Opinion

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  How To Respond to Bloody Paris Terror? With Reason — and Rage

  This is a week for rage and grief. First, radical Islamist gunmen assassinated 10 journalists at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris. And as if that were not horrific enough, a second attack at a kosher grocery store, with four people dead. Apparently, simply being Jewish is now as offensive as drawing a cartoon –…

  By Jay Michaelson

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  How I Covered the Paris Hostage Siege

  Police arrive on the scene of the hostage crisis in eastern Paris.// Laurent-David Samama It was mid-morning when I saw several police cars rushing into my street with their sirens on. Even glimpsed through my window, the situation looked unusual. In light of the recent massacre at Charlie Hebdo, I was suspicious, and headed out…

  By Laurent-David Samama Jan 9, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  The Zionist Election You Can Participate In — If Your Elbows Are Sharp

  Fed up with the American Jewish community and the big-mouth nobodies who think they own it? Good news: There’s going to be an election. And you can vote. No, really. An actual, honest-to-goodness election. From January 15 until April 30 you can go online, pay $10 to register and cast a vote for a delegation…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 9, 2015 | 5 min read

Columnists View All

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

  

• Rob Eshman Gavin Newsom isn’t waffling on Israel — he’s voicing sensible ideas in an era of outrage

  

• Dan Perry Is this Netanyahu’s Winston Churchill moment?

  

• Emily Tamkin We must rewrite the rulebook for fighting antisemitism — or conspiracists like Joe Kent will win the narrative wars

  

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

  

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  Opinion

  ‘Selma’ Got It Right by Leaving Out Jews

  A still from the new film ‘Selma’ Leida Snow’s review of the new film “Selma” takes director Ava DuVernay to task for a “glaring omission” — airbrushing out the contributions of white people in general, and Jews in particular, to the civil rights movement. But Snow makes this critique by drawing selectively from American Jewish…

  By Katie Rosenblatt Jan 9, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Why HarperCollins Was So Wrong To Erase Israel

  (JTA) — Before the HarperCollins Middle East atlas story is deleted from email inboxes, it pays to spend another moment ruminating on the damage caused by companies that ought to know better. On its website, HarperCollins bills itself as “one of the world’s leading English-language publishers.” It has a storied brand and a list of top-notch…

  By Daniel S. Mariaschin Jan 8, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Why We Mourn the Loss of Streit’s Matzo

  A worker at Streit’s Matzo Factory on the Lower East Side / Getty Images This week brought news of the closing of Streit’s Matzo Factory on the Lower East Side, a landmark that has been there since 1925. For the past fifteen years, on the Sunday before Passover, on behalf of the Museum at Eldridge…

  By Amy Stein-Milford Jan 8, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Charlie Hebdo Must Be Free to Offend All — Even Us

  It is not easy to be at the receiving end of Charlie Hebdo’s especially biting, brutal form of satire. Jews should know. Since the massacre of the French magazine’s top editors and journalists January 7, much has been made of their eagerness to criticize and lampoon people of all faiths, from the pope to presidents…

  Jan 8, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  How Terror Attack Hits Raw Nerve for Paris Jews Like Me

  People gather outside French embassy in Berlin to say #JeSuisCharlie / Twitter Paris, my city, is under attack. All of France is shocked and shattered. As of 11:00 this morning, French TV channels and radio stations have interrupted their regular programming to cover the story of the attack. On Twitter, the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie is now…

  By Laurent-David Samama Jan 7, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Was Terror Attack Tied to ‘Muslim Future’ Satire?

  By now, news of the massacre at the offices of the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo has reached the U.S. In perhaps the fullest account on this side of the Atlantic, the New York Times reports that the masked assailants—two according to a witness, three according to the police—burst into the lobby of the paper’s offices…

  By Robert Zaretsky Jan 7, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Would Charlie Hebdo Have Angered So Many Online?

  Getty Images I’ve had a swirl of emotions in response to the attack on France’s satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, which has left 12 dead, including many of this generation’s greatest cartoonists. I’m raging at the brutality of the act and find myself utterly incapable of getting anywhere near an understanding of a worldview so insecure…

  By Gal Beckerman Jan 7, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  1 Billion Chinese. 1 Jew. So Many Questions.

  Illustration by Lior Zaltzman One month ago, I returned from China, where I was the guest of the Guilford and Diane Glazer Center for Jewish and Israeli Studies at Nanjing University. The Glazers are not the only Jewish philanthropic connection — many American Jews have made commitments in support of China’s ten academic centers of…

  By Steven Windmueller Jan 5, 2015 | 4 min read