It's Purim! A day to spread joy and feel happy, in spite of our sadness and fear. Enjoy the annual T'ruah Purim newsletter, and tell your friends!

With so much happening in the world, it can be hard to keep up. And when you do keep up, it can be hard to keep going.

That's why you subscribe to The Daily T'ruahbune (now with 15 grams of protein per issue)!

In celebration of Purim, The Daily T'ruahbune is announcing we're laying off the rest of our news team, leading to a 100% reduction in reporting. We want to keep our customers happy! 

Here's what's in this issue: 

  • Curate Your Personal News Bubble
  • AD: Mordechai Did Not Bow, But We Do!
  • RabAI: The Sermon Writer Powered by Artificial Intelligence
  • Announcing the Mamdani Monitor Monitor
  • Our Favorite ICEBreakers
  • AD: The New York Times' Frequent Canceller's Plan
  • Announcing the Monitor of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor
  • The REI Guide to Big Tents for Judaism
  • AD: You May Be Entitled to Damages if You Signed A T’ruah Petition
  • ICE Whistle Codes
  • Announcing the Monitor of the Monitor of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor 

Don't miss the jokes getting cut off at the bottom! View it in your web browser

 

Curate Your Personal News Bubble

We hear it all the time: “Where do you get your news? What sources aren’t biased? What newspapers aren’t laying off 30% of their staff this week?” We know what kind of news you want, and we’re here to help you curate your personal news bubble! 

Here’s our list of recommendations:

The Washington Post-Shabbat Email Check: Since all the juicy news hits on Shabbat, the remaining Washington Post writers will reduce their reporting to once a week, popping up on your screen by the time the fourth star is visible in the sky. Dip into just enough news to catch up and feel awful that moshiach still hasn’t arrived, without actually ruining your whole week!

The Guardian of Israel: If your first question is always “Is it good for Israel?”, this is the source for you. Find out which American politicians dare to speak more about their constituents than the demographics, military capacity, and dominant religion of another country, and connect via the classified ads with like-minded people to craft angry letters. 

The Chicago Tribunal: Reporting from the future when the bad guys have all been brought to justice.

The Nostalgia Courant: Every day, get a throwback piece of news from a calmer decade! Remember the Enron scandal? The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope? Operation Desert Storm? The Oslo Accords being signed on the White House lawn? Relax, get your news from the 1990s, and get off your daily blood pressure medication.

The Utopia Times: Let’s be honest, what you really want is news about the future, and preferably a future in which we’ve somehow fixed everything on Earth. With a staff made up of three generations of Star Trek writers, The Utopia Times brings you reporting from anywhere but the Alpha Quadrant, because in the future, humans will be the most ethical species in the universe, and will boldly go find other species being racist and xenophobic and misogynistic so that we can enjoy the feeling of finally being superior.

The Beth El Synagogue Sisterhood Fundraiser Cookbook: What you really need to know is whose grandmother was responsible for the raisins in the challah that no one likes, whose Jello mold (that hasn’t been made since 1978) is only included because they’re major donors, and which dueling kugel recipes are now in the second generation of rival families. Hyper-local news is the most important news! 

 
 

RabAI: The Sermon Writer Powered by Artificial Intelligence

What’s the hardest thing about being a pulpit rabbi? Writing the sermon – especially nowadays, when politics have divided American Jews into every tribe except their own. Fortunately, as with most things, AI is here to solve all our problems! Introducing RabAI, the first robotic assistant guaranteed to write you a sermon in 3 seconds that will offend no one! Here’s a sample demo of RabAI at “work”:

Announcing the Mamdani Monitor Monitor

Today, we here at the League Against Defamation (LAD), are launching a new essential project as we strive to hold the Anti-Defamation League’s Mamdani Monitor accountable: the Mamdani Monitor Monitor. 

The Mamdani Monitor Monitor will keep a close eye on the ADL’s coverage of the new administration. The Mamdani Monitor Monitor is proudly staffed by people with the ability to recognize a Sieg Heil for the white supremacist symbol that it is, and are not immediately threatened by Arabic words that aren’t “hummus.” 

The Mamdani Monitor Monitor will also be stationing a car outside of Jonathan Greenblatt’s house to intercept any doxxing trucks he tries to dispatch. 

 

Our Favorite ICEbreakers

 

Dear ICE agents, you seem angry! From the horrific videos we’ve been watching, it’s clear ICE agents aren’t spending enough time getting to know each other before going out and abducting community members from their workplaces, schools, and places of worship. 

If there’s one thing Jewish social justice organizations know well, it’s icebreakers! And that none of us are in this alone! The next time you get together with a group of strangers to throw tear gas at innocent civilians, consider using some of these ICEbreakers to stimulate bonding and group cohesion before you head out:

  • What is your favorite cold-weather city to be deployed in?

  • What’s your family’s immigration story?

  • What celebrity lawyer, real or fictional, do you want representing you at your inevitable trial, and why?

  • Name game: Take turns going around the circle and each saying your first name, last name, complete address, and social security number. Take off that mask. Be honest about who you are.

  • Share your favorite cereal from when you were a kid. Remember when you were a kid and wanted to fight the bad guys? How’d that end up being you? 

  • Human knot: Stand in a circle. Reach across the circle and grab two people’s hands. Stay there, without letting go, until you’ve untangled the knot and gotten back into a circle. Better yet, just stay there. 

  • Two truths and a lie Three lies.

These ICEbreakers should fix that horrible pit in your stomach. If they don’t, try a job with less moral injury? Or snacks?

 
 

Frequent frustrations with the Grey Lady?

Do you find yourself outraged at what we’re reporting?

Outraged at what we’re not reporting?

Outraged that you can’t adequately express your outrage because you’ve already canceled your subscription? 

Introducing the new New York Times Frequent Canceler’s Plan - for those who like a blood pressure spike over breakfast!

When you subscribe to the NYTFCP, you get all the news that’s fit to print, every day in your inbox - except for 30 minutes after you cancel your subscription in disgust. Cancel as often as you want, with confidence that your subscription will resume without a hiccup - and with the peace of mind that comes with taking a firm stand against biased coverage.

And don’t worry, you’ll have full access to Wordle and Spelling Bee, which are the only reasons anyone subscribes anyway, and the crossword; no one is mad at Will Shortz!

Announcing the Monitor of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor 

Good afternoon. Today, Antisemites Lose Daily (ALD) are pleased to announce our new initiative: The Monitor of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor (MoMMM). 

The Monitor of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor will be an essential mechanism for overseeing the excesses of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor, which claims it will monitor the Mamdani Monitor, but which, our monitoring suggests, has a cynical secondary monitoring goal. 

With the Monitor of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor in place, we can finally rest easy knowing that antisemitism, accusations of antisemitism, and the manipulation of accusations of antisemitism are all being monitored. 

 

The REI Guide to Big Tents for Judaism

Jewish institutions often speak of building a “Big Tent” – a metaphorical tabernacle that welcomes in a wide range of beliefs and practices. In our time of heightened polarization, having a Big Tent is of utmost importance – but how do you know which tent to choose? T’ruah is happy to partner with REI to answer all of your Big Tent questions, such as:

  • Is this tent big enough for all of us?
  • How far can we stretch this metaphor?
  • Does REI use ethically-sourced dolphin skin?

Happy Camping!

 
 

You May Be Entitled to Damages if You Signed A Petition

Did you sign a petition and not get the change you were promised?

Did you add your name to a bold statement written by a social justice organization, only to feel betrayed when the issue wasn’t solved? 

Join the class-action lawsuit against nonprofit statements and petitions now! You may be entitled to a settlement, and getting back your indignation and 30 seconds of your life.

Two initial plaintiffs have already joined, claiming that MoveOn, T’ruah, and others used false advertising by labeling their sign-on letters as potentially effective policy steps.

“The letter I signed made it sound like it would work,” says Ashley Cohen, “And I don’t think I would have signed it if I knew that there was no guarantee that it would directly cause change. To quote MLK, ‘The arc of the moral universe is short and suuuuuuuper easy to bend.’”  

“I honestly thought my senator would immediately change plans on major legislation,” said Moshe Fried, “because the petition I signed said that several thousand others had signed on, too. Of course I thought it was a slam-dunk. Why would they mislead us, the true victims?” 

The lawsuit claims that several nonprofit social justice organizations “cheated” supporters out of their justified satisfaction at taking action and the 30 seconds it took to sign the communal statements. The plaintiffs prefer to take actions that are guaranteed to be effective, according to the complaint. Both plaintiffs said they would not have signed on if they knew their actions wouldn’t be immediately effective.

If you signed a statement or petition between 2016 and 2026 and didn’t immediately get the justice you were expecting, write to us today.

 

Announcing the Monitor of the Monitor of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor 

It is with great fanfare that the Loathing Defense Leaders (LDL) declares the launch of the Monitor of the Monitor of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor (MOMOMMM). 

In addition to monitoring the ways in which the Monitor of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor obscures the very real antisemitism of the Mamdani Monitor Monitor, LDL will also be monitoring your cholesterol, ensuring your personal health and safety as a Jew.

In fact, LDL has discovered that high cholesterol is the single greatest danger to most Jews, and that the biggest antisemite of all is our own genetic predisposition to artery-clogging plaque.

We call for more monitoring, everywhere, all the time, to keep Jews safe. 

T'ruah's Purim newsletter is brought to you by: Shira Danan, Julie Fishbach, Rabbi Marisa James, Rob Kutner, Orli Matlow, Rabbi Lev Meirowitz Nelson, and Rabbi Ruhi Sophia Motzkin Rubenstein. 

If anything in today's issue offended you, we congratulate you on still being able to feel things. What's that like? 

 
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