Let me state upfront that I don’t have the inside scoop on Joe Roberts’s whole deal. All I know is that the same man who wrote a syndicated Jewish Telegraphic Agency column in February about fearing he’d have to become a Jewish refugee from Canada—which I wrote my own column about in response—who now stands accused of having invented a Jewish identity for himself.

I guess it’s time!@Joe_Roberts01, when you talk about your Jewish grandmother, do you mean grandma Jessie, or grandma Vida? https://t.co/4OtY8l9mjK pic.twitter.com/qOnwQ0Z8Qh

Roberts has pushed back against this publicly, but thus far without addressing the specific claims:

I have devoted my life to Jewish tradition and have spent the past twenty years serving the Jewish community in leadership roles. No one can diminish my bond with Judaism, erase my family's Jewish legacy, or negate my children's Jewish identity—especially not those driven by…

Attempts to defame me are clear efforts to silence my voice and undermine my advocacy for Israel and the Jewish community. While they are deeply upsetting, they will not deter me.

I am consulting legal counsel and will address them in due course.

This leaves open, among so many other possibilities, that he is Jewish, but was less than forthright about biographical details. Also possible: everything he said was true and people on social media are trying to smear him. Also possible: he’s lied about it all and is going to pop up in the next town a purported lifelong Zoroastrian. Like I said, I don’t know!

Now I will readily cop to being a curious so-and-so, who is on some level wondering what the story here turns out to be. I’m not that curious, however. Not enough to become an amateur let alone professional Joe Roberts-ologist. To me, the more interesting angle is the way squabbles over the boundaries of Jewish identity have emerged post-Oct. 7.

As we discussed on a recent Bonjour Chai podcast episode, it’s not even straightforward whether there is such a thing as faking being Jewish. I mean there is, in the superficial........

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