Massachusetts
‘A lot of work to do’: A Black female rabbi on the anti-racist progress the Jewish community has, and hasn’t, made
“Race is new for white people, and that’s part of the problem. Jewish whiteness and the Jewish relationship to racism is different.”
Jewish GOP leader wants Republican men to reconsider getting the COVID-19 vaccine
The Jewish vice chair of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee, Tom Mountain, is using his personal experience with COVID-19 to appeal to his “fellow Republican men” to get vaccinated.
Amid rancor and recrimination, Brandeis University president rejects contract
In an escalating row with Brandeis University, President Ron Liebowitz released a statement on Tuesday announcing that he would not accept an offer from the university’s Board of Trustees for a one-year contract. The dispute appears to be over missed fundraising targets over the past year.
A Tufts student government fight shows what’s wrong with the Israel-Palestine debate
Those who’ve paid attention to Jewish media world in the past week have seen the dramatic build up and sudden dissipation of the story about Tufts University junior Max Price, an outspoken pro-Israel member of the student government, and the Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine group. Price became the cause celebre du jour for one hot second in the ongoing debate about whether pro-Israel students are being targeted in an antisemitic way on American college campuses.
A rabbi moves Holocaust survivors to front of vaccination line
The COVID-19 vaccination clinic for Holocaust survivors in a local synagogue started out a bit ominously: A police cruiser was stationed outside and a bomb-sniffing German Shepherd was deployed inside, zealously looking for explosives.
In Boston, a memorial rises to COVID-19 victims and ‘last responders’
The markers, placed in a Jewish cemetery, are among the country’s very first memorial’s to the pandemic’s victims — if not the first.
From Twisted Sister to the pulpit, a deaf rabbi finds his place in ‘a society not set up for you’
“Heavy metal saved my life. It expressed my rage at being a kid with a disability who was different.”
In the Berkshires, farm to table recipes with a dash of social justice
“The Berkshires Farm Table Cookbook” is a deceptively slim volume containing multitudes — colorful profiles and photographs of more than 40 small farms and the people devoted to running them; 125 recipes that the farmers inspired; and compelling information about the issues they face — economic, environmental, and societal — and what can be done to tackle them. Though not specifically a Jewish cookbook — only two of the farmers are Jewish, and there is pork in these pages — there is a clear set of Jewish values that underlie the text.
Another hit for Jewish journalism- The Jewish Advocate announces it’s suspending publication
The Jewish Advocate, a 118-year-old Boston news weekly, announced today that it will cease publication.
A Jewish progressive, loses bid to oust powerful Massachusetts incumbent
Robbie Goldstein, another Jewish progressive seeking to unseat a more conservative Democrat, fell short in the state’s 8th District.