
A professor at the University of Houston, Robert Zaretsky is also a culture columnist at the Forward.
A professor at the University of Houston, Robert Zaretsky is also a culture columnist at the Forward.
Nearly a century ago, the Supreme Court ruled that warrantless wiretapping, because a physical trespass did not occur, was not an unwarranted violation of an individual’s rights. The majority opinion, however, proved less influential than one of the dissenting ones. The framers of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, this associate justice affirmed, “sought to protect…
A marshal learns that a group of murderous gunslingers, led by a killer he had sent to jail, is heading to his town. After waiting in vain for volunteers at his office, he strides to the saloon and even the church to ask for deputies. Met with scornful jibes at the first and mournful gazes…
France has lurched into its annual exodus known as la rentrée. It is the moment when the French, after a long summer at the shore or in the mountains, return to their offices and schools. Accompanying this vast population shift is la rentrée politique, when the nation’s politicians return to partisan sniping and intraparty squabbles,…
As scenes of turmoil and terror in Kabul unfold on our screens, our politicians and pundits are in hot pursuit of those responsible for this nightmare. There is, remarkably enough, something of a consensus when it comes to an answer: President Joseph Biden. These critics may be right, but as the work of a Jewish…
Future historians of Texas might well puzzle over events now unfolding in our state. The fourth wave of the pandemic, whipped into a frenzy by the Delta variant, has crashed over Texans, filling emergency room beds and overwhelming medical personnel. Some hospitals, out of space, are transporting patients to others. Breakthrough cases among already vaccinated…
Last week, the Public Religion Research Institute released its study on the degree of vaccine hesitancy of American faith groups. The findings were, perhaps, not surprising: American Jews register, by far, the lowest degree of hesitancy towards vaccination. A study on the attitude of American faith groups toward the current political tensions in France over…
In a recent column in the Washington Post, the conservative commentator Michael Gerson reflected on Republican opposition to the government’s efforts to vaccinate Americans against COVID-19. Perplexed by the lies parroted by GOP politicians and pundits, he observed that neither opportunism nor fanaticism fully explained their behavior. “This is hard,” Gerson confessed, “to get my…
While driving my daughter to her viola lesson this week, we heard a radio story about the condominium collapse in Surfside, Fla. — an event as absurd as it is agonizing. As one resident in the neighboring tower put it, these things are not supposed to happen in this country. As a structural engineer being…
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