Portland: America's Last Bastion of Normalcy

In my congressional district, local media is now projecting that Janelle Bynum has ousted incumbent Republican Representative Lori Chavez-Deremer. As terrible as election day was on the whole, I am grateful that I'll be represented by a Democrat in Congress once again, and I'm glad my neighbors made the right choice in sending Bynum to Congress.

Meanwhile, across the river in Washington state, Democratic incumbent Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has won her rematch against Republican challenger Joe Kent. This was a result that thrills and honestly confuses me. Perez's 2022 victory over Kent was one of the night's bigger upsets, largely chalked up to Kent being basically a White supremacist. But clearly the lesson of 2024 is that that's no longer any object, and if you told me ahead of time that election night would see a broad-based "red shift" compared to 2020 I would have been dead certain that Perez was absolute toast. So why exactly did this nut crack? I don't have an answer to that,* and I acknowledge that Perez has annoyed Democratic leadership before. But she seems to have some ideas of how to present progressive priorities in a way that speaks outside of our current base (e.g., her championing of "right to repair" laws, or pairing student loan debt relief with "dollar-for-dollar ... investments in career [and] technical education"), and she is a voice worth paying attention to going forward.

Needless to say, both Bynum and Perez bucked a pretty terrible national trend. As most of the country embraced the chaos and the void, the single, solitary exception was the Pacific Northwest. Here, we rejected crude reflex and base instinct. And it's not just the local congressional races. In the Portland mayor's race, we didn't pick the woman who thinks the law doesn't apply to her just because she's "progressive", and we didn't pick the man who wants to execute the homeless because he promised "law and order". Our new mayor is going to be Keith Wilson, whose major appeal in the field, from my vantage point, is that he seemed like a normal, good guy making reasonable efforts to resolve the problems in front of our city. That shouldn't always be enough, but in the field we had it was better than all the alternatives.  In my city council district, I felt like we had a plethora of good candidates to choose from, and the three winners all were among my top six picks. Here too, I'm very happy with the choices offered and choices made, and none of them seem (yet, anyway) like kooks, cranks, or gadflies. I'm optimistic that they will be diligent and attentive public servants when they enter office, and again, that's not something I take for granted anymore.

It is, of course, quite off-brand for Portland to be America's avatar of normalcy. Locally, we're more used to embracing our "weird" identity, nationally, our reputation is something like that of a post-apocalyptic drag show. "Normal" is not historically our forte.

But for my part, I am so, so happy that this is the city my wife and I have chosen to build our life in and raise our child in. Portland is a great city. It is full of great people, great beauty, great resources, great activities, and great values. I'm under no illusions that anywhere, blue states included, will be "safe" in the coming years. But there are very few places I'd rather be than here, and if you're looking for a new place to call home, I'd encourage you to look our way.

* One thing I will say, and someone inundated with ads for the Perez/Kent race, is that Kent went 100% all-in on anti-trans fearmongering. The result was Perez likely expanding her margin of victory in an otherwise red wave year. Take from that what you will.

Tell Me Who To Vote For (Portland Edition 2024)

Election day is coming up, and while my choices are very easy on a national level (every Democrat gets my enthusiastic, excited, and unqualified endorsement), there are a bunch of local races where I'm feeling considerably less informed. So I'm going to lay out my tentative preferences for Portland Mayor, City Council (District 4), and Multnomah County Commissioner (District 1), as well as some ballot initiatives -- but I very much invite you to chime in with your own thoughts if you have information I do not.

Mayor

We have ranked choice voting now, so it's not just a matter of choosing a favorite -- you have to have an order of preference (at least amongst viable candidates). As far as I can tell, there are four candidates who seem to have a plausible shot: Rene Gonzalez, Carmen Rubio, Keith Wilson, and Mingus Mapps.

1. Keith Wilson. Wilson is the "outsider" candidate -- he's never held political office before -- and for me that's actually a significant strike against him. I think politics is a job, and one people get better at with experience. That said, the entire field of candidates seems profoundly unimpressive this year, and Wilson -- who at the very least seems to be thoughtful and dedicated to public service. Most people agree that homelessness is the critical issue in Portland, and Wilson has made that his signature issue -- not just as a matter of rhetoric, but actually putting in the work to really study best practices around the country to try and figure out what will work for Portland. I admit that I still don't fully have a bead on the nitty-gritty here, but it seems like Wilson is landing in a place in between the twin poles of "snuggle the problem until it goes away" and "send in the shock troopers", and that appeals to my progressive pragmatist sensibilities.

2. Mingus Mapps. Great name, first of all. The bead on Mapps seems to be that he's a good and thoughtful guy, but has not been especially effective in his tenure on the Portland City Commission. That's turned off several would-be supporters who were big boosters of his when he first ran for elective office. For me, good instincts and blandly inoffensive isn't a rousing endorsement, but it still pushes him into second place given his contenders.

3. Carmen Rubio. If this election was held three months ago, Rubio probably would've been my pick. Policywise, she seems like a good progressive Democrat but not a blinkered fundamentalist, and I'm all for that cocktail. But Rubio has been buffeted by a pretty big scandal recently that has really soured me on her -- specifically, an incredibly long rap sheet of hundreds parking and traffic offenses, many of which she simply refused to pay, leading to having her license suspending six times.

Look, I know I'm not voting for city driving instructor. But everything about this scandal has made me think that Rubio is the sort of person who can't be entrusted with power. A few traffic violations here and there, whatever. Over a hundred, and we have someone who just clearly thinks of herself as above the petty rules that govern society. And it just kept getting worse. Four days after the Oregonian broke the story, Rubio dinged yet another car in a parking lot. Then she didn't leave a note. Then, when the car owner tracked her down, she accused him of trying to blackmail her. Then she claimed that sexism was to blame for why people viewed any of this as a problem at all. The mix of brazen disregard for the law and the quick cries of persecution is -- I hate to say it -- a bit Trumpist in character, and I cannot abide that. Maybe there are ways she can actually restore public trust and return to public service. But right now, she needs to actually face some accountability.

4. Rene Gonzalez. Everyone in Portland runs as a Democrat, but Gonzalez definitely is occupying the "law and order" lane, where "law and order" seems to mean "cracking homeless skulls until they find housing." As noted above, I don't think homelessness is a problem we can just snuggle our way to a solution of, but neither do I think it's something that can be resolved by hyperaggressive policing. Gonzalez seems less concerned with "solving homelessness" than he is interested in "solving people having to see the homeless," and this issue deserves better. And while Gonzalez doesn't have quite the length of Rubio's scandal sheet, he has some worrying signals of his own regarding abuse of power (including calling the cops on a constituent who brushed past him on the subway), and definitely has ranked poorly on the "plays well with others" metric during his time on the city commission.

City Council (District 4)

There are approximately six trillion people running for three seats here, but from what I can tell there is a bit of a coalescing among the establishment-types behind Olivia Clarke, Eric Zimmerman, and Eli Arnold, with progressives backing the trio of Mitch Green, Chad Lykins, and Sarah Silkie. But while the top three don't overlap, my first thought was to see whether there were any candidates who seemed reasonably well-liked by both factions. The progressive groups I looked at still had nice things to say about Clarke, the former legislative director for Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, so she seems like a good fit. And likewise, the establishment venues had praise for Silkie and Green. For Silkie, that's also probably good enough to put her towards the top of my list. As for Green, he's apparently my neighbor in West Portland Park, which is a point in his favor. But he's carrying a DSA endorsement, which admittedly makes me nervous these days. Are there strong reasons to pick Lykins, Zimmerman, or Arnold above him? I don't know! Still, unlike the mayor's race, it seems that in District 4 we have an abundance of solid choices, which is nice to see. Definitely can be swayed in various directions here.

Multnomah County Commission (District 1)

Meghan Moyer versus Vadim Mozyrsky. Both seem like strong candidates. I voted for Mozyrsky once before, but he lost to Rene Gonzalez -- still think I made the right call there. Moyer's seemingly got the better endorsements this time around. Honestly, I'll probably be happy with either.

Ballot Measures

The two significantly contested measures, both statewide, are 117, which provides for ranked choice voting in most state and federal elections, and 118, which is basically a huge tax increase on businesses to fund a $1,600 universal basic income. I lean towards yes on 117 -- I'm not an evangelist for ranked choice voting, but I don't object to it either.

118, by contrast, seems like a very classic "if the issue is important enough, it shouldn't matter how incompetently we execute it!" initiative. I find UBI an appealing prospect. And to be honest, I do not care that "Phil Knight will get $1,600 too!" There are three billionaires in Oregon; including them in the program will cost the state $4,800. Creating extra layers of bureaucratic red tape to distinguish between worthy and unworthy recipients will cost more and will make the program less streamlined for regular folks. But the way this program is structured, it stands a strong chance of starving the state budget of funds for essentially any other public service -- and that will be a catastrophe.

So -- am I wrong about anything? Is there something I'm overlooking? Pleaes, let me know in the comments!

The Sermon Every Jew But Me Heard Every Week

One supposedly ubiquitous aspect of millennial Jewish upbringing that I do not at all relate to is the storyline where their Jewish education was a completely uncritical and unsophisticated "Israel right-or-wrong" drumbeat, one which eventually shattered upon the reality of going to college or meeting Palestinian friends or visiting Israel and the occupied territories. This story is omnipresent amongst Jews of my generation, and it just never resonated with me. I never felt like my Israel education was so inflexible, and so I never had the experience of it crashing into the real world.

The synagogue I grew up in was, admittedly, in many ways atypical. It wasn't especially liberal (no more so than is normal for a Jewish congregation, anyway), but its location in the DC suburbs meant it did have quite a few genuine experts on Israel and the Middle East (well beyond the armchair experts I imagine one can find in any synagogue pew). Their views were by no mean unchallengeable and the environment was certainly unabashedly "pro-Israel", but it did mean we perhaps avoided some of the more nakedly crude manifestations of pro-Israel politics.

This apparent idiosyncrasy in my upbringing has really jumbled my ability to connect with the zeitgeist. On the one hand, I hear the aforementioned tales of Rabbis giving these near-comical caricatures of the "true" contours of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and I can't help but be skeptical -- that's certainly not how I remember it. On the other hand, you hear it often enough and you have to think that maybe I'm just the weird one. While I certainly wouldn't characterize myself as detached from the organized Jewish community, it is the case that my connection to a synagogue has been sporadic in my adult life (if only because I moved around so much) -- so I have little in the way of comparison to juxtapose against the synagogue I grew up with.

But the imminent arrival of a little one in our family has finally prompted us to begin synagogue shopping in earnest, and over the high holidays we've been surveying various congregation's services. One congregation in particular checks a lot of our boxes -- a vibrant community, lots of young families, excellent early childhood resources, and we were excited to try out their services for the first time.

At the same time, I was seeing a flurry of posts and resources talking about how anti-Zionist or Israel-critical Jews were struggling to find welcoming Jewish communal spaces -- where could they go to high holiday services where they wouldn't be bombarded with hasbara defenses of the war in Gaza? And I will admit -- I was feeling skeptical. "Bombarded"? Come on. My own experiences made me exceptionally dubious that there would be much beyond the anodyne and unobjectionable. There'd probably be an Israeli flag on the bimah, and a prayer for the state of Israel, and statements of concern for the hostages and spiking antisemitism on college campuses. If that's what passes for an unwelcoming atmosphere, I'd say deal with it.

And so I attended services, which were quite lovely, and then the Rabbi stood to give his sermon. And it didn't take long for me to realize "oh, so this is the sermon that every Jew of my generation but me is talking about."

My first thought -- since I was synagogue-shopping and so had recently seen exactly how much it costs to join a synagogue -- was "I could just subscribe to Commentary and save a lot of money!" The second thought was to remember all the wonderful programs and suddenly understand why people join megachurches ("I may not agree with the pastor's politics, but my goodness what a preschool!"). I asked my wife her thoughts, and she said "honestly, I just tuned him out" (probably another regular facet of Jewish experience that I don't relate to -- the Rabbi at my childhood synagogue may well be the single most compelling orator I've ever met in my life).

In terms of the sermon itself, I'm not going to go to deep into the substantive details. The nicest thing I could say about the speech was that it was, at best, a good twenty-plus years out of date in speaking of an Israeli government that of course wants nothing more than peace, but alas must deal with the reality that the Palestinians will settle for nothing less than maximal and total victory. This does not, to say the least, aptly characterize the current Israeli government; much of the ideology the Rabbi imputed to Hamas and Hezbollah resonated just as strongly with Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, or yes, Netanyahu -- all of whom have proven entirely willing to sabotage prospects of peace for a chance at complete and utter dominion between the river and the sea.

At root, the sermon read as an attempt to rally a wavering audience to continue to back a war without end whose suffering has been immeasurable, because the belief that a peaceful solution can be achieved is just so much Western naivete. And it was made worse because the sermon did contain the periodic rhetorical gestures in a liberal direction -- a concession that the occupation is a problem here, a willingness to admit Bibi hasn't been perfect there. Hearing such sentiments expressed as brief asides amidst a sea of "we are fighting a culture of death" jeremiads made me understand why so many of my peers view such positions as meaningless smokescreens -- they were not actual concessions; they were balms meant to reassure the audience of its own virtue. And more broadly, if this was the Israel-outlook that I was exposed to as a teenager, then I absolutely would've gotten clobbered when reality hit in adulthood.

Again, I was not prepared for this. In fact, I had a different blog post ready to roll that was all about there being a spectrum of Jewish opinion out there and the broad tent had room for a variety of voices. The week before I had just been invited to give a talk at the Eastside Jewish Commons, and nobody had any qualms about my own harsh critiques of the Israeli government (and indeed on the bulletin board in the space I saw a posting for the Center for Jewish Non-Violence, advertising its work of "co-resistance and solidarity against Israeli occupation and apartheid."). I was planning to buttress that experience by reference to my High Holiday experience, which (I was already drafting in my mind) was a High Holiday experience, not a Bibi Netanyahu appreciation tour.

Now, to be sure, I'm still not convinced my initial instincts regarding communal pluralism were fully off-base. Leaving aside the wrongness of making judgments off of an n of 1, even at this very synagogue, the other Rabbi had just written a column about the importance of choosing peace even as her colleague was delivering an ode to the virtues of war. So one might say that Jews engaging in aggressive pro-war politicking is just as much part of a pluralism as Jews organizing to demand a ceasefire is. And again, as much as people say that any "whiff" of dissent results in an insta-purge from mainline Jewish spaces, I feel like I have dissented more than a whiff and I remain unpurged. So what am I doing that's so special? 

But nonetheless, I had a prediction of how I expected the High Holidays to go, and it was falsified. I could have just kept that to myself, of course -- none of you would have been the wiser. But it felt more honest to relay the experience.

The Ice Weasels Cometh

As some of you may know, Portland has been hit by a brutal ice storm this weekend that's knocked out power throughout the city. Over 200,000 customers lost power initially, and though that's now down below 80,000, my house is alas in that unfortunate cadre, with no reports about when the electricity will be restored.

Since we've only been in Portland a few years, we don't have a full read on how "normal" this is (though the zeitgeist I've seen seems to indicate "not normal"). It is my growing impression that Portland weather is generally quite mild for 359 days of the year, but twice a year -- once in the summer, once in the winter -- we get absolutely blitzed with an extreme event (109 degree temperatures and chaotic evil ice storm, respectively).

We've been sheltering in a hotel since Saturday afternoon, but tomorrow we're heading home in hopes that power (and with it, heat) will be restored soon-ish. If not, we'll try to find another hotel (the one we're in now has no more vacancies, alas). While the snow stopped today, it's not supposed to get above freezing until Tuesday, and (in true Portland fashion) Tuesday also is slated to see a resumption of sleet. So on top of everything else, the roads are probably going to be hell for awhile. Classes are still scheduled to resume on Tuesday, but I may have to cancel mine depending on how things go.

Hope everyone here is staying warm and safe, and wish us luck as we begin our sojourn home.

Hebrew Letters in Portland

Earlier today, I was chatting with a friend on the subject of whether we felt "afraid" as Jews. I said that I didn't personally feel especially "afraid" as a Jew, but that I acknowledged that others in my circle (students, colleagues) were articulating different experiences from mine, and that I didn't want my own relative lack of fear to imply that their experience was inauthentic, concocted, or an overreaction.

A few hours after that exchange, Jill asked if I wanted to go out and get donuts for Chanukah. I looked down and saw I was wearing that shirt -- the one that says "Carleton College" in transliterated Hebrew letters. And before I left the house, I changed shirts. While it's not that I was sure something bad would happen if I went out in public wearing Hebrew letters, I felt in no uncertain terms that it was unwise -- a risk not worth taking -- and that if I did wear it I'd certainly feel anxious from the moment we stepped into the car until the moment I got home.

What changed? Obviously, nothing -- there was no event over the interceding two hours that precipitated fear in me that I lacked before. The sense that wearing that t-shirt outside might be an Unwise Idea was already latent inside me (there's a reason why the "Hebrew Letters in ...." post is an ongoing series) -- I just sort of ... forgot about it. The fear was simultaneously always present and yet so sublimated that even in this moment I could earnestly assert in perfect good faith that I wasn't feeling it.

I'm reminded of a phenomenon Albert Memmi wrote about where Jews who experience antisemitism often simultaneously say things like "this is the first time I've ever truly faced antisemitism" and then, if you press a half-inch on the matter, will kind of belatedly remember a dozen prior instances where they also faced antisemitism. As much as there is, in some circles, pressure on Jews to trumpet our vulnerability and insist that everyone Acknowledge Our Peril, there's also, in a different register, a ton of pressure on Jews to downplay antisemitism, to show that we're not one of Those Jews who jumps at every shadow, to not make a big deal and agree to lump it on the small stuff (this dichotomy is, too, one that I think is very much one that is experienced not just by Jews but by many minority group members).

But still, I'm not sure what to make of all of this. What does it mean that I said -- again, perfectly earnestly, not as an exercise of bravado -- that I didn't feel significant "fear" right now as a Jew in a moment where at some level I knew full well I didn't feel comfortable being visibly Jewish in public? Perhaps my understanding of what it meant to be "afraid" as a Jew was one that envisioned something more visceral and panicked -- feeling as if any second now someone would jump me, terrified that we're an instant away from a mob demanding the evil Jew be removed from campus. The more workaday experiences of not feeling comfortable wearing a Hebrew t-shirt, or idly wondering (as I sometimes do) "what would happen if someone graffiti-ed my house with a swastika" -- that I've just internalized as a baseline state of being, it surely is not serious enough to qualify as being afraid. That seems a problematic thought -- the idea that as Jews we've just so thoroughly normalized a level of anxiety over antisemitism as the default setting that it feels wrong to even identify it as "fear". But clearly there's something to it -- recall my posts on how "schoolchildren shouldn't have to live like Jews", which also relates to how Jews just accept as normal certain orientations towards threat and danger that objectively speaking should be seen as intolerable.

Nonetheless, when I say I'm not sure what to make of all of this -- I mean it. I'm not fully convinced that the "right" answer is that actually, I am afraid as a Jew and I should embrace that sensation. Just the other day I was talking about how, in contrast to the zeitgeist, I haven't felt like my personal social media feed (Facebook and the like) has been overrun with extremists or monsters either cheering dead Israelis or gushing over dead Palestinians. There've been a few, but not all that many in the scheme of things. "What am I doing wrong?", I joked. "Am I being shadowbanned from all the bad content? Or am I just that good at picking friends?" But the point is that in the main the notion that my status as a Jew right now is defined by fear and alienation just doesn't resonate with me. I respect that it does for others, but it isn't how I'd generally characterize my experience, and I don't like the thought of being conscripted into endorsing an affective state that doesn't actually resonate with me.

But then again, I still took the shirt off. So am I just self-deluding? Or is there some middle ground? I don't have a good answer.

Being Jewish Faculty in Portland and at Lewis & Clark

On Friday, a colleague of mine who teaches at Reed invited a group of Jewish faculty (and our families) from various Portland campuses to her house for dinner. It was meant to be a place of mutual support and fellowship in what has undeniably been a tough couple of weeks. There were some young (elementary school age) kids there, and just watching them run around and have way too much sugar and scream nonsense games -- the unbridled, uncomplicated, chaotic joy of youth -- was cleansing in a way I didn't know I needed. 

I was the only Lewis & Clark attendee, but there were folks from Reed, Portland State, and the University of Portland in attendance. Inevitably, stories were swapped about various events and goings-on, and the degree to which people felt supported (or not) by their home institutions. A lot of the stories were harrowing; this part of the evening was not pleasant (though I think it was ultimately for the best that we had a space -- a "safe space"? -- in which those stories could be told in a supportive and welcoming environment). And it made me once again reflect on how lucky I am to be at Lewis & Clark, where (at least at the law school) it seems we've dodged much of the bad behavior that has afflicted some other campuses.

In fact, I want to share some of my recent "Jewish faculty" experiences at Lewis & Clark, precisely because they've mostly been good, and good in a way that stands against certain narratives that pervade about academia. To be clear, I don't offer these stories to falsify others' accounts -- as the conversations at Friday's dinner made clear, many people at many campuses are having a genuinely bad time of it. But I do think it's important to stress that academia is not a monolith and that there are places doing it right just as there are places doing poorly; and beyond that, the bright spots in academic life do not always come from the places you'd expect (at least, if you're a regular imbiber of the prevailing discourse). To wit:

• I've felt fully supported by my colleagues over the past few weeks (I'm also not the sort of person who needs much in the way of "check ins" to verify my emotional well-being). That said, the two non-Jewish colleagues who most distinctively went out of their way to "check in" on me and see how I was doing after October 7 were (1) the chair of our DEI committee and (2) the Pakistani Muslim teaching fellow in our Animal Law program.
• Speaking of DEI, I went to speak to our (staff) director of DEI issues to ask her what her sense was about how things were playing out on the law school campus. She responded thoughtfully and compassionately, in a way that clearly demonstrated she was paying attention and providing care and support where needed. Her overall report was that (a) there were more campus community members directly affected by the events than I think many would have thought; (b) there were the usual instances of 20-somethings who are professionally-argumentative but whose politics aren't fully thought out speaking in ways that perhaps was not fully respectful of the reality that many of their colleagues were directly affected by the events; but (c) there had been no major flare-ups or crises; the "problems" were within the normal bounds of what one would expect to see when emotionally-charged events occurred on the global stage.
• As many of you know, I hosted at Lewis & Clark this past year a conference on Law vs. Antisemitism, and selected contributions are being published in a symposium issue of the Lewis & Clark Law Review (which I am writing the introduction for). The law school was nothing but supportive of the conference itself, even though I was only in my second year teaching when I threw a major international conference at them. More to the immediate point, after October 7 the Editor-in-Chief of the law review reached out to me on her own initiative to ask if I wanted to revise my introduction to account for the Hamas attack or the aftermath, and assured me that if I did want to make revisions they would make sure they'd adjust their production schedule to accommodate. I'm still considering her offer, but regardless of whether I take her up or not I was extremely impressed with her thoughtfulness and gesture of inclusion.

I don't claim things are perfect -- for me, for other Jewish community members at Lewis & Clark, for Muslim or Palestinian community members at Lewis & Clark, whomever. On the upper campus, for instance, there was an instance of just a few days after October 7 of "free Palestine" graffiti on the upper campus undergraduate buildings (though -- without downplaying the significance of it -- it seems that Lewis & Clark has a bit of a "tradition" around Indigenous Peoples Day of a certain segment of the student body tagging buildings with various "anti-establishment", "anti-colonialist", and "counter-cultural" messages, and this was part of that rather than a truly spontaneous "Jews in Israel just got murdered so let's celebrate with a hearty 'free Palestine'!"). 

But on the whole, as terrible as "the world" has been this past month, I've been extremely grateful for the little local slice of the world I have at Lewis & Clark. And just as we harp on the bitter, I do think it's important to give due credit and attention to the sweet.

The Third Stage of Road Construction

Years ago, I remember reading a Dave Barry column that was centered around the various stages of road construction. The first stage entailed closing down the road and making everyone's life impossibly inconvenient. "In the second stage", he continued, "nothing happens. This stage may last for several years."

This old column came to mind recently as I was navigating my own commute to Lewis & Clark. This past summer, some signs went up saying that the street which anchors my normal route to work would be closed from July 13 to October 13. Why? I couldn't find any information (finally, just a few days ago, I found this). But no matter -- the detour wasn't too extensive, and of course, most of the work would be done over the summer when I wasn't going into the office that frequently.

July, August, and September go by. I drive past the work site, and I never once see anybody doing anything. There's just a lonely sign announcing a road closure and a promise that the route will reopen on October 13.

Finally, October 13 rolls around. I drive past the work site to see if the closure has ended, and I see two things: (1) People finally doing something that looks like work (at the very least, some construction vehicles and folks in orange vests; and (2) a sign saying that now the road is closed through November 1.

As far as I can tell, for three months from the time the road was closed until the time it was scheduled to be reopened, nothing happened. Work didn't actually start until after it was scheduled to have finished.

Come on Portland -- get it together.

Striking(ish) Findings About Zionism Amongst Portland Jews

The other day, I came across a study conducted by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland that surveyed the various attitudes and characteristics of the local Jewish community (full study here; executive summary here). I initially read it because I was naturally curious about the Jewish attributes of my new hometown. 

But inside the study, I found the kernel of something very interesting, because the Portland JFed actually asked some questions about Jews' affiliation with "Zionism". This, I can tell you, is actually quite rare -- most surveys of Jews do not expressly ask about "Zionism". Instead, most discourse about Jewish attitudes towards Zionism takes more general questions (like "do you support Israel's right to exist") and then uses that to draw inferences about Zionism. A study which expressly asks its respondents "do you identify as a Zionist" is extremely rare. So while admittedly a survey of Portland Jews, specifically, only tells us so much (more on that in a second), it is a droplet of liquid in a parched data desert -- and I do think the findings are worthy of remark. Specifically: 

Twenty-six percent of Jewish adults in Greater Portland self-identify as Zionists. Fifty-two percent do not identify as Zionists, and the remaining 22% either are not sure how they identify or prefer not to say.

That is a striking topline finding. Now, it can and should be complicated quite a bit, and I'll talk through that in a moment. But just on its own -- yeah, that's a potentially startling finding.

Before I go further, though, we should take stock of the limits. Obviously, Portland Jews are not necessarily a microcosm of American Jews. That said, the Portland Jewish population is approximately 56,000 individuals, against a metro population of approximately 2.51 million. That translates to the Portland area being a little over 2% Jewish, which is in line with the national average and what I'd expect to see from a mid-sized urban area that isn't especially known as a Jewish center. In short, we're not New York, Los Angeles, or D.C. -- but we're not Boise either. There's a real, sizeable Jewish community here. And generally perusing the data, our overall responses don't seem massively far off from national Jewish averages -- maybe a bit more liberal, but not massively so; maybe a bit more Israel-skeptical, but not massively so. For example, 46% of Portland Jewish adults report feeling "somewhat" or "very" attached to Israel, which is less than the national average (58%), but not by a massive margin. 77% of Portland Jews describe themselves as liberal or very liberal, against 10% who identify as conservative -- again, definitely more liberal than the Jewish population writ large, but not by a giant margin.

In other words, if you want to make a mental adjustment for Portland being Portland, you can -- but it's not enough to explain a nearly thirty point advantage for "not-Zionists" over "Zionists".*

So what do we make of the data?

To a large extent, the findings here resonate with the essay I wrote a few weeks ago for Third Narrative questioning the continued utility of the term "Zionism". It means so many things, to so many people, that it's hard to nail down what exactly people mean when they say they are, or are not Zionist. Indeed, if we look at the questions which track those typically used to infer someone is a "Zionist", the Portland picture looks very different. For example, 87% of respondents agree that "I consider it important for Israel to exist as a refuge for the Jewish people, now and in the future." 65% agree that "I consider it important for Israel to be a Jewish state." Hell, even a 57% majority agreed that "caring about Israel is an essential part of being Jewish"! Many people would say -- I might say! -- that those are the views that mark one out as a Zionist. Yet it seems there is a sizeable chunk of Jews who think it's important for Israel to exist as a refuge for the Jews and to remain a Jewish state, but who do not identify as Zionist. Indeed, it seems probable that most of those Jews who do not identify as "Zionist" still are agreeing with at least some of these archetypical "Zionist" sentiments.

Presumably, then, those Jews (unlike me) do not take "Zionism" to mean someone who believes in Israel as a Jewish democratic** state. Perhaps they instead see "Zionism" as meaning support for right-wing anti-Palestinian policies,*** or perhaps they think it means a personal loyalty to the state of Israel as their primary political affiliation. Or perhaps it's something else entirely. I won't get into the descriptivist vs. prescriptivist debate about whether they are "wrong" in their understanding. I will say that the fact that a majority of participants say they do not identify as Zionist, rather than marking that they are "unsure", suggests that the respondents have a reasonably clear idea of what Zionism is in their own heads -- albeit a definition that might differ from that used by Jewish community professionals or academics. And surely, at the very least, if there is this much muddling about the contours of Zionism amongst Jews, we can forgive similar or greater confusion amongst non-Jews.

In short, this little glimpse of data is one that cries out for follow-up. On the one hand, the top line figures give sustenance to those who cry again and again that we ought not conflate "Zionism" and "Judaism", that the attempt to posit an identity between the two is a bogus political maneuver. I'm a bit surprised I didn't see some of the usual suspects blasting out a headline "Survey: Majority of Jews 'Explicitly' Reject Zionism", with a lot of crowing about how this proves how out-of-touch the various communal institutions are and demonstrates that the true Jewish rank-and-file want nothing to do with the oppressive Zionist entity.

On the other hand, the answers to the more specific questions strongly suggest that, for Jews, not identifying as "Zionist" is not generally reflective of the sorts of positions associated with movement anti-Zionism. If anything, their answers confirm that the term "Zionism" isn't being used in a uniform way, making it very dangerous to make assumptions just based off affinity (or not) with the word. All of this, to me, is further evidence that "Zionism" as a term may be doing more to confuse than to clarify, and might be better off dropping it. But at the very least, it suggests a desperate need for more research.

* Indeed, the partisan divide here, while present, isn't as meaningful as one might suspect. 25% of "very liberal" respondents identify as Zionist, while 36% of conservatives do (the bigger divide is on the other end -- most of the very liberals who don't identify as Zionist explicitly say they don't identify as Zionist, while most of the conservatives who do not identify as Zionist simply say they "don't know"). The only political cadre for whom identifying as a Zionist carries a plurality is the moderates, at 44%.

** 97% of respondents "consider it important for Israel to be a democratic state," a figure which unsurprisingly blows the doors off all the other questions asked. For all intents and purposes, we can assume the virtually all the respondents who think Israel should be a Jewish state also think it should be a democratic state.

*** Just 43% of respondents agreed that "Israel lives up to its values with respect to human rights", against 58% who disagree. Aside from "American Jews have the right to criticize Israel’s government", this was effectively the only statement where the "pro-Israel" side did not carry a majority.

A Local Shooting in SW Portland

Two people are dead after a reported shooting at a SW Portland strip mall approximately five minutes from my house.

I've been to this strip mall. I've eaten at the cafe where the bodies were reportedly found. The UPS store across the street is where we go when we need to send a package. This part of Portland is in my normal orbit.

Contrary to what you've heard, Portland is actually a relatively safe city. Our crime rates are remarkably unremarkable -- a recent survey ranked us 21st out of 40 major cities when it came to violent crime. And my neighborhood is almost certainly safe than the city as a whole. This shooting is not, I think, reflective of any trends. If anything, it is in defiance of a national downward trend in violent crime.

Nonetheless, it's sickening that this is even a tertiary part of my -- or anyone else's -- life. And it's infuriating that the Supreme Court has essentially decided that people like me must, as a matter of inviolable constitutional law, live under the scourge of infinitely proliferating guns forever. It's terrible to know that if my elected representatives ever tried to do anything substantial to stem the tide of gun proliferation, the Supreme Court would be on the case to wag a finger and say no.

By the same token, the Republican Party's response to gun violence is, of course, to promote more guns (and to teach eight-year olds battlefield trauma techniques). "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". When you strip away all the window dressing, what this boils down to is saying the solution is getting into a shootout. But I don't want to get into a shootout! I don't want to shoot anyone, and I should be able to get a cheese omelet at a local diner without committing to reliving the OK Corral. That's not a solution, that's a capitulation -- gun violence accepted as a forever-scourge, and you're either dishing it out or you're the victim.

It doesn't have to be that way. In most developed countries, it isn't that way. That it is that way here is not an inevitability. It is a policy choice, imposed by a radical judiciary whose contempt for the people it rules is becoming increasingly more brazen.

Make Portland Normal

Portlanders are very much fans of the slogan "keep Portland weird!" For the most part, I agree -- I'm generally a fan of Portland's various quirks and idiosyncrasies. I definitely count myself as a Portland booster!

Nonetheless, there are a few areas where it'd be nice for Portland to act like a normal American city. I'll give two examples:

1) Fluoridate our damn water, like a normal city!

Finding out Portland is the largest U.S. city to not fluoridate its water is I gather a rite of passage for new Portlanders. I always thought of anti-fluoridation activists as falling in the same category as anti-vaxxers and chemtrailers, and on reflection, I still do. There is absolutely no reason why Portland needs to have unfluoridated water.

73% of Americans have fluoridated water. It's clearly fine. Don't be weird about it.

2) Maintain your streets, like a normal city!

Before I talk about this, I need to briefly rant about Portland's street grid, which (particularly in the west part of the city where I live) is by far the most confusing of any city I've ever driven in. I hate driving in Portland, which is full of absurd seven way intersections and freeway entrances that look like alley ways and poorly signed lanes which inexorably force you to cross a bridge.

Still, all that, I can forgive -- in part because I respect that Portland's hilly geography probably makes a straight grid functionally impossible, in part because it's too late to fix now without digging the entire city up.

But what I can't fathom is why, throughout the city, random, seemingly normal streets are unmaintained by the city.

To be clear: I don't mean "the city has fallen behind in providing maintenance." What I mean is that there are many regular streets that get normal, local through traffic, that the city intentionally disclaims responsibility for maintaining.

This is the best explainer I've seen for the phenomenon, and it doesn't explain much. And it means that you could be driving to a friend's house only to discover that the route suddenly becomes a pot-hole ridden cart track. Check out this interactive map -- the random red portions? Those aren't maintained by the city. They're listed as "private" roads, even though for every relevant purpose they are just as public as any other road. They're not some isolated track that only connects a few houses over private property. They're part of the normal street grid! And this is encoded into statute somehow!

Here's an example from my own neighborhood. The subdivision I live in is 14 city blocks long, west to east. On the west side, most streets outlet onto the "main" road, but on the east side only one street does (Coronado). The only way out of my neighborhood going east is via Coronado. And wouldn't you know it if Coronado is unmaintained for its last four eastbound blocks, leading to giant gaping potholes on my unavoidable route to work each day. Coronado isn't all unmaintained -- from west to east it's (a) unmaintained for two blocks, (b) maintained by the city for six blocks, (d) non-existent for two blocks (it doesn't go through all the way), and (e) unmaintained again for the last four blocks.

Don't be weird Portland -- just take responsibility for your own street grid.

Tell Me Who To Vote For, Portland Edition

It's primary season here in Oregon, and I'm new in town. Consequently, I don't know a ton about local politics here. I'm trying to learn -- I know that homelessness is, by far, the most important issue driving local politics, though I don't have a firm grasp on what the relevant policy divisions are -- but it probably won't happen in time for me to cast a ballot.

So I'll give the races I'm interested in and my preliminary lean, but I am open to more information and persuasion. If you're a Portlander and/or Oregonian, feel free to give me your take and/or efforts at persuasion.

Governor: Tina Kotek.

Of the two major candidates running, Kotek is the more progressive, but she's got a lot of institutional experience as former state house speaker. That's my sweet spot. Plus, the Oregonian endorsed her with the single hesitation that she may have been too ruthless in dealing with state Republicans, which, I have to be honest, I'm not viewing as a downside right now.

State Rep. (38th District): No lean

Daniel Nguyen vs. Neelam Gupta. It seems like Gupta is positioned as the relative progressive to Nguyen's moderate, but I don't have a strong sense of what that means in practice. To be honest, both of their campaign websites were pretty thin. Nguyen's seemed even thinner than Gupta's, but Nguyen seemed to have at least a little more experience. Maybe the tiniest lean towards Gupta, but a stiff breeze could push me the other way.

Bureau of Labor Commissioner: Christina Stephenson

Basing this solely on the Oregonian's endorsement, but they made a good case (and the other candidates they "considered" didn't really wow me).

Multnomah County Commission Chair: Sharon Meieran

A very soft lean here compared to Jessica Vega Pederson. Meieran represents my part of Portland on the city commission, and I like my part of Portland, so she gets some positive feelings off that. She also seemed to have non-platitude plans for dealing with issues like homelessness. Sharia Mayfield is pretty much out for me because she lacks significant political experience. Lori Stegmann doesn't grab me but you're welcome to make your case.

Multnomah County Sheriff: No lean

The Oregonian endorsed Nicole Morrisey O'Donnell, but there doesn't seem to be a lot between her and Derrick Peterson. Very open to persuasion here.

Portland Commissioner (Position 2): Dan Ryan 

Won a special election and now is the incumbent. Seems like a thoughtful guy doing a good job. AJ McCreary seems like the sort of activist-y tinged insurgent candidate that I worry won't actually be effective once in office.

Portland Commissioner (Position 3): Jo Ann Hardesty or Vadim Mozyrsky

Hardesty is the incumbent, and made her name securing some big wins for police accountability. That's worthwhile. But she also seems to have that simplistic activist-y mentality that drives me bonkers, and is limiting her ability to broaden her accomplishments. Simply intoning "it's developers' fault" isn't actually the basis for a policy reform. The Oregonian endorsed Rene Gonzalez, but criminalizing homelessness doesn't actually appeal to me, so he's out. Mozyrsky seems like a boring bureaucratic functionary type, which very much appeals to me, but I have no idea where he actually stands on anything. The Willamette Week's endorsement write-up captures my ambivalence well.

Portland Auditor: Simone Rede

It would take a lot for me to pick an Our Revolution/Green Party type (Rede's opponent, Brian Setzler) when there's a credible alternative in the Democratic field.

Metro Council President: Lynn Peterson

A light lean, but here my bias for experienced incumbents benefits the progressive over the centrist challenger (Alisa Pyszka). Peterson seems to have made some mistakes, but "I'm not her" isn't enough for me to back Pyszka, who seems far too tied to business interests for my tastes.

Metro Councilor, District 6: Duncan Hwang

Absolute slightest of lean here, based on incumbency. Both seem good. The Oregonian endorsed his opponent Terri Preeg Riggsby, but was impressed with both and their reasons for favoring Riggsby over Hwang didn't strike me as compelling.

Pre-Portland Thoughts

Our move to Portland is rapidly approaching -- more so, because tomorrow Jill and I are actually going to the beach for a long weekend, so we have even less time left in Chicago than the calendar would indicate.

It's an interesting time to be moving to Portland. Fortunately, the city seems not to have been incinerated off the face of the earth. But it still is among the go-to references for conservative pundits looking for an urban hellhole ravaged by antifa and anarchists. "Don't let our city become another Portland!", they say. Meanwhile, the people I've met in Portland all universally rave about how incredible the city is. Other cities should be so lucky as to become another Portland.

Short stint back in Chicago notwithstanding, we're functionally moving to Portland from Berkeley, and that's clearly the best way to do it, because all the potential negatives of Portland are like baby versions of what you'd encounter in Berkeley. Homelessness crisis? I didn't see one person masturbating on the sidewalk on my visit. Housing prices? It's so cute what people outside the Bay Area think is expensive! Pretentiously crunchy granola vibes? Please -- Berkeley will take that granola, spit it out, and then eat it again freegan-vegan style.

So we're really just left with all the positives, including (normally) beautiful weather, lush greenery, a great restaurant scene, and a population that is markedly united in deep city pride. I wish there was an NHL or MLB team in town, but you can't have everything.

I'm so excited -- I can't wait for us to begin our new lives in the City of Roses.