Josh Kross

You don’t have to be much of a baseball fan to know that the New York Mets are special. Every year for decades now, the team seems to build up immense promise and hype only to collapse in strange and spectacular ways. Yet its fans continue to suffer, cheer, and believe that next year will be the year. This sort of charming, reckless, and infectious optimism isn’t unique to Mets fans; it’s also, hallelujah, a uniquely Jewish talent, one that has sustained us through millennia of hardships.