Jay Geller

The Louvre Thieves Dropped This Priceless Crown. Now It Looks Like This.

The New York Times published photos of Empress Eugenie’s squashed crown. I can’t help but think that it’s a metaphor for the French Second Empire itself.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/w...

Washington Post Sports Department Was Among Last of Its Kind

The @nytimes.com writing an article about how the Washington Post has destroyed its sports dept. is really rich considering that the NYT destroyed its own a few years ago and now outsources its sports coverage to The Athletic, which requires an extra subscription.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/b...

Ruptures in China’s Leadership Could Be Due to Paranoia and Power Plays

Wait, the supreme leader of a communist state is paranoid, purges his top generals, and has a strained working relationship with the country that is regarded as his chief rival for hegemony? I feel like I've seen this movie before.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/u...

Hitlers Volksstaat - Götz Aly | S. Fischer Verlage Während des Zweiten Weltkrieges verwandelte die Regierung Hitler den Staat in eine Raubmaschine ohne Beispiel. Die große Mehrheit der Deutschen stellte sie mit...

Wieder relevant?

www.fischerverlage.de/buch/goetz-a...

Geschichte wiederholt sich nicht, aber sie reimt sich.

Bovino Is Said to Have Mocked Prosecutor’s Jewish Faith on Call With Lawyers

First, he wears a uniform reminiscent of the Wehrmacht. Then this?

Perhaps our shtadlan Jared ben Charles can speak with ha-Melekh Donald about this rishes.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/u...

Surely I’m not the only one who thinks that Berlin Olympics ‘36 is best avoided.

p.dw.com/p/57kv1

You have to wonder how much Canadians would miss them if they did secede.

📢Call for application: IGdJ Fellowships 2027! Intended to support innovative academic projects in the field of jewish studies and to deepen both national and international exchange. 👉 information kurzlinks.de/25j6 application deadline is 16 March 2026 #jewishhistory #jewishstudies #hamburg

Heute habe ich mir in der Bibliothek *zwei* deutsche Fachbücher ohne Register ausgeliehen! 🤦‍♂️

Liebe deutsche Autoren, im Namen der Wissenschaft bitte ich Sie: Führen Sie in Ihren Büchern nicht nur Personenregister, sondern auch Sachregister.

Texas Moves to Curtail Visas for Skilled Foreign Workers

"Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida argued for limiting H-1B visas at his state’s universities....The [Trump] administration...arguing that employers had used the program to keep wages low, hurting American workers."

So that's why professors' salaries are so low!

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/u...

It’s great to see Harold interviewed — and somewhat surprising since his specialty is German economic history. Na ja.

When a Coat Becomes a Symbol of Conflict

Vanessa Friedman, the fashion editor at the @nytimes.com, interviewed the renowned historian of Germany Harold James about Border Patrol’s Wehrmacht cosplay fashion sensibility.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/s...

It was prescient and memorable.

What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire? If international conflict is around the corner, it would seem that you really don’t want a narcissist in control of a global power.

Did you see this article when it came out 8 years ago?:

www.newyorker.com/culture/cult...

In my world history survey course, I gave a lecture today on mercantilism in the 17th and 18th centuries. You know: tariffs rather than free trade, colonial conquests for the purpose of acquiring raw materials, alliances of convenience.

Wow, it all feels so familiar.

I still can’t believe Ulbricht built the Berlin Wall weeks after saying, “Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten,” and Hitler took the rest of Bohemia after saying of the Sudetenland “Es ist die letzte territoriale Forderung, die ich in Europa zu stellen habe.”

Can you believe the nerve?!

Kommt bitte jemand in den nächsten Wochen aus Deutschland nach London und könnte mir was (keine Flüssigkeit) mitbringen? 1kg Packet.
Belohnung: ORANGENMARMELADE!

I read this document with ease. Another museum-goer, a Millennial, struggled to read it, but got most of it. My Gen Z progeny can only make out a few words. 🙁

#cursive #handwriting #paleography

The real birthday of the United States is July 2, 1776. The Smithsonian Institution should know better.
(And the second explanation does finesse the difference by writing “adopted the Declaration of Independence” rather than writing “voted for independence” or “declared independence”).

Play Spelling Bee How many words can you make with 7 letters?

The New York Times Spelling Bee must be trolling Trump today:

Dictating
Indicting
Inciting
Caging
etc.

www.nytimes.com/puzzles/spel...

How Many Immigrants Has Trump Deported? In the first year of the Trump administration, it was the nature of the deportations, rather than their number, that changed the most, an analysis of government data reveals.

And my acquaintance is now one of them. 15 years in the United States. Owner of a successful business. The mother of two American-born children.

Now deported back to a politically unstable country.

Does this make America safer or more prosperous, Mr. Trump?

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

A much-liked post by Germany’s satirical newspaper @der-postillon.com with the titles “Vienna Academy of the Arts offers Trump admission as a student” and the caption “They don’t want to get blamed again“

A joke for the history buffs:

Germany’s satirical newspaper @der-postillon.com titles: “Vienna Academy of the Arts offers Trump admission as a student — They don’t want to get blamed again“

I can't believe the stuff that Chuck abides.

Sometimes, there's a man. Well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there.

But he's not it.

I just learned that Arthur Scholem jr., the last of the prewar Germany-born Scholems, died only a few months ago at the age of 97. (His sister also lived into her late 90s.)

I had never seen a photo of him. He looked remarkably similar to his famous uncle, Gershom Scholem.

"Heute Grönland, Morgen Die Welt!“

Don't @ me about Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, or specific areas of Washington, Portland, or Seattle. I'm aware.
But a hundred years ago, American cities were centralized, walkable, serviced by streetcars and interurban rail, and full of brick or stone buildings that were not overpoweringly tall.

The answer? The car (and the mythologizing of the car).

Ultimately, Europe built cars to fit its cities, while America tore down its cities to fit its cars.