Earlier this month, British vandals defaced a new location of Gail's, a bakery chain with 170 locations across the U.K. They smashed the store's windows, splattered it with red paint, and left pro‑Palestinian and anti-Zionist messages on its doors. One such message: "F*** Bain Capital." It refererred to an investment firm that manages USD$215 billion in global assets, including investments in Israeli security companies and, in some other far corner of the company's wide reach, the Gail's brand.

Gail's was also founded by an Israeli baker in the 1990s. So even though the business is not exactly Jewish, it is Jewish enough by vandals' standards—and this new location happened to be opening a few blocks away from a popular Palestinian cafe. After the week of on-and-off violence, a columnist named Jonathan Liew justified the acts of hatred in The Guardian, describing Gail's opening as an act of "aggression" towards its Palestinian neighbour. (The Guardian has since redacted that phrase and others; the piece remains online.)

At The CJN, opinion editor Phoebe Maltz Bovy had reached out to prominent British Jewish writer Hadley Freeman to discuss Woody Allen's new novel, which she'd recently reviewed. But then the Gail's controversy came up, and they pivoted. This week, Freeman dissects the issue and explains how British progressive movements have evolved over the years—and, yes, they'll discuss Woody Allen, too.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
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Judy Blume, the acclaimed author of young people's novels, saw resurged interest in her work in 2023. One of her most famous books, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, hit the big screen as an acclaimed feature-length film; that same year, Amazon released a documentary about her, Judy Blume Forever. Meanwhile, Mark Oppenheimer—a writer, podcaster, editor and teacher at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics—was asked by the author herself to write her biography.

Months after the Blume bonanza, Oct. 7 happened. And while this has little bearing on the public's appreciation of Blume work, The CJN's opinion editor, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, got to wondering: would the world be so excited about a Jewish writer (who writes openly Jewish characters) if her movies were slated for 2024 instead?

It's one of many questions Maltz Bovy asks Oppenheimer on this week's episode of The Jewish Angle, which hones in on Blume's role in the broader Jewish literary canon. Despite selling around 90 million copies of her books, and even after the revived interest in her work, Blume is rarely granted the same literary standing as her Jewish male contemporaries. But Oppenheimer's book, Judy Blume: A Life, which comes out March 10, may help to change that.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

Kat Rosenfield doesn't write Jewish fiction. Her forthcoming book, How to Survive in the Woods, is a thriller set in the wilderness of Maine—not very Jewish. But that hasn't stopped random internet users from noticing her surname and making the link, sometimes with prejudice.

The idea that an artist must be inextricably linked to their identity politics—and that Jews are inherently Zionists—is not exclusive to Rosenfield, though it is a topic she has touched on often, both as a columnist with The Free Press and as a podcaster on Feminine Chaos, alongside The CJN's own Phoebe Maltz Bovy. Now the podcasting duo is hopping onto The CJN's network to talk about the role of Jews in this neverending conversation, particularly in light of controversies in Canada and Australia. The Art Gallery of Ontario declined work by acclaimed Jewish photographer Nan Goldin because of her anti-Zionist (antisemitic?) views, while in the Southern Hemisphere, a literary festival in Adelaide, Australia, was forced to cancel its entire program after it retracted an invitation to a Palestinian author—sparking the cancellations of 180 other writers in solidarity.

What do we risk when art becomes stringently political, and institutions only accept art from certain people on certain sides of the political spectrum? Rosenfield joins to discuss.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

• Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle