San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick made waves this week by declining to stand during the national anthem at a pre-season game. Kaepernick, who has sat out the national anthem during at least one previous pre-season game, has faced backlash from those who see the refusal to stand as unpatriotic, disrespectful, and worse — specifically, that…
The hardest part about getting arrested was when they took away my necklace. I had not mentally prepared myself for it, probably because I forgot that I was even wearing it. It is a gold chain with three charms, each bearing the initial of one of my children. The necklace, and subsequent charms, were given…
The #BlackLivesMatter movement has reverberated throughout the country, as protesters from Ferguson, Missouri, to New York have taken bold action to assert the rights, dignity and full humanity of Americans who have been systematically targeted for abusive policing: communities of color still lit by the brutal afterglow of centuries of legal discrimination and violence. The…
● Your Face in Mine By Jess Row Riverhead Books, 384 pages, $27.95 On a warm Sunday in February, an unidentified black man approaches Kelly Thorndike as he walks through a parking lot in Baltimore on his way to shop for groceries at the local Asian market. When Kelly sees this man, he feels a…
(JTA) — The latest strategy being used by those who make a career of assaulting the good name of the State of Israel is to link the issue of full equality for African-Americans, as symbolized by the word “Ferguson,” with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is a long history of using legitimate American social justice issues…
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum was observing the Sabbath on December 20 when New York police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot and killed in their patrol car in Brooklyn by 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who then took his own life. After sundown, Kleinbaum, who leads New York’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah and has been an…
As the first candle of Hanukkah was lit last night, several hundred Jews blocked traffic in San Francisco. The swell of protestors engulfed the busy intersection of Powell Street and Market Street, and a four minute and twenty eight second long moment of silence was held, followed by a recital of the mourner’s kaddish. This…
You may have heard about that huge wave of labor protests that swept across the country on December 4. You know, the one-day surge of strikes and rallies in about 190 cities (!) by low-wage workers — fast-food, home healthcare, chain-store and airport employees, all demanding a $15 hourly wage, all complaining that their industries’…
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