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.
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.
Pinned
Attempt number lost count of making sense of what made the 2010s so 2010s-ish (brief thoughts, no paywall): phoebemaltzbovy.substack.com/p/sensibilit...
If the administration imagines a general public siding *against* the little kid who wants his Spider Man backpack back, it is way off, or maybe I'm too generous about the general public.
“[Liam] keeps asking about that hat and that backpack that are in the picture,” the congressman said. “I think they took that from him.”
www.cnn.com/2026/01/28/u...
www.cnn.com/2026/01/28/u...
Rep. Joaquin Castro meets with the 5-year-old boy held with his father at a Texas detention facility | CNN
US Rep. Joaquin Castro met Wednesday with Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old Minnesota boy taken from his family’s suburban Minneapolis driveway last week after federal agents apprehended his father, t...
www.cnn.com
January 29, 2026 at 3:33 PM
If the administration imagines a general public siding *against* the little kid who wants his Spider Man backpack back, it is way off, or maybe I'm too generous about the general public.
A further thought on this: the memory-holing of the 2010s ('it was just the Oberlin sandwich thing, it was right-wing hype') is jarring *from Canada,* where it is still, sort of, the 2010s.
Yeah this lost me at "Jewish literature in Canada must" no there is no "must" this is so ridiculous
Quite the pro-censorship screed. I suspect Adam Louis-Klein would have a field day with this essay.
tnq.ca/story/land-b...
tnq.ca/story/land-b...
January 29, 2026 at 3:00 PM
A further thought on this: the memory-holing of the 2010s ('it was just the Oberlin sandwich thing, it was right-wing hype') is jarring *from Canada,* where it is still, sort of, the 2010s.
Reposted by Phoebe Maltz Bovy
📣 Join our Editorial team! 📣 The CJN is hiring a news reporter to help us deliver thought leadership on subjects that matter to Jewish life in Canada.
Head to our LinkedIn page for the full role description: t.co/JhwxIOkwyL
Head to our LinkedIn page for the full role description: t.co/JhwxIOkwyL
January 29, 2026 at 12:08 AM
📣 Join our Editorial team! 📣 The CJN is hiring a news reporter to help us deliver thought leadership on subjects that matter to Jewish life in Canada.
Head to our LinkedIn page for the full role description: t.co/JhwxIOkwyL
Head to our LinkedIn page for the full role description: t.co/JhwxIOkwyL
Definitely the most important thing going on: I keep getting 'So and so followed you back' notifications from people I'd assumed were my mutuals. So uh, hello to you, my periodic unfollowers.
January 28, 2026 at 9:29 PM
Definitely the most important thing going on: I keep getting 'So and so followed you back' notifications from people I'd assumed were my mutuals. So uh, hello to you, my periodic unfollowers.
Whenever I see Land Back I wonder if someone is voluntarily parting with their home, rented or owned.
Kreuter doesn’t paint of picture of how he envisions his Land Back working, nor does he acknowledge the obvious fact that most of us Jews came to places like Canada, the U.S. or Israel seeking refuge because it wasn’t safe to exist as a powerless minority where we were. 3/
January 28, 2026 at 8:39 PM
Whenever I see Land Back I wonder if someone is voluntarily parting with their home, rented or owned.
Reposted by Phoebe Maltz Bovy
I really hate these articles. Like... do you think it would be considered cool by 18 year olds if I, a 40 year old woman, consciously tried to dress like a teenager
January 28, 2026 at 8:02 PM
I really hate these articles. Like... do you think it would be considered cool by 18 year olds if I, a 40 year old woman, consciously tried to dress like a teenager
www.vulture.com/article/jewi... Deeper as in, more works cited. Not a piece I endorse but the one this one was a less-strong version of.
January 28, 2026 at 7:12 PM
www.vulture.com/article/jewi... Deeper as in, more works cited. Not a piece I endorse but the one this one was a less-strong version of.
Yeah this lost me at "Jewish literature in Canada must" no there is no "must" this is so ridiculous
Quite the pro-censorship screed. I suspect Adam Louis-Klein would have a field day with this essay.
tnq.ca/story/land-b...
tnq.ca/story/land-b...
"Land Back Here and Land Back There: A Jewish Literary Call" by - The New Quarterly Digital Edition
We can choose better. We can remember what it meant to live in diaspora, to not have temporal power, to not have the nuclear codes, the torture blacksites, the sniper’s scope on the child’s forehead, ...
tnq.ca
January 28, 2026 at 6:47 PM
Yeah this lost me at "Jewish literature in Canada must" no there is no "must" this is so ridiculous
Well, it was successful at doing *something* but unclear whether the something was all that helpful (yes I have read articles and the relevant book by Dara Horn)
I feel like post WWII the campaign for remembrance of the Holocaust was so successful that it became the de facto analogy for evil done by man, especially in the West.
January 28, 2026 at 6:20 PM
Well, it was successful at doing *something* but unclear whether the something was all that helpful (yes I have read articles and the relevant book by Dara Horn)
I keep trying to articulate this and not getting at it quite right. Because it's not that nothing is analogous to things Jews do/have had done to us. It's that this is a huge world with many other people/situations and it *is* antisemitism for us to be so central symbolically.
It should be possible, certainly if you're not Jewish yourself, to talk about events in the news that are not Jewish-related without constantly analogizing to instances where Jews were either victims or victimizers.
January 28, 2026 at 4:04 PM
I keep trying to articulate this and not getting at it quite right. Because it's not that nothing is analogous to things Jews do/have had done to us. It's that this is a huge world with many other people/situations and it *is* antisemitism for us to be so central symbolically.
If I had the brain for figuring out summer camp signups I would be in a different and far more lucrative line of work than 'writer'
In my day, there were not 1000000 different kinds of summer camp week by week each with its own cutthroat signup process and coordination with siblings and their friends.
January 28, 2026 at 2:10 PM
If I had the brain for figuring out summer camp signups I would be in a different and far more lucrative line of work than 'writer'
Reposted by Phoebe Maltz Bovy
and also the pressure on Jews to speak out BECAUSE of the parallels, when, for the millionth time, most of us didn't vote for this!!
January 28, 2026 at 3:29 AM
and also the pressure on Jews to speak out BECAUSE of the parallels, when, for the millionth time, most of us didn't vote for this!!
My openness about "1990s Britcoms" as interest must explain why the "banking roles" never came a'knockin'
January 28, 2026 at 3:28 AM
My openness about "1990s Britcoms" as interest must explain why the "banking roles" never came a'knockin'
I guess people are using FB Marketplace for all sorts of things.
January 28, 2026 at 2:52 AM
I guess people are using FB Marketplace for all sorts of things.
I was thinking about why Minnesota and maybe others have said this already but... yes it's the racism against Somali people, but is it also and in conjunction a white-supremacist attempt at defending an especially known-as-Nordic locale? Is that what's happening?
January 28, 2026 at 2:35 AM
I was thinking about why Minnesota and maybe others have said this already but... yes it's the racism against Somali people, but is it also and in conjunction a white-supremacist attempt at defending an especially known-as-Nordic locale? Is that what's happening?
In my day, there were not 1000000 different kinds of summer camp week by week each with its own cutthroat signup process and coordination with siblings and their friends.
January 28, 2026 at 12:52 AM
In my day, there were not 1000000 different kinds of summer camp week by week each with its own cutthroat signup process and coordination with siblings and their friends.
Reposted by Phoebe Maltz Bovy
unfriendly, positively agitated reminder
January 27, 2026 at 11:27 PM
unfriendly, positively agitated reminder
It should be possible, certainly if you're not Jewish yourself, to talk about events in the news that are not Jewish-related without constantly analogizing to instances where Jews were either victims or victimizers.
January 27, 2026 at 7:28 PM
It should be possible, certainly if you're not Jewish yourself, to talk about events in the news that are not Jewish-related without constantly analogizing to instances where Jews were either victims or victimizers.
Decided to do my next column on something bound to make everyone mad, but at least I know that going in. (It is, blessed relief, not 2010s-related.)
January 27, 2026 at 7:08 PM
Decided to do my next column on something bound to make everyone mad, but at least I know that going in. (It is, blessed relief, not 2010s-related.)
Jews and Italians can play one another, alas an unfortunately topical topic bsky.app/profile/alka...
Certainly the Italian & Jewish mixup on TV confused me and my parents. Was it fair to think that the Costanzas are Jews? On what ground? Couldn't Italians act like them too? Especially as we were more familiar with Italians in Australia and didn't know any Jew. Ditto with Sophia Petrillo.
January 27, 2026 at 6:55 PM
Jews and Italians can play one another, alas an unfortunately topical topic bsky.app/profile/alka...
I have some duds but I appreciate the sentiment!
Always read Phoebe 👇🏻
This has long been and remains my objection to Holocaust analogizing btw. newrepublic.com/article/1242...
January 27, 2026 at 5:19 PM
I have some duds but I appreciate the sentiment!
"retconning some basic familiarity with the tribe for a woman who previously claimed not to know what Shabbat was" This is reminding me of on Seinfeld where they suddenly invent this Long Island-based Jewish female friend group Elaine is a part of. Where did they come from, and so much for 'shiksa'
I read in this Variety's review of NWT S2 that Jenni Konner was brought in to fix its problem with Jewish women. Idk if it continued the established JAP tropes, or Foster's vision, or Netflix knew that upsetting Jewish women was a lower risk than other groups.
variety.com/2025/tv/revi...
variety.com/2025/tv/revi...
‘Nobody Wants This’ Gains More Depth in Season 2, but Still Never Goes Deep: TV Review
Season 2 of the Netflix rom-com 'Nobody Wants This' — starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody — goes deeper than Season 1, but still never goes deep.
variety.com
January 27, 2026 at 4:48 PM
"retconning some basic familiarity with the tribe for a woman who previously claimed not to know what Shabbat was" This is reminding me of on Seinfeld where they suddenly invent this Long Island-based Jewish female friend group Elaine is a part of. Where did they come from, and so much for 'shiksa'
Reposted by Phoebe Maltz Bovy
This was such a joy to record - it is rare to find someone as fluent in TV & tropes as @phoebebovy.bsky.social - yet there are fresh concerns around this seemingly innocuous stereotype at a time when the idea of bringing uppity Jews down a peg or two (or more) feels like a global pastime.
January 27, 2026 at 4:16 PM
This was such a joy to record - it is rare to find someone as fluent in TV & tropes as @phoebebovy.bsky.social - yet there are fresh concerns around this seemingly innocuous stereotype at a time when the idea of bringing uppity Jews down a peg or two (or more) feels like a global pastime.
It was my absolute DELIGHT to discuss all things 'JAP' with @beckyaizen.bsky.social for my podcast The Jewish Angle @thecjn.bsky.social thecjn.ca/arts-culture...
thecjn.ca
January 27, 2026 at 3:29 PM
It was my absolute DELIGHT to discuss all things 'JAP' with @beckyaizen.bsky.social for my podcast The Jewish Angle @thecjn.bsky.social thecjn.ca/arts-culture...
This has long been and remains my objection to Holocaust analogizing btw. newrepublic.com/article/1242...
January 27, 2026 at 2:14 PM
This has long been and remains my objection to Holocaust analogizing btw. newrepublic.com/article/1242...