Finally, Some Great News to Announce in this Antisemitism & Culture Series

Most of my writings on the subjects are now shifting to another site, thus this series will conclude after the 5 remaining installments... for now...

May 22, 2023

Click here to check out the first 30 Installments - Volume I - in this series on Antisemitism and Culture. The top 5 most important pieces from this first wave:

This is the 25th installment in Volume II, intended as another 30 pieces exploring the many manifestations of Jew Hatred and the issues surrounding it in America and globally. See the 24 previous installments listed at the end of this article.

These writings are part of my ongoing effort to overcome my PTSD by forcing myself to try to write and publish something every day. “Politics is downstream from culture,” the late Andrew Breitbart popularized among conservative bloggers while he was alive. I’d go a step further: Everything is downstream from culture. The cultures you embrace determine who you are and who you become. You become what you worship.

It has been just over 3 weeks since the previous installment in this series, in which I presented three articles I’d written for Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) about the themes of Jewish humor and satire as weapons against antisemitism. The reason for this delay is pretty straightforward. When I started this series back in November of last year I wanted to try and write every single day about the problem of antisemitism, which has been on the rise in recent years and gaining further footholds in cultures across the world.

And now I’ve been hired to do just that for JNS. On May 1, I started as a full-time employee, tasked with writing 5-10 short news articles each day, and still sometimes writing longer investigative articles. You can keep up with my bylined articles in my archive here. (Not everything I write will include a byline. Many of my news briefs will appear without byline.) Antisemitism is the main subject which I focus on but I do also write about Jewish cultural and religious news as well as sometimes Israel-related news, even though JNS has a very strong Israel bureau. Sometimes there’s just so much to cover!

So I’ve decided to announce the coming conclusion to this series on Antisemitism and Culture. I’ve got 5 more slots in this second 30-installment Volume II and I’m going to use them to try and wrap up on various key ideas which I haven’t hit on yet.

I’ll also have some more news to announce soon about how we’re shifting God of the Desert in some important internal ways now that I have a full-time job again. But I’ll save that for another post…

All this, of course, doesn’t at all mean that antisemitism will not still remain a primary subject of this substack and driving concern for this publishing company. I plan to still write on it regularly and hope to publish books on it as a subject. But the style of free-flowing essays and current events commentaries that I’ve done over the last six months can conclude for now. The subjects which I’d generally write about here I’ll now do through the news briefs, longer investigative articles, and eventually some op-eds.

I suppose some people might be curious how this new job came about - a story which I’m happy to tell and some people following this series may find amusing. Back in December I wrote an op-ed which I submitted to Algemeiner with hopes of starting to contribute more regularly in that section so as to promote this substack and the antisemitism series. The editor passed on it, finding it a little too “bloggy” while he tended to look for op/eds more serious and higher on research/journalistic information. So I had to find another venue for the piece. JNS was the first new publication to come to mind, since I’d grown to like them a lot having picked and edited their op-eds for so long.

I heard back from the US News Bureau chief and scheduled a phone call with her. When we talked I discovered that she was especially looking for freelance contributors to write longer investigative articles and also short news brief. I jumped at the opportunity to start at a new freelance venue as I’d been needing to nail down another gig or two since January of 2022 when my last big research job concluded.

And then you’ve seen the results. As a freelancer from December through April I had 13 feature articles and dozens of brief articles, many of which I’ve spotlighted here in the Antisemitism and Culture series. I also found that my new editor - who started a few months back, taking over after the initial editor who brought me on board left for another job - was a great boss whose editing improved my stories and whose editorial direction really helped with the drafting of my stories. So I made very clear that if a full-time job writing either the long articles or the shorter ones was available then I’d be happy to jump on board. And so once it had become clear that having me around to draft 5-10 briefs every day would make his job much easier, then my boss offered me a full-time position.

And especially given the really rough year and a half I’ve had since fall 2021, I’ve never been so thrilled professionally. This is a really satisfying job which I enjoy and don’t find all that difficult. Three weeks in and it’s going great. I remain optimistic that it will only get better as I get further accustomed to providing my editor with the material he needs.

Thanks everyone for your encouragement and support. And we’ll have some updates very soon on our plans for proceeding. We’re very close at this point to signing a contract with a partner which will expand the reach of our books and really help us focus on creating great books rather than being bogged down with business administration.

And one final note: if there are any antisemitism-related subjects or questions you’d like me to address in the final 5 installments of this series then please let me know!

Finally, Some Great News to Announce in this Antisemitism & Culture Series

Most of my writings on the subjects are now shifting to another site, thus this series will conclude after the 5 remaining installments... for now...

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