Certain Sips: The Weekend Brew - Valentine's Edition
Five Hot Minutes ☕ February 14, 2025
A weekly cultural and political brief—Certain Sips: the Weekend Brew
What are your love languages?
Acts of Service? Quality Time? Giving Gifts? I recently received a gift copy of
’s new book Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza from my mother. Thanks mom. The book, which is subtitled A Reckoning, is an expression of deep, tough love from one member of the Jewish people to the tribe where he was born and remains true.Good Reading
Beinart prefaces the book with a quote from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (1948-2020), a former member of the UK House of Lords and Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth: “Judaism is about the universality of justice but the particularity of love.”
The book then begins with a heartbreaking letter to an unnamed former friend of the author. I’m sure he has a particular reader in mind, but the message applies universally to all zionists who may recoil at the author’s message. Beinart hopes to persuade those in opposition first to read the book, then to consider an alternate course away from the self-destructive path of unchecked ethnic supremacy. I recommend this book to anyone who is zionist, loves a zionist, or has lost friends or a loved one over Israel since October 7, 2023.
As I read this short but moving book on Valentine’s day, I’m struck at the different forms love can take: love of a people such as a tribe, love of family, or romantic love for a partner. Always on time and ever the clever jester,
is out with a brand new album for the lovers just in time for Valentine’s Day:Good Listening
You may recognize
as the creator of BBL Drizzy, an AI-generated song made famous by Metro Boomin in a diss track that helped catalyze 2024’s epic Kendrick-Drake battle. If King Willonius’ signature contribution to 2024 was all for the fighters, this year his handiwork is all love. Check out the new album We In Love Again and the rapidly expanding King Willonius discography.Kendrick Lamar eviscerated Drake in the name of the culture he loves and reveres. Sometimes it seems like the only thing Drake loves and reveres is himself. Self-love alone can be toxic, but when sprinkled in the mix of love for others and the greater collective self-love has an important place in our lives.
Good Drinking
Chocolate on Valentine’s Day is a must. In my case, I practice self-love by blending Nutella into freshly pulled espresso, then mixing with soymilk over ice for a Nutella Iced Mocha. Happy Valentine’s Day, old sport. See you next time.
ICYMI, check out these related essays:
Certain Sips: The Weekend Brew
A new weekly cultural and political brief—Certain Sips: the Weekend Brew
Echoes of Atrocity
My earliest Holocaust memories are stark, simple black and white paintings hung on the basement hallways of my childhood synagogue: A crevice with a skull wedged in. A pile of bodies. Barbed wire.
Spotify Wrapped Wednesday
First, there was Thanksgiving. The holiday included family, feasting, and football, and that’s it. Then, our capitalist overlords invented Black Friday. Soon Black Friday gave way to Cyber Monday, and for the philanthropically inclined, Giving Tuesday.
All of those
Mmm Nutella espresso!!! What!? Mind blown.