Imagine the outrage – they gave out $2 billion at Powerball lottery and even though I bought ten tickets for 3 different drawings that week, I still got nothing.
I realize that if I want to get my name in lights, I need to stay in hotels. When I go into my room, the TV has my name flashing on it. But consider the possible ramifications of this: Did you hear about some rapper celebrity who was on the run and was turned in after the prostitute in his hotel room saw his name come up on the TV welcome screen?
Every time I set the dinner table I ask myself why does the fork have to be on the left side of the plate when most people are right-handed and hold their forks in that hand?
My daughter sent me a text in the middle of the night: Dad, you must know this so that you don’t look like an idiot when people say things around you – Taylor Swift got engaged. Guess what? I’d seen the pictures online and knew about it. Who didn’t?
Friday before Labor Day Weekend is the best time to be in NYC. Everyone goes away. I went to the Zabar’s fish counter, the barber and a bagel shop and nobody was in front of me in all of these places.
In today’s world, with budget cuts in newsrooms and bias creeping into the various newsfeeds, Bloomberg media stands out. They just play it down the middle with excellent journalists and have a lot of scoops.
I took a short trip to Florida to check out Evermore Resort in Orlando and to visit South Beach. We’ve rented a house a few times in Orlando at a place called Encore Reunion but my family’s gotten tired of it. Evermore charges more but it is a more happening resort with a Conrad (an upscale Hilton brand) hotel, villas, condos and houses from 5-11 bedrooms. All of it is within 5 minutes walk of each other and it is built around a large freshwater chlorinated lagoon you can swim in (except during winter since it is not heated). Kids have fun into the night with all kinds of activities; there are plenty of food options; you can BBQ at a house and they have small pools in the backyard. Facilities such as gyms are also better and open 24/7. They don’t have bicycles though you could rent one from outside. This would make a good 3 night gig in spring, summer or fall. It is 30 minutes from the airport and close to Disney and Universal near exit 70 on I-4. A Publix supermarket is a few minutes drive away. I was pleasantly surprised at this property having spent a night at the hotel to preview the resort.
If you are staying away from Disney because it’s just not fun no matter what you spend (other than their private tours which are off the wall moneywise), there is now some rescue. Disney now has a “premier lightning lane pass” which allows you to skip the line once at each ride at a park for a day. It costs between $250-500 per person per day depending on the park (Magic Kingdom is most expensive). It’s more sensible than spending $7,000 to get a private tour. It costs somewhat more than Universal but at least it makes it possible to tear through a park in a day at Disney and enjoy it. I might try it sometime after too many bad experiences in their parks that have made me much more of a Universal park fan .
I tried the Brightline train that runs between Orlando and Miami in a bit over 3 hours. When I was a kid and we would drive to Orlando, the center of the state was desolate. Now there are hardly any areas without population. The train works well; it is comfortable and the first class section offers single aisle seating and decent food. The lounge is not great but the stations are nice and there is good food for sale at the stations. Not enough bathrooms though. Use the family restroom.
I visited South Beach for a day. Over the past 30-40 years, I’ve wanted to experience the area for myself as a tourist and not just drive past it. 40 years ago I would go to the Barbizon Hotel on 5th Street and Ocean Drive to visit my great-grandmother who would reside there for the winters. You could park a car anywhere because nobody was there. Now you wouldn’t dare come with a car and that hotel is still there although it is much more hip than it was then. Most of the noise and hoopla takes place in a 7-block stretch of Ocean Drive. There are lots of police out there. You can use Citi Bikes to get around with stations all over. I stayed a few blocks away at the Stanton Marriott, which is a 4-star property down on 1st street. The Bentley Hotel is Hilton’s counterpart also on that block. Both hotels have direct access to the beach with lounges available. The Stanton did not have much in the way of a gym but an Equinox is 5 minutes walk away. It has a pool and a Starbucks next door for breakfast. It’s quiet bordering a park and the beach there is also quiet. Nearby is Joe’s Stone Crabs, a seafood institution, and Big Pig was a good diner around the block with a huge menu. Art Deco district walking tours are 2 hours and leave at 10:30am daily from the Art Deco welcome center at 10th street which used to be a community center with nightly dancing.
Frankly, South Beach is just not my scene and it’s colorful with pastel buildings and art deco architecture but not exactly upscale although it is expensive for what you get. It was interesting walking around and seeing how they repurposed older buildings and built new things. I used to go there a lot to kosher restaurants that are long gone. I think that if you just want sun and fun, the Bahamas is a better deal and less having to go around, but if you want a city beyond a resort South Beach is fine with Uber getting you around. If you avoid rush hour, it takes 20 minutes to get to the Miami airport. Otherwise it could take an hour. I flew Delta out of there; it has a beautiful lounge with great food and it is a whole lot easier to the gate than American which is a mile long colossus of a terminal at Miami where the People Mover often doesn’t work.
When you travel with a guide, you feel you’re being ripped off when you go into a store and you know they are taking a commission. But when you buy an expensive item such as a rug that is going to be shipped, it’s insurance. Back in March, we bought a carpet in a store in Egypt. 5 months later I don’t have a carpet here. I sent an email to the store and didn’t hear back. Then I texted my guide and 5 minutes later I got a flurry of notes from the store’s owner and employees about my carpet. They may not care about me, but they do care about my guide and future customers they will get. I still can’t get over how small the world becomes when everyone you know is on WhatsApp.
It’s a parent’s sweetest revenge. My 18 year old son was now a camp counselor, dispensing in loco parentis advice to campers. We overhear the kids asking him questions, such as “I lost Sammy’s football.” Jeremy answers “If you borrowed it, you have to return it. Go and find it.” This is coming from someone who never bothers to look for anything he loses. Or this one: “I lost my soap and shampoo. What do I do?” His answer “I came to camp with only a bar of soap and no shampoo. Go and steal someone else’s. They’ll never know.”
Jeremy and I went to the Bahamas to celebrate his 18th birthday and to do the things you can do at 18 over there that you cannot do over here in the USA. At the casino, he played poker using my $200 and promptly made some profit and then lost all of it. He gave me back $5.50 which I did not want to insult the room maid with. Then he asked me to lend him $200 which he then played and made a profit of $80. Then he walked away from the tables never to return for the rest of the trip. I told him Lesson #1: If you ever invest in someone else’s hedge fund, make sure they have their own money in it. Because you clearly realized that you would behave differently with your own money versus other people’s money. I figure that with all the tuition I paid, I got off pretty cheap for $200 having him figure out casino poker. The Baha Mar hotel-casino has a jazz club that had one of the best bands Jeremy or I had ever seen. It was a local band called Essence. That alone was worth the price of the air ticket. They are building a new gym to be ready by October.
My son wants to trade stocks options and on margin. I figured that since he has no income or assets and wrote on the questionnaire that he has little or no experience in trading, Charles Schwab would make my life easier and surely turn him down and not allow him to trade on credit. But guess what? They approved him. I’m not on that account and if they’re stupid enough to let him trade, I guess it’s their problem. Interesting fact: You can go to Chat GPT with a screenshot of a potential options trade and it will tell you all the possible outcomes. I just don’t know if what you are reading is garbage or real.
At my daughter’s university, during orientation week there’s been a flurry of ambulances at the dormitory picking up underage kids who were experimenting with alcohol. I’m told by others that this is not unusual. The dorm counselors told the kids “here’s where we are allowed to search in your rooms and here’s where we are not allowed to search. Make sure you are not caught with drugs in alcohol in places where we are allowed to search.” Translation: “Us RA’s (resident assistants) are here for free room and board and we’re not interested in any trouble.” If you want to know what “white privilege” means, imagine coming to a dorm room during move-in with a bunch of family members cutting fabrics to line drawers and decorating rooms. I know that I went to college with one suitcase and had very little room to put anything. I wouldn’t have known where to put 15 Amazon boxes that filled up a dumpster with all sorts of crap for my room. They have all these stupid workshops during orientation, one of which went for 3 hours discussing the differences between dialogue, debate and discussion. They didn’t actually discuss any real issues. I told my daughter to “practice her pronouns” before the start of a session. This is now considered “higher education.”
Now for a very serious topic since people spend at least 1/3 of their lives in bed. I don’t like fluffy pillows. It’s become really hard to buy flat pillows and other people I know with similar issues are having trouble. I went to lots of stores and all they sell these days are fluffy pillows. There is a company that sells fluffy pillows but that has an opening for you to throw out fluff and adjust the fluffiness, but that is an $85 pillow. Sorta like buying the sugar free cranberry juice for the extra $2. “Minupwell” sells an Ultra Flat Pillow on Amazon for about $23. I thought that was decent after trying all sorts of pillows. In the luggage area, Ricardo of Beverly Hills has good soft luggage at about 7 pounds in the 22 inch size. I bought some from a luggage store on the lower east side that had old items in stock.
All I want to know is for how long the US going to have a shit show in all 3 branches of its government? Nobody now respects the Supreme Court, Congress or the Presidency. They don’t do anything except make some noise and appease the president. Sorta like the college orientation my daughter is going through. I’m wondering what’s going to happen when the next pandemic hits; we’re just dismantling anything we had and have an idiot in charge of national health. It’s scary reading articles in Foreign Affairs as to how we are setting up China to win the next round of economic competition as we simply jettison all the advantages we have that kept other countries glued to the US as a global insurer and regulator. The number of nuclear countries will proliferate now that the US is withdrawing its protection from others. I have a nephew on the spectrum and my son says his cousin must be happier than he is because he doesn’t realize what a shitty world he is growing up into.
If you in the West want to feel good about China, just read on the BBC about these places in China where unemployed youth pay to go every day and pretend to work just so that they can avoid the shame of being unemployed. Some of them stay there from 9am till 11pm. Imagine how bad the prospects are there that people are doing this to save face.
And yet, despite having a military that is constantly being purged and an economy whose purpose is to keep the communist party in power and has lots of waste and corruption to show for its investments, China is poised to become #1 in the world as America self-destructs its secret sauce that has kept it on top. Credit Mr. Xi for spending years having a strategy to build up China and to make the country less reliant on others. Even with waste and corruption, the successes far outweigh the failures. The irony is that Chinese people who have a choice don’t want to live in China because they are not free and there is no rule of law to protect what a person has, while here it is Americans exercising democracy that are resulting in the poor choices America is making. But at some point America will figure things out. Maybe it will be too late, like the UK was with Brexit. But the odds have always been such that you should not count America out forever. The US and Europe have a lot of work to do; many ventures are failing because the collective West has failed to invest in infrastructure the past 20 years to provide the roads, electricity and bandwidth needed for the factories to be built that would power these innovations. The US is so worried about trying to shut China out of US technology that at some point it risks being shut out as China’s technology pulls ahead. The US has its priorities backward and its prospects are scary. Europe is also talking the talk but not walking the walk and has no leverage because it’s not creating or leading in anything.
I was told by a veteran of the UK foreign service who travels a lot that he has seen firsthand how many people are dying around the world due to the collapse of USAID under Trump. He says Americans should have a deeper appreciation for how much good they were doing in the world.
This coming year I’m planning some study trips to visit places and take the pulse of change. Taiwan is on the list for December; I want to visit before the Chinese try to take it back. In February, I’ll be visiting the UAE, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Last time I was in Saudi was in 1999; I’m told that if you haven’t been there in the past 5 years, you haven’t been there at all.
Behind Mamdani’s win for mayor in NYC, there is the fact that the city’s Muslim population is increasing or they are just becoming more publicly visible. For the past year or two, I’ve noticed more women with hijab (head scarves) and niqab (full face covered except for eyes) on the subway and all over the city such as in parks. I never used to see this and now New York City looks more like London. By the way, it’s been revealed that Qatar has given millions of dollars to the Mamdani family. For instance, one of his mom’s films got a $15 million grant from Qatar. You think they liked the film?
On the street below me, there is a block filled with scaffolding and it is a magnet for the homeless. I spoke to the building manager who said they hired a private security company to maintain order on the street. The city called them up and told them to get rid of the guards and not to harass the homeless. So the people you would call to solve a problem are part of the problem.
On a recent Sunday morning, there were 5 people standing in front of this homeless guy; 2 cops, a sanitation person and 2 people from the city. An hour later they were gone but the guy was still there. I asked the homeless guy later that day what was going on. He said that they wanted to help him move his stuff so that they could clean the sidewalk but after they were done, he could go right back where he was. It must have cost $500 to get all those people there on a Sunday morning. The guy agreed with me that the whole thing was completely ridiculous.
On that same block, the entire block of scaffolding is full of posters of Israeli hostages. Every time I walk one block from my apartment, I walk past those posters and are reminded of them. I will discuss this issue later in this posting.
People are not looking forward to having a socialist mayor in New York City but I’m not so scared: Mamdani is young and intelligent and hopefully he’ll figure out what works. He may want to get rid of rich people but NYC is losing millionaires and they need their tax money if he wants to pay for anything. He is a great communicator and will hopefully represent the City in front of the world as a good promoter. He doesn’t care for Israel but who cares? He’s not running for the head of the nation; he’s running for mayor. Besides, half the Jews voting for him don’t care much for Israel these days either. And anyway, most of the decisions these days are made by New York’s governor, not the mayor. He can’t just go and do the things he wants to do. The Democratic party is hoping he won’t embarrass them and give the Republicans a huge target as mayor of a major city. They will try and help him figure things out and succeed. The current mayor Eric Adams polls negative zero, if that were possible, according to the NY Times.
The Democrats are hemorrhaging voters according to the NY Times to the point that party leaders have no idea how to stop it. New voters are registering as Republicans more than Democrats. I read so many articles about this, but they never say WHY this is happening or what they have to do to stop it. The problem is that the people writing and editing the articles think Democrats have to tilt to the left but they can’t get away with publishing that; at the same time, they don’t want to give credence to other points of view so the articles stay silent and say nothing useful. It seems to me that if people are moving to the right, the Democratic party ought to move closer to the Republican point of view rather than further to the left. Giving people a choice shouldn’t mean a choice between two radical extremes. One interesting thing that is happening is that because people are moving from blue to red states, the voting maps after the 2030 census will result in the Democrats losing even more seats in the electoral college. Very few of the country’s districts are competitive due to “gerrymandering” which ironically was started by Democrats and which institutionalizes the two party system in America. Many of the things Democrats did during the last generation are coming to haunt them, such as using procedural tools to ram things through the Senate. They started doing these things and now the Republicans are doing the same except worse. After 2030 it will be harder for Democrats to win a presidency unless people in these districts change their voting pattern.
Will AI destroy office jobs? Maybe not. A person I know who heads up a billion dollar investment fund is buying office space in Manhattan. He thinks that there will be more people in offices rather than less. 15 years ago he was buying single family homes and made a good profit during the financial crisis of 2008.
I find it sickening to read that Zelensky had to thank Trump 15 times in 4 ½ minutes during their most recent meeting as all the leaders around the world conspire to figure out how to play Trump against his ego and insecurities. Some are suggesting that every week someone nominate him for some kind of prize to keep him from causing trouble. This is what we have for the leader of the free world for the next 3 years?
When Trump took office, I predicted here on Global Thoughts that after some time, Trump would turn on Russia after realizing that Putin was playing him, and that he would wind up supporting Ukraine in a major way. Looks like I might get that one right. Or I might not. It’s rather amazing to hear a US president say that the Russian leader is very polite but full of BS. Or him tell Macron of France on a hot microphone that Putin wants to do a deal in Ukraine for the benefit of Donald Trump. Yeah, right. Trump is a lot of things, but he does speak his mind in a refreshingly candid way. If he ever writes a memoir, I’m sure it will be interesting to hear him talk about the other players. I still can’t figure out what will happen with Ukraine; Trump’s outlook and strategy seems to change every week and it’s embarrassing how shallow he is. Imagine after all these years of trying to get India on our side Trump throws them into China’s embrace. You can’t tell a nation of 1 billion people to fuck off just because he couldn’t do that to China and looked for someone else to bully instead.
America is screwing its allies and partners so badly and has become so unreliable under Trump that even if Trump is no longer president, the rest of the world will not want to make deals with America again unless both parties unite under a strong president and give assurances that America will not keep flip-flopping on its policies every time there is an election. China is making headway in showing the world that it has a strong leader and a stable government and that they are playing for the long haul, and that people should deal with China as the more reliable partner.
I’m wondering if the American private and/or charitable sector will step in and create an alternate health department considering that Kennedy is gutting everything in sight including any protections against the next pandemic. In New York City, people are walking around with masks again; they won’t let the pandemic die. I don’t see anything like this going on in any other city. I have no doubt that if there is another pandemic, you won’t want to be anywhere near New York City.
Truth be told, sanctions against Iran and Russia are a real joke. Supposedly the West shut down bank transfers. Yes, but only to 5 or so banks out of 100. The sanctions against Iran’s oil have many loopholes and it’s on purpose because Trump and Biden didn’t want oil prices to get too high. That would just put more money into the hands of Iran and Russia and piss off China that buys lots of oil. Right now in Iran the oil business is the best it’s ever been, especially since Iran has gotten into the gas business as well. If the West really wants to hurt these countries, the sanctions are not working.
I have a question – how many years do you think we’ll all be on this planet? Do you think we’ll still be here in 25 years? Considering how many countries now want to use nukes and the potential leakage, I’m really wondering if I should worry too much about saving money to have 25 years from now when I would be in my mid-80’s. Will I actually be here to care?
When Trump started with his tariffs, people warned that it would become corrupt because he would rig the system to favor his friends and contributors. And so it has been. Quietly, one third of the product value of the industries that have been tariffed have been exempted from the tariffs. There is no rhyme or reason to explain the exemptions except that if you had an in with the Trumps, you are getting exemptions. I was recently reminded of a statistic that was printed here several years ago. Trump’s steel tariffs saved 1,000 American manufacturing jobs. It lost 75,000 jobs in American manufacturing from all the companies that use foreign steel in their production.
Americans don’t fully realize how much sticker shock they will have from the tariffs, Medicare and health insurance cutbacks and various other government benefits that are being cut. By the beginning of next year, it will be very clear. Many of the millions to be hit are in Republican districts. No amount of gaslighting will be able to hide the fact that they are going to get hurt and will feel they were shafted. Remember what happened when Team Biden tried to claim inflation was transitory and not really happening? Can’t wait to see what happens. I’d like to see the price of travel come down. People are paying insane prices because they can and demand is higher than supply, not because it’s worth it. I just don’t know if that sector will feel the pain. They are more likely to be upset that it will be hard to get parcels from outside the USA due to inconsistent tariffs that have made countries stop sending packages to the US. Now you’ll see people coming through customs trying to hide things they bought outside the country. Each sector will have its own pain points.
We interrupt this newsletter with something so absolutely absurd that I can’t believe I’m writing this. Did you notice the International Association of Genocide Scholars that published a resolution claiming genocide in Gaza that was plastered all over the media? Turns out the organization is a farce. Anyone with $30 can join it online and vote by e-mail on their resolutions, and people have – some under the names of Adolph Hitler and Star Wars villain Emperor Palpatine. The organization has 440 members as of a report published September 4 (it had 150 members 2 years ago) with many of them joining recently because it was so easy and cheap to join and vote. All of 120 of these members voted on that resolution you read about. Makes you wonder why serious media all over the world never checked this out and just parroted a press release from something that sounded scholarly. The organization has some academics in it but no standards, and the genocide resolution was based on none of its own reporting and simply on material that came from somewhere else, much of it of that would not be taken at face value by serious academics.
Israeli intelligence was not the only one to be caught off guard when it failed on October 7th. I’m told by an eyewitness that 24 hours before the coup in Egypt to get rid of Hosni Mubarak, the head of Egyptian intelligence was sitting at Israeli Mossad HQ telling them that the army was in full control of Egypt and that nothing was going to happen. 24 hours later he and Mubarak were running for their lives.
Here’s the coolest wins for the Mossad that I found so far from the June “war” with Iran: They penetrated with malware the CCTV cameras of Teheran, allowing them to locate heads of IRGC to be killed. They even got a bunch of generals to show up to a meeting by making an AI phone call that they thought to be real organizing the meeting. At the meeting they killed virtually all of them.
Now I’m going to discuss the Gaza situation at some length. If you don’t want to read this section, skip to the Travel notes about Asbury Park New Jersey and our trip to Scotland.
Imagine the irony if what Hamas did winds up ensuring that Palestinians wind up without a state? To a great degree, Hamas doesn’t want that state to happen because they are interested in leading chaos, not being sidelined through statehood. Just like Netanyahu doesn’t want all the hostages to come home because that would send him home or to prison. But Palestinians want a state and hoped that what Hamas did would bring them closer to one. Although it put their issue on the map front and center, fact is, this Gaza war has cemented Israeli opposition across the board to any Palestinian entity being created for any foreseeable future. There is no constituency to support it. Maybe under new generational leadership that will change but right now nobody can see it coming.
Israelis don’t seem to know or care that the Gaza war has caused a lot of problems for Jews around the world. Israel was supposed to keep Jews around the world feeling safer. When you tell them there is trouble here, their reply is “move to Israel.” Not that hardly anyone wants to. Maybe 1% of America’s Jewish population has. These days, even people who are right of center think that Bibi Netanyahu has gone too far and has “lost it.” It’s become open season against Jews over Gaza, but the truth is that most Jews are not supportive of this war or the purported objective of annexing the place at this point.
Israelis have noticed that they are being shunned if they travel and that they have to hide their military involvement from social media. Kids from abroad doing internships or academics and scientists or teckies doing research in Israel might not want to show it on their resumes. Jews don’t want to wear things identifying themselves as Jews in public all over the world. Leaders in the Jewish community say that Bibi has ruined the life of Jews in the Diaspora for the next generation.
Everyone in Israel and many Jews abroad are fixated on the issue of the hostages. As I said earlier, every time I go downstairs and walk on the next block, I see their images posted. Imagine if there were not 250 hostages taken 2 years ago. It’s a good bet that you wouldn’t have this war go on for 2 years, 60,000 Palestinians wouldn’t be dead (that’s a whole football stadium full of people), 10,000 Israelis wouldn’t be dead or injured veterans, and Israel’s economy wouldn’t have been trashed for 2 years. And the country’s reputation wouldn’t have taken such a hit. Is all that worth it over the hostages? I’m not raising the point about Palestinian suffering in Gaza for 2 years because I don’t want to get into the trap of arguing over whose fault it was and what realistic alternative was out there. Suffice it to say, it is an unsolvable problem but yet solvable if the major powers really wanted to solve it. The fate of Palestinians are not their top priority nor sadly the Palestinian leadership.
There are opportunities here. Iran took a major hit and saw its strategy of deterrence by proxies collapse. Syria and Lebanon got a new lease on life as sovereign countries after decades of being vassals of Iran and/or brutal dictatorships that people thought would last forever. A note of caution on Syria – I have a feeling that the leader of that country is not going to last very long and that’s why the Israelis are keeping their distance from him. Maybe the next round in Syria will be better than a “friendly” Islamic fanatic who Turkey would prefer to keep in power but who has lost the respect of all the minorities in the country. And caution as to Lebanon – in private conversations that I have been told about, the president and prime minister say they are not going to be disarming Hizbullah and whatever we’ve read so far in the press has been a farce staged for the cameras. They are just trying to get the US off its back but no more. So I don’t expect much good out of Lebanon which is too bad.
Did the region benefit from this Jewish state doing what the great powers did not? Or is anything positive in this Levant region just never going to happen? Or would it be better if the Jewish state were not in the Middle East at all?
Personally, after almost 80 years of existing, 40 of which I have seen up close, I would rather the Jewish state not be in the Middle East. Herzl, considered the father of modern Zionism, might have been the smartest man in the room when he recommended putting the state in Uganda. I’ve written this before and I’m not going to rant and repeat. I want to stick to the practical effects of what is actually happening. Of course I love to visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem and I enjoy being able to visit a Jewish state. I’m just saying is it worth all this trouble and couldn’t we just have a decent situation having a Jewish state somewhere else and then visiting the religious sites when we want to? I’m a religious but not an ideological person. I just want things to work.
I want to pause and say what I am not. I see myself as an analyst and problem solver, not an asshole. Recently, I wrote a scathing letter to the editor of the NY Times asking them to stop running Peter Beinart’s columns. In my opinion, the guy is an opportunistic court-Jew writing serial columns that are anti-Zionist and creating a nice little industry for himself and his college-bound kids who are putting out the same crap. Publishing his columns as if they were mainstream Jewish opinion is out of bounds in my opinion. His drivel would never be published but for the fact that he is Jewish and it is convenient for them to give him an amplifier.
What I can add to my argument that is new is that this year net emigration in Israel was 60,000. That’s among the worst against other years. The best ones want to leave; the ones that come, such as retirees, are not among the greatest contributors. The ones that visit are increasingly from a narrow swath of Jews. There were about 950,000 tourist arrivals in Israel in 2024; Albania had over 11 million. Multiple visits by the same person count toward the total and a good number of tourists to Israel make more than one visit a year, so we talking about a small group of repeat visitors. Birthright is having a much harder time getting others to make the free trip. Israel still is a place where you go with a large fortune to wind up with a small fortune. I can’t think of a single person I know who is more successful in Israel than he or she was in America.
Think about this against that 60,000 emigration figure. In Israel, about 20,000 soldiers do the serious combat work. About 80,000 are the essence of the active military. About 2/3 of the reservists are not showing up now after being disgusted and exhausted. If this emigration keeps up, who is going to be fighting the next war or even this one now getting underway in Gaza City?
The 20 or so hostages will not live long and I fear it will be a tragedy that they suffered so much only to die at the end. At some point, Israel will make moves to wipe the floor with Hamas in Gaza. They are not going to negotiate a day-after solution for Gaza with Hamas in the picture. Two years have been wasted trying to negotiate with it and dreaming of day-after scenarios involving Hamas that had no chance to succeed. Even the Arab League recently passed a resolution stating that Hamas cannot be a part of Gaza’s future. I’ve always felt and written that rather than prolonging everyone’s agony, it would have been better had the Israelis done the necessaries in Gaza immediately 2 years ago and not have the whole thing warped by the presence of some hostages. So why did everyone play this charade?
We know why. Netanyahu stayed in power. Half the Israelis felt they were doing right by the hostages and resisting the government. The other half bought Netanyahu’s argument that the other half was using the hostages to push Bibi out and resisted them. The result of this power play? Israel is the pariah state I said it would become several years ago. Jews abroad are stuck with these results and have no influence over a prime minister who is more interested in staying out of jail and in power than he is over anything else and who never really appeared to care much about the hostages anyway. The New York Times expose on Bibi Netanyahu’s conduct during the past 2 years is damning. Netanyahu has done more than anyone to ruin Israel’s reputation in the world and to make life difficult for Jews abroad.
But to blame it all on one person is misleading. The majority of Israelis support Bibi’s policies even if they don’t like him, similar to Americans supporting conservative policies but not necessarily Trump. A new Israeli government will not be much different than the current one. The makeup of the country after 80 years is less European and more Middle Eastern. They think differently than we do even if we still essentially share similar values. But how those values play out seems increasingly different than American values. The younger generation of Jews and even evangelical Republicans and especially progressive Democrats do not see the value of a Jewish state that has vigilantes and an army abusing Moslems and Christians in the West Bank, appears to be starving children in Gaza (even if the reality is not quite what it seems), and undoing democratic institutions.
That is a very broad coalition of people who are not happy with what they see. I’ve been told by former senior Israeli officials that Israel wouldn’t last 24 hours without American financial and military support. You might argue otherwise. But think about what would happen if the majority of American Jews decided that Israel is more of a liability than an asset. Israel is going to rely on the support of evangelicals? Right now, more than 65% of American Jews do not support the current Israeli government. Democratic support for Israel is in the single digits.
Military and intelligence professionals in Israel almost unanimously agree that the war has been operationally over for months now and there is next to nothing to be gained from continuing it.
Qatar is investing wisely in America much like Republicans invested for a generation in setting the grounds to overturn abortion rights; over the long haul they are in a promising situation because the trends are in their favor, although things might come back to bite them. Many Arabs and other countries such as Turkey have benefitted from Jewish lobbying that saw common ground and was organized to help them. Maybe they think they will be fine without Jewish support, but we have seen this movie before 50 years ago and it didn’t play all that well for the Arabs. Qatar is smarter; they play all sides and keep options open. I’m looking forward to visiting the country this winter and seeing what they are doing.
Here is a thought: The biblical book of Lamentations is read in synagogue on the Jewish fast of Tisha B’Av for centuries now, and you would think it was a reflection on the desolation and destruction of Jerusalem. That’s what I thought for all these years. Actually, it was a book of prophecy years before it ever happened. The reason we read it is to remind ourselves that it was a warning to Jews to repent or face the consequences, and we can see through history that bad things happen when you don’t heed warnings. But do we learn or just go through the motions? If you need a reason to keep that date relevant on the calendar, that admonition should suffice.
This is what really bothers me: This is the first time I can tell that Jews had a hand in creating the antisemitism against them. I know about the fallacy of blaming the victim but this is not that. Yes, what you saw on the college campuses was simmering for years under the umbrella of DEI and the war was an excuse to bring it to the surface. But let’s look beyond that arena at the broader landscape. The majority of Americans voted for Trump and the majority of Israelis voted for Bibi. Both countries are responsible for the people they elected and keep in power. American Jewish leaders have not put their foot down and spoken truth to power. (Just recently they have started to do so in Israel but it doesn’t count for much.) It has become a copout to say that we have no voice because we do not fight in the army, pay taxes or live there. Israel will not benefit long term if American Jews forfeit their credibility and influence in defense of a country that is hemorrhaging support in America and is earning more apathy than support among Jews. Jews share responsibility for this mess and when I see my rabbi making his sermon as if we are just victims of circumstances in the world, I see denial of reality and failure to own up to responsibility. The future will be scarier for Jews and ultimately Israel even if the Iranians don’t get to them. The damage being done now will not be easily fixed even if the war ends and a new government changes policy, just as America has caused so much damage to itself in the world that it will not be fixed even after Trump is long gone. The rest of the world is preparing to go on without America and eventually Israel will find itself with very few friends in the world. After a year of great military victories the picture should be better. But these military victories might be more fleeting than you think. The 1967 war and Israeli victory of mythical proportions was followed by the debacle of 1973 in just 7 years. I still remember how scared everyone was that Yom Kippur day.
Now to some travel notes.
We have been looking for places near NYC that are easy to get to and that provide an escape. A good oceanfront place with cooler temperatures was requested. Karen and I made a July weekend visit to Asbury Park, New Jersey, almost 2 hours away from Penn Station NYC on a New Jersey transit train, about $20 each way. Stayed at the Asbury Ocean Club Hotel, about a mile from the station and along the beach front. That property is an oasis in the middle of not much else with good food and a 5-star hotel. The town has lots of music and concerts during the summer. It is not a particularly upscale area, but it was fun. Nearby Ocean Grove is a cute district that was settled by Methodist Christians and is awash in Victorian architecture. It is a good place to stay cheaply if you are a visiting student or want to be a few minutes walk from downtown. If you visit here, get restaurant reservations in advance because you won’t get a table walking in. Brando’s Italian was a good restaurant (beware no pizzettas on Friday or Saturday evenings); also check out Fantasia and Moonstruck, both Mediterranean-Italian restaurants. Kleins on the river front has good fresh fish we’re told, but it is the next town over.
Scotland August 2025
We went to Edinburgh with Elizabeth as a last fling before she left to college. We spent 2 days at the fringe festival followed by 3 nights at a golf-oriented resort (even though we don’t play) about 90 minutes away, Gleneagles Hotel. Several airlines now fly nonstop to Edinburgh from New York; it is almost a 6 hour flight going and 7 hours returning. United flies 757’s which are old and cramped. You have to be a track star to get to a window seat even in business class. Because it’s a midnight flight we took, the Polaris lounge at Newark is a no-go since it closes at 10. Uber is half the price of a taxi cab into the city and it’s a 30 minute ride for about 30 pounds (about $40). We stayed at the Balmoral Hotel which is the same place I’ve stayed on previous visits. It’s a great location next to the train station and right between the shopping areas and the old town. For the festival, it’s no more than 15-20 minutes to any venue. The hotel has the best facilities in town with an indoor pool and the food is also strong. Other hotels to consider are the nearby Hilton and Scotsman just across the bridge in the Old Town, the Virgin Hotel in the Old Town (but I’m afraid it is noisy and the rooms are very small), and the Intercontinental on George Street which runs parallel to Prince Street shopping street. There are several good restaurants around there. Areas we’d like to see on a return trip are Stockbridge district, Deans Village, climb up Arthur’s Seat, attend a handbag making class at Islander (at least 2 locations), and leave a day to choose some shows from word of mouth. However, you do not want to arrive without tickets to shows because they sell out.
After a noontime arrival, we started midafternoon going to shows. Over a 48 hour period we saw 10 shows. Each is about an hour long and costs about $15 a ticket. Examples of things we saw were a music revue of Bond movie themes, a comedic history lecture about 5 mistakes that changed history, a cabaret show (we thought that meant people singing standards) which in their language is a burlesque show, a magic show, several one-person shows about being Eleanor Roosevelt or a Trump-loving intern in DC, a comedy show, a variety show featuring some mimes from Japan, a parody on the news, a trio playing various pieces on one piano at the same time, and our favorite, Australian comedian John Robertson’s Dark Room which is an audience participation show pretending to play a real-life video game. Having a good hotel as a base is helpful since food offerings in Edinburgh were not great aside from a few Pret locations (one across from the Hilton and the other just off Prince Street). We ate a picnic dinner in one of the outdoor festival food courts. There are Harry Potter shops, some good ice cream shops and various other shops selling jewelry, hats and smaller-size department stores such as Harvey Nichols and John Lewis and a new shopping mall, St. James Quarter, just off the main shopping street near the Balmoral Hotel that caught our attention. I went into Marks and Spencer’s 3 times to buy stuff. We walked along a nice area of row-houses called Circus Lane. Other examples of words that mean something else in Scotland are salad (meaning no bread but not necessarily anything green), and flatbread (which means a wrap). Karen kept looking in vain almost all week to find a real salad.
We used Uber to transfer to Gleneagles. It’s about 100 Pounds and 90 minutes. Activities we enjoyed there were clay pigeon shooting (Liz likes that), a 2 hour hike along a road overlooking a valley and hills, the town of Auchterarder with some shopping and a café, mini-golf on a beginner’s golfing course with about 40-50 yards per hole, and an afternoon at the spa. The hotel has a 2-star Michelin restaurant. Its main dining room has live entertainment and one evening there was a pianist alternating with a string trio which played mostly popular tunes. Gone are the days of playing classical music to hotel guests. Lots of guests were from Gulf countries and dressed in chadors; some of the men dressed like princes with golf hats and sweaters. One of them was the Prince of Dubai; I was told he was pretty normal dude except with some body guards and a yen for free diving. What I don’t get is why they would let him go free diving if they care about his life enough to have guards. The resort has great facilities with gym, pool and all that stuff; locals are members so you can meet them here. One guy was a 62 year old who trained insanely; he was an MMA fighter in a previous life and had this crazy mustache. You can look him up on Instagram at #thetravelingstache. He was friendly though. The weather changes constantly here; you can’t say “it’s a nice day”—instead say “it’s a nice moment outside”. You can get rain and sun more than once in an hour. It’s rain or sunshiny rain and golfers just plough through it. Temperature during our visit hardly reached over 70. It was a lovely break from New York City summer. At this hotel, the best thing to do is to stay on one of the first 2 levels above the lobby. There are only 2 elevators for this building of over 200 rooms including the service elevator and only one of them goes to the 4th floor where the suites are.
Our driver to the airport was a fascinating guy who was a 35 year veteran of the UK foreign service. In between driving people to the airport, he is always traveling to some exotic place such as Uzbekistan. He said he could see firsthand how many people around the world were dying due to the loss of aid from USAID and said Americans should have a greater appreciation for how much good they were doing in the world. He had been driving secret service agents around during Trump’s recent visit to Scotland where the local paper headlined “Convicted Felon from USA arrives today.” Trump’s golf club in Scotland is at about 10% occupancy while Gleneagles is at 99.5%. He said that, aside from his political side, Trump is polite with his agents and brings them beverages if he sees they are hot or cold outside. Vance, the vice president, is reportedly an asshole who only cares about himself and is not nice to his security detail.
Edinburgh airport is relatively small and easy to fly in and out of. Passport control had e-gates and on departure there were no special security steps for flights to the US, not even passport control. There are several Pret locations in the airport to get good food. Airline catering out of Scotland is not so great. On this trip, we had already seen most of the attractions in Edinburgh and southern Scotland so we were not feeling that we had to run around and see things. It was a good combination of city festival followed by country chill at a nearby resort. Our 5 day trip was a good thing to do within a relatively short flight from New York. Remember to book shows and resort activities and restaurants at least a month in advance to avoid disappointment but it is good to leave some time at the festival to add on shows based on word of mouth. You need to show up to shows 5-10 minutes in advance to get a decent seat in a small theater and if you are late you might have your ticketed seat given away. Royal Tatoo (show featuring military bands from several countries) always coincides with Fringe Festival; that’s a hard ticket to get even in advance. Make sure to get covered seating since the weather can be windy and rainy up at the castle. This year it was cancelled one night for the first time in 75 years. Here’s a fact to know: We asked about Scotland joining the EU. Biggest obstacle is Spain; they don’t want to set a precedent that might bite them with Catalonia also wanting to split off from a country and go rogue with the EU. On the flight home, the Wifi on United was really good. Nice to see that something is improving in the air.
