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4 days ago | 
benjaminkerstein.substack.com | Benjamin Kerstein
Now that the Free Palestine Nazi movement has made its decision to forgo its façade of “peaceful” protest and unleash a full-scale terrorist campaign against American Jews, it seems time for some kind of reckoning with what is actually happening. Put simply, the American Jewish dream is not quite over, but it is in very serious danger.
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5 days ago | 
benjaminkerstein.substack.com | Benjamin Kerstein
One of the most widely embraced ideas in contemporary progressivism is the concept of an “arc of history.”In essence, history itself is gradually progressing toward moral perfection, albeit at a slow and relentless pace. In many ways, this is the ani ma’amin, the catechism of progressivism: Everything is moving toward something superior and ultimately utopian. As Barack Obama put it, “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” That is the whole of the law.
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5 days ago | 
benjaminkerstein.substack.com | Benjamin Kerstein
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1 week ago | 
benjaminkerstein.substack.com | Benjamin Kerstein
Near the end of his Mishneh Torah, Maimonides enumerates the laws of kingship and war, which, given the Jews’ total lack of political and military power at the time, was a notably optimistic endeavor. However, Maimonides’s optimism would prove justified many centuries later, making his insights quite valuable.
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1 week ago | 
benjaminkerstein.substack.com | Benjamin Kerstein
Clouds darken the sky,The stars rain down,The constellations stagger,The bones of the hell-hounds tremble,The porters are silent,When they see the king’s soul ariseAs the dawn— Pyramid Texts, 2300 BCI leave this brief memoir in the hope that whoever finds it—if anyone remains to find it—will comprehend the desperate act I now intend to undertake. Perhaps they will sympathize with the immensity of the fear that compels me to it.
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2 weeks ago | 
benjaminkerstein.substack.com | Benjamin Kerstein
I always find it difficult to write about murder. To some extent, atrocity is an abyss. It has its own terrible and inexplicable logic. It is a void into which language cannot enter. To some extent, the rest is always silence. I can only offer these thoughts:In some ways, the horrific murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim z”l at a Jewish event in Washington, DC by a Free Palestine Nazi is an exception to the rule. It is explicable in its logic, and its cause can be easily traced.
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2 weeks ago | 
benjaminkerstein.substack.com | Benjamin Kerstein
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2 weeks ago | 
benjaminkerstein.substack.com | Benjamin Kerstein
In an irreligious age, people tend to seek alternatives to orthodox faith. At the very least, there appears to be an inherent human need for belief in some organizing principle of existence. There is a constant desire to believe in a motive force, an engine that drives human life and human history. At its most deracinated, this manifests itself in faith in some kind of astrological “energy” that influences events and even physical well-being.
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2 weeks ago | 
benjaminkerstein.substack.com | Benjamin Kerstein
A glib but ironically revelatory question sometimes posed by haters of Israel is “Do you think Israel has ever done anything wrong?”Of course, the person asking this question has no genuine interest in receiving an actual answer. The question is a rhetorical device employed in obvious bad faith, a tactic aimed at undermining an opponent’s credibility. Even if we take the query seriously for a moment, it is no more edifying. The obvious answer is that Israel has, of course, done some things wrong.
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3 weeks ago | 
benjaminkerstein.substack.com | Benjamin Kerstein
The monster lives in the basement. We always heard it on cold nights, shuffling and singing, dragging its claws against the ceiling and occasionally hurling itself against the walls. Then it howled its way back to sleep. We always kept the door to the basement locked and hoped the monster would go away. We knew that was impossible, of course. After all, where would it go? There was no way out of its lair, or prison, if you prefer the word. But then, we would hear it lumber up the stairs.