Batya Ungar-Sargon is the former Opinion Editor at the Forward.
Batya Ungar-Sargon
By Batya Ungar-Sargon
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Opinion The Real Reason So Many Jews Can’t Stand Jared Kushner
Few in Donald Trump’s administration have elicited as much attention as his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Since Trump’s surprise November election, the mainstream media has dropped a steady drumbeat of anti-Kushner reports. So sustained and unyielding has this onslaught been that when Steve Bannon was fired from his White House post and returned to Breitbart, there…
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Opinion How The Obsession With Jewish Continuity Perverts Our Liberal Values
This week, we found out from sociologist Steven Cohen that the worlds of Reform and Conservative Judaism are disappearing into blackness — almost literally. Their scant replacement numbers are being demographically dwarfed by the masses of Orthodox children, and a generation down the line the American Jewish population will have drastically shifted its religious affiliation….
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Books In Praise of Giving Offense: A Review Of Eli Valley’s Diaspora Boy
There’s a concept in the early Zionist writings that still haunts contemporary Jewish life. It’s the belief that the Diaspora Jew is an outmoded kind of Jew. Weak and effeminate from too much studying, he is submissive and abject, always apologizing to the gentiles who hate him. As opposed to this Diaspora Jew, the early…
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Opinion Why Every Jew Should Call For This Palestinian To Be Freed
The first time I met the Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro, it was just a few weeks after a terrorist attack in Jerusalem that had left three rabbis dead. “I feel sorry, really,” Amro told me, an open palm against his chest and a look of pain on his face. “I feel that civilians…
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Opinion Glenn Greenwald’s Takedown Of Jewish Editor Shows How Not To Disagree With Someone
Nothing contributed to the rise of Donald Trump quite like the infamous echo chamber. By now we are all too familiar with the way that Facebook and other media — and our own passions and insecurities — allowed us to see only what we wanted to see, to hear only what we wanted to hear,…
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Culture Welcome to Fire Island, Fantasy of Jewish Paradise
(JTA) — It was Friday evening and the cantor, wearing a leopard-print top and gladiator sandals — including one with a with a tambourine affixed to it — greeted the congregants at Shabbat services with a smile. She encouraged them to pick up the percussion instruments left on the chairs, along with the prayer books. The…
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The Schmooze Jessie Kahnweiler Tries (And Fails) To Get Arrested
(JTA) — The indefatigable web comic Jessie Kahnweiler, of “Dude, Where’s My Chutzpah?” and “Meet My Rapist” fame, is back with a new video, this one highlighting white privilege — the idea that whites can get away with doing something that would be way more likely to get a person of color arrested. In the video,…
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Culture The Sephardic Bibliophile of Brooklyn
On a nondescript street of brick row houses, nestled between an insurance office and a computer store, in an out of the way corner of Brooklyn known as Marine Park that is not on any subway lines, lies a small storefront. From the street, it’s impossible to see in — the glass windows are blocked…
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News Scoop: Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors
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Music For Bob Dylan’s biographer, ‘A Complete Unknown’ is a dream come true — even if it’s mostly fiction
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Culture In Peter Yarrow’s legacy, an uneasy blend of Jewish values and personal transgressions
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News ‘Do you have the Torahs?’ Synagogue races LA wildfire to rescue its past and future
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish אַ זום־שמועס אויף ייִדיש מיט איציק האָרן, טאַטע פֿון צוויי ערבֿניקעס אין עזהOnline chat in Yiddish with Itsik Horn, father of two hostages in Gaza
איתן און יאיר האָרן זענען פֿאַרכאַפּט געוואָרן דעם 7טן אָקטאָבער פֿון קיבוץ ניר עוז
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Fast Forward Bernie Sanders receives a vote for president of Lebanon as army chief wins
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Opinion How ‘the most hated man in France’ became Trump ahead of his time
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Politics The unconventional contenders for Trump’s antisemitism envoy
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