Dear Friends:

As some of you know, I am on medical leave from my job at The Boston Globe and have not been able to write my regular op-ed columns or my Arguable newsletter. For several months I have been contending with a number of worrying and seemingly unconnected symptoms — everything from unintended weight loss to increased clumsiness to difficulties with speech. These symptoms are all the more distressing since my doctors so far cannot explain what is causing them, or why they should suddenly have appeared.

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American aviator Charles Lindbergh told an America First rally in 1941 that Jews were among the "most important groups" agitating for war.

(This column is excerpted from an essay in Arguable, my weekly newsletter. To subscribe for free, visit globe.com/arguable.)

JEWS THE world over will gather around the Seder table this week to recount again the great narrative of their ancestors' redemption from slavery in Egypt. In retelling the story, they will quote the passage from Exodus in which Pharaoh justified the unspeakable repression he intended to inflict on the Hebrews.

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ANYONE WHO spends time with me knows me knows how much I despise litter. For as long as I can remember, I have fumed at the sight of trash on sidewalks, beer cans in the gutter, or garbage flung from passing cars. I often pick up litter when I'm walking, and when my kids were young I made them pick it up, too.

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This isn't just boorishness. It's a specific kind of moral failure, and it has a name: incivility.

WHEN FORMER FBI director Robert Mueller died last week at 81, President Trump marked the occasion with his customary grace. "Good, I'm glad he's dead," he posted on Truth Social. "He can no longer hurt innocent people!"

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