The Holy Land

AI Generated Art from the prompt Puritanical Religious Epicenter

Not surprisingly, the new book The Rise of the New Puritans by Noah Rothman, which is about the Progressive Woke Movement, starts with a story from Minneapolis. 

Unlike Andrew Doyle’s book, The New Puritans, which also features several stories about Minnesotans, Rothman’s book focuses on this totalizing NEW strain of Puritanism as a left wing version of a previously far right phenomena.

Rothman’s book begins with the story of Wajdi Wadi, a Palestinian man who began Holy Land Deli with a handful of recipes, a knowledge of Middle Eastern food, and a dream.

That dream came crashing down in 2020, when he lost millions of dollars worth of grocery contracts and a lease at the Midtown Global Market that subsidizes leases of high traffic, retail space to politically correct, non-white business owners in Minneapolis.

It turns out his daughter, Lianne, the Holyland catering manager, had posted some horrible, racist, and Antisemitic comments when she was a teenager.

Fortunately, former NYT and WSJ writer Bari Weiss became the Wadi’s Jewish friend and featured him in the inaugural episode of the podcast

Local food writer, Rob Eshman, Senior Contributing Editor of Forward.com a Jewish. Independant. Non Profit. had issued Lianne a “Get-Out-of-Calling-for-the-Holocaust-Free-Card” by featuring the story.

None of these retellings managed to call out the phrase, “If I was president, I’d finish off what Hitler started and Rule the World $$$$$”!

A quick look at Mr. Eshmans’ @Foodaism blog shows a delicious pre-Sukkot Beef Tagine with Quinces and comments about  Donald Trump’s Truth Social Posts.  Eshman claims Trump had harrassed, singled out, and heckled All American Jews, increasing Antisemitic acts and imposing a threat to Jewish lives.

From this set of articles, I can infer that Mr. Eshman knows really good fucking hummus when he tastes it.  Holyland Red Pepper hummus is stupid good.

Sign me up for Beef Tanine with Quinces.

Does anyone remember when conservatives lost their minds because far-right commentator Laura Loomer was kicked off of Twitter for Manifest Observable Behavior?

This incident occurred at the Holyland Deli’s Northeast Minneapolis location. 

Do you know who else knows really good hummus and has several Jewish friends in Minneapolis?

Ilhan Omar and Raschida Tlaib and a couple dozen freaked out local Somali girls who didn’t sign up to be security that night.

Local Minnesota conservative legal commentator Scott Johnson at Powerline Blog said he didn’t know who Laura Loomer was but she just helped Ilhan Omar get into Congress.

“If Loomer had been an Omar plant, she could not have done a better job. She generated a Star Tribune story that can only generate sympathy for Omar. Omar doesn’t need assistance in portraying herself and her supporters as victims of one kind or another. In this case they would be right in a sense. They are victims of blatant stupidity.” 

Loomer had just been kicked off of Twitter for asking Tlaib questions that implied the Congresswoman was Antisemitic. Loomer, of course has been accused of being Islamophobic.

It’s curious how the Midtown Holyland Market, in the Middle of North America, is playing out a conflict that started in the actual Middle East.  

It’s more curious that the Holyland is within walking distance of George Floyd Square, the religious epicenter of the New Puritans’ global religion.