Opinion

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  When Meyer Wolfsheim From ‘The Great Gatsby’ Is the Only Jewish Character You Know

  As a high school English teacher who writes poetry in her free time, I read a poem a day at the start of each class period. Last September, I read poems by Emma Lazarus, because students were going to be writing an essay about her famous sonnet “The New Colossus.” When I introduced her to…

  By Jamie Wendt

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  The Flawed Legal Reasoning That Says We Shouldn’t Force Secular Studies on Hasidic Jews

  Writing in the Forward, Yitzchak Adlerstein and Michael Broyde recently argued that if New York State tried to force Satmar schools to provide an adequate secular education, the State would lose, because of a 1972 Supreme Court case, Wisconsin v. Yoder. This is a profound misreading of the case. In Yoder, the Court upheld the…

  By Dena S. Davis Jul 11, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  My Hasidic Students Need You To Support Enforced Secular Education

  As a sixth-grade teacher of math and literacy at a Hasidic school in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, I am extremely disappointed by the silence of mainstream Jewish organizations regarding a secular education bill moving through the New York State Legislature. The bill in question, introduced by Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, would enforce a law passed in 1928 that…

  By Yitzhak Bronstein Jul 11, 2016 | 4 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz What I learned at a Holocaust survivors’ Purim party

  

• Rob Eshman A gunman attacked a Michigan synagogue. Here’s what happens to the community next

  

• Dan Perry Israelis and Americans deserve to know why they are still at war

  

• Emily Tamkin Gavin Newsom just confirmed the demise of the Democratic party’s support for Israel

  

• Jay Michaelson Antisemitism is exploding on the right but the Jewish establishment is focused on the left

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  How Republicans Tried To Flip the Jewish Vote — and Created Donald Trump

  On the Shabbat morning of June 19, 1943, in a tiny upstairs shtibl in the East Bronx, my Uncle Seymour became a bar mitzvah. My grandmother had given the rabbi very specific instructions for the occasion. As Seymour walked through the congregation, bearing the Torah scrolls, the rabbi followed right behind him, holding aloft a…

  By Samuel G. Freedman Jul 10, 2016 | 21 min read
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  Opinion

  What Can Jews Do About Police Violence After Shootings — and Dallas?

  “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!” The ground this week is not East of Eden, where Cain slew Abel; it is St. Paul, Minnesota, where Philando Castile was gunned down while reaching for his ID. It is Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Alton Sterling was shot at point-blank range, already immobilized and…

  By Jay Michaelson Jul 8, 2016 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  6 Concrete Things You Can Do To Help End Police Brutality

  Two men who were alive on Monday are dead. Two men who were alive on Monday are dead, and they are dead because officers participating in a systemically broken police establishment encountered them as black men and made the decision to take their lives. The deaths of Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile join the ongoing,…

  By Lana Adler Jul 7, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Donald Trump Sinks to New Level of Absurdity With ‘Frozen’ Tweet

  Nothing’s sacred anymore in this election cycle. Not even Elsa and Anna. The two beloved characters from the Disney movie “Frozen” were the subjects of a Wednesday night tweet by Donald Trump. He wanted to know why nobody was kicking up a fuss over the six-pointed star on a bit of “Frozen” merchandise. He wrapped…

  By Bethany Mandel Jul 7, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Is Donald Trump’s Inadvertent Anti-Semitism Worse Than the Real Thing?

  Is Donald Trump a committed anti-Semite? I don’t think so. This is a man who is exceptionally proud of his daughter, a traditional Jew who is giving her children a solid Jewish education. His son-in-law, upon whose advice he increasingly leans, is an Orthodox Jew. This is not the profile of an anti-Semite. I also…

  By Deborah E. Lipstadt Jul 7, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Meet Tair Kaminer, the 19-Year-Old Conscientious Objector Who Just Made Israeli History

  IDF military prison number 6 lies in one of the most picturesque spots in Israel, at the bottom of the Carmel Mountain, between green fields and banana plantations. The prisoners can see the mountains from the yard, but there is no view of the Mediterranean, less than a mile away. The prison includes a separate…

  By Noam Sheizaf Jul 6, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet Leaders Are Morphing Into ‘Leftists’

  How bad have the tensions gotten between Israel’s security establishment and its political leadership? Pretty bad, and getting worse. Two public events in late June, three days apart, illustrate the depth of the growing animosity. One was a gathering near Tel Aviv of retired senior military and intelligence officers, sponsored by the Council for Peace…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 6, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The ‘Alt-Right’ Explained in 7 Must-Know Terms

  This presidential election has seen the rise of a new group in American conservatism: the blandly-termed — and fiercely pro-Trump — “alt-right.” The blogs, forums, and Twitter accounts that make up the media landscape of the alt-right actively promote fascism, albeit one updated for the 21st century. Though the movement ties together white supremacy, neo-Nazism…

  By Ari Feldman Jul 6, 2016 | 3 min read