Are We White Right Now?

By Sara Weissman December 15, 2016

After the election, my friend’s younger brother called from Israel. “Are we white?” he asked. Her immediate response was, “Not anymore.” As I listened to my friend talk about this exchange, I wasn’t sure which part was more telling, the question or the answer. The question – how we fit into America’s racial landscape as…

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Our Institutions Will Survive Trump

By Josh Daniels November 11, 2016

I’m not afraid of the big bad wolf. But I do worry about the people that voted for him. Last week on “Real Time” with Bill Maher – a primary news and politics outlet for a huge number of my peers – David Frum of The Atlantic made a plea to all those millennials who…

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Letter from Malmö

By Doreen El-Roeiy July 22, 2015

On June 9 in Malmö, Sweden, 27 residents of the Rosengård neighborhood, infamous in Europe as a segregated ghetto of recent refugees, were arrested on charges of attempted murder as gunfire was heard through the city streets. Three days later, on June 12, two men were injured in a bomb explosion near the Skåne University…

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Is Swedish Yiddish the Key to Europe’s Jewish Future?

By Doreen El-Roeiy May 6, 2015

Much of Europe’s political toolbox for facilitating multicultural policies is rusting. One of its biggest and strongest remaining tools, call it the hammer, is the Council of Europe (CoE). This hammer is trying to nail down a web of legislation working towards more recognition for Europe’s diverse cultural heritage. Expanding on the tool metaphor, the…

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What Would Jesus Do?: A Jewish Perspective

By Evan Goldstein April 30, 2015

Can a Jew ask “what would Jesus do?” I have two answers: Yes and no. Yes. Of course. How could we not? Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish, full stop. I am perplexed by the almost total lack of Jewish theological engagement with Jesus. To be sure, Jesus’ Jewishness has been emphasized by historical and biblical…

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Insult and Injury: the Difference

By Derek M. Kwait May 22, 2014

  Here’s why I usually hate Twitter: We will never get to the bottom of the big issues facing humanity—poverty, disease, warfare, Israel on campus—without a long dialogue held in good faith between dissenting viewpoints. In other words, getting to the bottom of the world’s ills will take more than volleying 140-character spitballs with a…

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Romancing the Sephardi

By Max Daniel February 25, 2014

There’s been a bit of news about Sephardim lately. Although the  attempt began a few years ago, the Spanish government recently announced a more concerned effort at paving the way for Sephardim – ancestors of those Jews expelled in the Inquisition of the 15th century – to acquire Spanish citizenship. The ways of determining who…

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On Why I Take Yiddish Now

By Dani Plung February 19, 2014

Yiddish is my favorite class. This isn’t new information, I’m sure; I’ve written about it on several occasions, including a piece entitled “On Why I Take Yiddish.”  I furthermore use Yiddish allusions and colloquialisms as a matter of practice—in writing as well as in general conversation—so I’m sure my new found passion for the language…

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Jewish Tokenism and Tolerance: On Liberals, Narratives, and Costa Rica

By Jonathan Katz February 5, 2014

Zach Cohen’s New Voices article was not exactly the most adulatory of Costa Rica. His piece prompted responses: one from Q Costa Rica and two from the Costa Rica Star – an initial piece and a follow-up. These pieces took a largely self-defensive, mocking, and somewhat anti-Semitic tone. Yet at the same time, the pieces…

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The Other Israel: The Garden of Eden

By Derek M. Kwait November 21, 2013

The 7th Annual Other Israel Film Festival, ending today at the JCC of Manhattan, presents films focused on the stories of the other 20% of Israel’s population such as Palestinians and other Arabs and Druze. The message of these films is powerful: There’s a whole other Israel out there than the one you see on…

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White People in Keffiyehs

By meuriarte January 5, 2010

I was in Bethlehem with four White friends, and by White I mean Caucasian American. We were greeted at the House of Peace Hostel by an elderly couple who welcomed us into their “prison of air.” Paul, their son, escorted us around town to make sure we did not get lost or hassled. At dinner…

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