Racism isn’t just for fraternities

By Amram Altzman February 8, 2016

Here at New Voices, we’re no strangers to the questions of Jews and race. And while it seems like we’ve done a good job of beginning a very much needed conversation on the complicated relationship that we American Jews have with race, ethnicity, and privilege — and we’re nowhere near the end of this conversation…

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Ally or aggravator? Recognizing Jewish whiteness in context

By Ilana Diamant December 29, 2015

In 1954, the American Jewish Committee supported the NAACP during the historic Brown v. Board of Education case. In 1965, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched to Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King. And a month ago, I heard a college-aged white Jew equate his family’s historical experience in Europe to the struggle that people of…

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Life in the shadow of two holocausts

By Leah Tribbett December 24, 2015

It’s a strange feeling, growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust. It’s never a topic of conversation; there are never any “hey, so how about that Holocaust?” comments thrown into the air at the bar on a Friday night, but it’s there nonetheless, hiding in the shadows. The quiet “after the war, they moved…

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Trump, Sanders, and the rhetoric of Jewishness

By Amram Altzman December 8, 2015

There seems to be many ways for presidential candidates to pander to Jews. One might look to the 2012 election, during which Republican candidate Michele Bachmann said she loved Israel so much that she put aside her fiscally conservative values to join a utopian socialist kibbutz when she was eighteen. Donald Trump, however, seems to…

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Happy Hanukkah! No more Drake Christmas memes.

By Chloe Sobel December 4, 2015

I know when those sleigh bells ring, that can only mean one thing: the sound of forced assimilation. If you’re on the internet and move in Canadian or Drake-loving circles, you’ve probably seen the usual “Hotline Bling” memes, now featuring Christmas. You’ve seen the ugly Christmas sweaters with Drake’s likeness on them. They’re harmless, I suppose,…

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Jews cannot ignore Syrian refugees

By Amram Altzman November 30, 2015

When I was a child, my mother taught me that Thanksgiving was a holiday of immigrants and refugees. It was fitting, then, that Thanksgiving was a holiday my family spent with my maternal grandparents, who were themselves, along with my mother, Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union in 1981. Although my understanding of the holiday…

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Samson’s Delight

By Josh Weiss September 3, 2015

This short story contains racial and ethnic slurs.   “When’s that kike getting here?” “I wish you wouldn’t use such language, Henry.” “Why not? You’ve read the Protocols, same as me. They can’t be trusted, Gerry.” Gerald Thompson fiddled with his pocket watch that was always a minute behind. He glanced at his business partner,…

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Steps towards solidarity in the aftermath of Charleston

By Nicole Zelniker August 11, 2015

In America, Jews come from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, and have a shared memory of oppression and violence throughout history. That’s why, after the June 17 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that left nine dead in Charleston, S.C., several rabbis from across denominations came together and determined they had to do something…

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Jews must say “Je suis Charleston”

By Jackson Richman June 22, 2015

In light of last week’s shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., we need to extend the same solidarity to Charleston that was given to the victims of January’s Charlie Hebdo and Hypercacher attacks. The phrases “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”), for the satirical Parisian newspaper, and “Je suis Juif”…

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Let’s All Be Traitors

By Jonathan Katz June 4, 2015

Treason has been on my mind a lot the past few weeks. In the Jewish world, the website Canary Mission – which seeks to create a “blacklist” of pro-Palestinian activists – has caused a controversy. Many of those profiled on the site are Jewish – including New Voices contributor Tom Pessah; those of our brethren…

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On French Anti-Semitism and Conflicting Identities

By Ari Bloom April 8, 2015

My first experience with anti-Semitism was at 6 years old. Someone painted a swastika on the front gate of my school and I remember asking my dad why it upset him so much. I had a limited understanding of Nazism at that age, but I knew enough to understand when he told me simply that…

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Ashkenazim Are White

By Austin Weisgrau April 6, 2015

Evan Goldstein’s recent contributions to New Voices have featured fascinating and insightful meditations on the cultural location of Jewishness in our world. They are a welcome move toward a critical conversation around the hybrid forms of modern Jewish identity, a project that requires a historical understanding of whiteness. Sharona Bat-Ephraim, the subject of Goldstein’s critique…

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Israel Advocacy Is Now Two State Advocacy

By Amram Altzman March 23, 2015

Israel advocacy started out for me as the “unconditional” support for the State of Israel and its policies because they, broadly, were in agreement with my Western, liberal values. For the most part, the Israeli government—in lip service, if not at all in action—supported the idea of a two-state solution, of a government that would…

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Dealing with Anti-Semitism, and It’s Not About Israel

By Jonathan Katz March 16, 2015

Introduction  Anti-Semitism is everywhere, and it is nowhere. It is claimed to be behind every critique of Israel voiced by progressive youth, yet is said to have been vanquished as American Jews have found themselves increasingly present among the fringes of the establishment. Of course, anti-Semitism still exists. The attacks on Jews in Paris and…

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White Whine and South African Jews – A Jew in the Motherland

By Jonathan Katz February 17, 2015

One familiar thing about the United Kingdom for me is that I frequently hear South African accents. Here in the colonial heartland, I have met a lot of folks like me: born to South African [Ashkenazi] Jewish parents abroad, raised abroad, and with varied ties to South Africa. Some, like me, maintain citizenship in South…

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