somewhere on my dad’s side, escaped the Nazis as a kid. in the 80s as ambassador to Lebanon an intelligence agency armed with American weapons attempted to assassinate him for trying to link up with the PLO, and when he insinuated it was the Americans, he was charged with a phony insanity charge and drummed out of the service, later rehabilitated but a wild story nonetheless
Apr 11, 2024
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here are 3 of my most exciting pieces of lore:
1) my dad was in the south tower on 9/11 and he made it out, but was still in the building when the plane hit. the plane went through his office window, but he was already evacuating and on around the 40th floor when the plane hit
2) my paternal grandfather (jewish) was born in austria but his family moved to milan in ‘33/34 when hitler came into power. in ‘44 when the nazis occupied northern italy, his family escaped into the mountains northeast of milan near bergamo (he was about 13 or 14 years old at this point). his family helped smuggle guns to the partisans since they could speak german with an austrian accent and bypass nazi checkpoints. my grandfather had to shoot a fascist at one checkpoint going wrong, and so at 14 he joined the partisans full-on and lived with them until the war ended. i have a bunch of photos from his time with the partisans (attached some). apparently the group he was specifically with was led by this kinda crazy guy who threatened the security of the whole partisan operations, so he was actually killed by other communist partisans. a few years ago i found a man who researches this exact group in bergamo, and now i have an 80 yr old italian pen-pal who published some photos of my grandfather in his book.
3) my maternal grandfather was orphaned really young in cuba and was really poor. he met my grandmother when he saw her riding her bike down the street and instantly fell in love with her (yes, just like cinema paradiso). she was really rich and her family hated him, so he would wait outside her window just to see her. eventually they get married and have my eldest uncle (because love always perseveres). this part of the story is fuzzy, but i believe he got into some gambling issues and so my grandmothers family shipped him to the US (probably with hopes of getting rid of him for good). but he began to build a life for his family there. then the revolution happened and he continued to go back and forth, but then castro put in the policy that children born in cuba had to stay, so they moved to nyc permanently. but my grandfather loved castro, as most cubans did. so my family is not part of the typical exile cuban-american demographic, which i always found fascinating.
Feb 19, 2024
My dad lived in Switzerland for a few years and my sister was there too and she was 12 and she met this girl gabby who was Jewish, and gabby’s dad was like this famous director so I went to gabby’s insane bat mitzvah in Switzerland and Paris Hilton was the DJ there. the party was crazy, there were people on stilts and I don’t even remember the food, but when Paris walked in they played this heavenly song and a spot light followed her as she took a selfie with literally every single person No matter what age. She told my step mom she liked her dress. my brother is always so mad he wasn’t there and regularly tells this story to people at bars
Mar 10, 2025
Not looking to get into the whole conversation about Israel/Palestine and whatnot, but my Great Great Grandfather was First Cousins with David Ben Gurion, the founding father, and first prime minister of Israel.
You might imagine that this creates some internal struggle around my Jewish identity, connection to zionism, etc. You would be right.
David Green on the far right is in his 80's or 90's now, but apparently we look a lot alike, and apparently he looks a lot like ben-gurion
Apr 10, 2024
Top Recs from @joepeters
so much to talk about, the sunglasses, the scarf, the fresh baguette and coffee, the always lovely cafe setting. I think this is the most swag ever captured on camera I aspire to be at this level
Feb 11, 2024
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the greatest love song of the 21st century??? wait…. They don’t love you like I love you
Feb 25, 2024
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alright hear me out: carbonation and coffee with a squeeze of orange shouldn’t work, but it does. Been making them daily and i feel a lot better in the morning each time i do
Mar 7, 2024