Eight nights, one doughnut. Credit Tess Mayer for The New York Times
from “New York Today: Lessons Beyond Latkes,” about the story of Hanukkah and the significance of oil in the celebration (and why doughnuts are a perfect food for the holiday):
The menorah ripple is four doughnuts of increasing sizes, fitted snugly within each other, with the largest having the circumference of a typical pizza pie. Cut it in half, and the ends of the doughy semicircles resemble the eight candles of a menorah.
Two of the ripples are filled with the plant’s house-made blackberry jam. The creation is then smeared with a cream cheese glaze, and glowing candles are etched on with all-natural icing.
“But I eat doughnuts every day, whether it’s Hanukkah or not,” Mr. Isreal added. “Everyday I’m celebrating the oil.”
see this list of how US members of congress have responded to trump’s ban on muslims — any line with “silent” feels gross (both of my texas senators, by the way, marked as silent, though my rep, will hurd, has gone on record against it).
This is one of those clarifying moments in American history, and like most such, it came upon us unawares, although historians in later years will be able to trace the deep and the contingent causes that brought us to this day. There is nothing to fear in this fact; rather, patriots should embrace it. The story of the United States is, as Lincoln put it, a perpetual story of “a rebirth of freedom” and not just its inheritance from the founding generation.
But it is the photo of Peoples that resonates the most for me. It felt indicative of the ways in which the day’s events could be viewed as problematic: the notion that women’s rights were suddenly the most important cause in our nation, or that there haven’t been protests and activist movements worth attending until the election of Donald Trump. The photo of Peoples is certainly the image that was most shared among the black women I know and that surfaced in feeds from women who opted out of the march, who chose to spend time with their families or one another instead. Those who were criticized for not participating reminded their followers of the suffrage movement, when black women were increasingly marginalized in the fight for the right to vote, and highlighted the lack of policing at the women’s march, a luxury never granted at Black Lives Matters demonstrations. And they reminded anyone who’d forgotten that 53 percent of all white women who voted voted for Trump, while 94 percent of black women voters cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton. They reminded people that it is very likely that the white women in the photograph probably know — or are related to — someone who voted for Trump. That photo cuts to a truth of the election: While black women show up for white women to advance causes that benefit entire movements, the reciprocity is rarely shown.