Getting prepped for our opinionated autumn
More culture-war conversations to come
The biggest loser: Phoebe Maltz Bovy reviews a novel about millennial woman malaise
Did you ever feel like everyone around you has their life together and you’re the one left behind? I don’t want to say that everyone’s had that sentiment—Donald Trump, perhaps, has not—but it is, as feelings go, a relatable one. And it’s the one at the centre of Lauren Mechling and Rachel Dodes’s new novel, The Memo.
Jenny Green, who graduated from college in 2007, was on a path to culinary-world success when a kitchen mishap had her accidentally setting fire to the bakery in Italy she was apprenticing in as part of a prestigious fellowship. From that moment on, her life fell apart, or, rather, stalled into mediocrity. After a stint living back home with her parents on suburban Long Island, she’s on the cusp of 36, living in unglamorous Pittsburgh, working a generic office job as the underling to a dreadful girlboss, dating a hot-but-untrustworthy man. Neither kids nor home ownership are on the horizon.
None of this would be remarkable except for the fact that her best friends from college, Geeta and Leigh, are big-shot professionals. They’re flitting around, attending galas, and just generally being the sort of people who can hold their heads up high at the college reunion where everything will, of course, come to a head. They are, crucially, hanging out without her…
What we risk when Conservatives become the de facto party of Canadian Jews
Canadian Jews may have noticed a trend in their communities this summer: Conservative politicians making the rounds. Leader Pierre Poilievre, Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman and even former prime minister Stephen Harper have all made numerous appearances at synagogues, pro-Israel rallies and fundraising galas. It’s nothing new to see the country’s political right wing court Jewish voters—such a swing was cemented under Harper’s government—but it feels especially pronounced this summer, coming up on the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 and an approaching election.
But Jewish institutions have historically been apolitical, and the broad rightward shift almost certainly makes members of the community feel excluded. What are the ramifications of this tight-knit union? Here to dissect the issue is The CJN’s political columnist Josh Lieblein. He joins Bonjour Chai co-hosts Avi and Phoebe, who return from their summer vacations—Phoebe’s having been blissfully apolitical in Europe, while Avi’s culminated in a drive back to Chicago during the Democratic National Convention.
And after that, Phoebe explains the bigger picture behind the abrupt cancellation of a book event in Brooklyn—not even because the author was Zionist, but because the interviewer was.
