Robin Washington is the Forward’s Editor-at-Large. A longtime editor, columnist, radio host and documentarian across mainstream and ethnic media, he was one of the founders of the Alliance of Black Jews and an early pioneer of the term “Jew of color.” Email [email protected], Twitter @robinbirk.
Robin WashingtonEditor-at-Large
By Robin Washington
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News Exclusive: Rabbi at center of Texas hostage standoff resigned in fall after board voted not to renew contract
'I love you and I love this congregation,' the rabbi said
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Fast Forward Watching livestream, Colleyville cantor heard rabbi try to make peace with his captor
Cytron-Walker appeared to be trying to calm down the man holding him hostage.
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Culture Jewish photographer behind iconic Pulitzer-winning images hangs up his lens
If there’s a definitive Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, it’s “The Soiling of Old Glory” — Stanley Forman’s spot news winner for the Boston Herald American in 1976. In it, a youth turns an American flag into a weapon to use against a Black man at a school busing protest. Then again, make that two definitive photos:…
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Opinion The creator of Kwanzaa modified a Hanukkah menorah — and gave advice to Black Jews
When Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966, he borrowed the concept of a menorah — and according to some accounts, he physically altered one — to invent the seven-candle kinara. A generation later, he gave something back to Judaism. An uncompromising 1960s revolutionary turned university professor, Karenga was already a cultural icon, and his holiday…
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Culture How Jewish is Hallmark’s ‘Eight Gifts of Hanukkah’?
I have a confession to make: I just enjoyed a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. Or, all right; I’ll qualify that: It was “Eight Gifts of Hanukkah” — the one outlier in Hallmark’s “Countdown to Christmas” series (re-airing Dec. 12, 10 a.m. Eastern). And one reason I liked it is I view the channel in a…
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Opinion Why I was thrown off the Mayflower II
In a memorable moment of my journalistic career, I was thrown off the Mayflower II. More precisely, I was led off — as opposed to being forced to walk the plank — the replica ship in Plymouth Harbor by one of its crew member actors, who overheard me asking tourists about atrocities the Pilgrims committed…
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Opinion Rittenhouse verdict not a surprise — but not OK
The case was decided once the weapons charge was tossed
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Opinion The Jewish mayor of Minneapolis won reelection. Is it good for the Jews?
A shorthand voters’ guide for Tuesday’s mayoral election in Minneapolis could have defined the choice of candidates as left, left and lefter. The winner, incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey, was one of the lefts, even if he ran to the right. “For Minneapolis, Jacob Frey is a Republican,” Carin Mrotz, executive director of Minnesota’s Jewish Community…
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News Scoop: Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors
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Fast Forward Their Pacific Palisades synagogue is standing, but all three rabbis lost their homes
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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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Fast Forward 2 synagogues in Sydney graffitied with swastikas
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Opinion ‘Just things’ — like what my LA neighbors have lost — are what makes houses into Jewish homes
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Opinion Celebrating Shabbat in Los Angeles: Amid the fires, a still, small voice
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Opinion ‘Home is memory’: How Jews make sense of what they’ve lost in the LA fires and what remains
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