specifically, the NYPD broadly, and the moment that we're in politically. An ICE collaborator cannot be trusted to protect New Yorkers. @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social should make her a different offer.
Mamdani's NYC Can't Afford NYPD Commissioner Tisch
With ICE on its way, how can we expect an ICE collaborator to protect New Yorkers? Here's a compromise: make Tisch sanitation commissioner again
www.forever-wars.com
November 17, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Since it was a campaign pledge, and Mamdani is presumably more serious about them than your typical NYC politician, I think he needs to make a good faith effort to keep Tisch. But she needs to agree to implement Mamdani's policies to the letter. The Mayor is not the one who should be compromising.
As I was saying, Epstein seems to have attracted successful people who thought they deserved more money than they were being paid.
November 17, 2025 at 5:09 PM
As I was saying, Epstein seems to have attracted successful people who thought they deserved more money than they were being paid.
Late millennial confession: I discovered Tom Petty through this movie.
i'm watching the 2008 HBO movie RECOUNT about the 2000 presidential election like i'm mark wahlberg talking about 9/11. "yeah if i had been there, gore woulda been president"
November 16, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Late millennial confession: I discovered Tom Petty through this movie.