The list of candidates running for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election is a who’s who of the Democratic party — and in a more literal sense, a (squints) wait, who’s that? On Thursday night, a second ensemble of 2020 Dem hopefuls will take the stage to discuss policy and grandstand on their…
In a tweet on Tuesday, Ivanka Trump misattributed a quote to Socrates. “‘The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.’-Socrates” she initially tweeted, later deleting it and reissuing it with the caveat “Socrates the fictional character, not the person.” She’s forgoing the…
…I wanna rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old Then magnificently we will float Into the mystic. —Van Morrison Pop singers waxing eloquent about love and sex freely borrow from the religious vernacular. Religion returns the compliment. In many synagogues these days, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah has been adopted as…
This article was published in English-language supplement of the Forverts on September 10, 1927. Ever since, at the age of fifteen, I read “” in an unexpurgated edition, I have found it difficult not to see men as Yahoos. Especially difficult it is when the men are old. It is a well—known fact that many…
Bertrand Russell wrote 51 articles for the English-language supplement of the Jewish Daily Forward—a significant output, even for a writer so prolific. The association was productive but short lived, spanning just four-and-a-half unsettled years of inter-war history. His first submission, in May 1926 attacked the British Government’s handling of a bitter labour dispute that culminated…
In 1951, the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt published “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” her 600-page twin study of Nazism and Stalinism. The book received rave reviews; Norman Podhoretz, the Jewish New York intellectual, compared it to an epic poem. Then, 66 years later, in December of last year, Arendt’s book began selling at 16 times its…
In what read like a homily inspired by an acid trip, Emory University philosophy professor George Yancy channeled the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Abraham Joshua Heschel in a rambling but strangely moving New York Times op-ed published Monday. The essay, titled “Is Your God Dead?”, asks the reader to look at one’s own beliefs…
I’m struck by the punitive nature of the new White House budget proposal on the poor — which involves cutting $274 billion over ten years from anti-poverty programs like food stamps, tax credits and welfare, as well as austere reforms on Medicaid and disability insurance while boosting military spending. All of the early quotes commenting…
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