Improbable as it may seem during a global pandemic, but HBO is airing a miniseries that could very well take your mind off of the coronavirus. And while it’s not a news program but a multipart movie, and has nothing to do with COVID-19, it does involve infections, national anxieties and doomsday scenarios.

I have a new nonfiction book being published this week. I can’t think of a less promising time to launch a book into the public square—unless the subject matter is about germs, viruses, pandemics and how to survive them. (Alas, my book touches on none of those topics.) This pandemic has placed all of our lives on pause. There is much fear and uncertainty. Never before have Americans, arguably, received less information about the danger ahead. The coronavirus may not end up as the second coming of the bubonic plague, but whether or not it exceeds the mortality of what happens every year during flu season remains an open question.

The Jewish holiday of Purim, to be celebrated next week, came early in both Belgium and Spain this year—not for Jews, but for those who hate them no matter the millennium. It’s apparently impossible to resist turning an entire people into crude stereotypes and satirical objects of loathing at certain annual carnivals in Western Europe. These popular gatherings of merry-making at the expense of Jews—along with politicians, religious leaders and famous faces—date back to the Middle Ages, and occur before Ash Wednesday and Lent.