Masha Gessen and Elliot Ackerman are among the finalists for this year’s National Book Awards. Such an honor to be on this list. Thank you @nationalbook https://t.co/rjkb3yMrWd — Elliot Ackerman (@elliotackerman) October 4, 2017 Gessen’s “The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” released this week, is a finalist for the award in nonfiction. Ackerman’s…
Ever since the days of Isaac Babel, Vasily Grossman and Ilya Ehrenburg, Russia’s Jewish journalists and commentators have been at the forefront of those fearlessly speaking truth to power. Today’s Russian media is swarming with misinformation, or “fake news” in American terms — ‘news’ stories that are farmed and placed by government propagandists across languages….
Lena Dunham interviewed Samantha Bee for The Hollywood Reporter this week, and the two fiercely funny, politically engaged women tackled everything from “Full Frontal” to President Trump. Bee, however, came up short when Dunham asked about how private citizens can use their voices during the current political administration. “I have no idea,” the comedian said….
It’s the last weekend of February, and the countdown until spring will pass faster with the aid of great culture. Start with some excellent recent reads. In longform, have your breath taken away by Kathryn Schulz’s exploration of loss in The New Yorker; in Harper’s, follow self-proclaimed “queer, Jewish, anti-Putin” journalist Masha Gessen through the…
On Friday, January 27, one week after he was sworn in as president, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.” That order — as you’ve now surely heard — did at least two notable things. First, it suspended the “Issuance of Visas and Other…
Russian-American Jewish journalist Masha Gessen gave dire advice Wednesday on “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.” Asked, “what is the recipe for successfully resisting autocracy,” Gessen said, “I had to flee my country. Most efforts to successfully resist that I know of failed.” Gessen was born in Moscow to a Jewish family. She moved to the…
On Sunday, January 14th a crowd of literary luminaries will hold a midtown Manhattan rally, “Writers Resist: #LouderTogether” to support the right to free expression. The rally’s primary organizer, PEN America, described the event as a “literary protest” to “defend free expression, reject hatred, and uphold truth in the face of lies and misinformation.” The…
We hope you’ve digested all of that Turkey Day tryptophan, because with a flood of events in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles, the Jewish cultural world is moving right along. As December creeps around the corner, bundle against the cold – or, if you’re in L.A., laugh at the rest of us…
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