Anti-Semite? Zionist? Champion of the alt-right? In the hours after media provocateur Steven Bannon’s elevation to a senior position in president-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet, commentators and civil rights organizations slammed the move. Bannon is a complex figure. He served as a Navy officer and also worked for Goldman Sachs. He also helped run a domed…
Scholars usually avoid politics, content to plod around the stacks in the university library and write essays for obscure academic journals. But after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential elections, hundreds of Jewish historians signed an open letter pledging their opposition to many of the new leader’s ideas. “We condemn unequivocally those agitators who have…
“For those in need of a pantsuit, consider some of the options from the fall 2016 runways.” So reads part of an Allure story from 500 years ago (November 4th, 2016), on the decision of many Hillary Clinton supporters to wear pantsuits to the polls, in honor of Clinton’s signature, no-nonsense look. While I was…
Here’s a little history for those just joining us: What’s long distinguished anti-Semitism from most other forms of oppression is that this form of bigotry presents itself as an anti-oppression ideology. The anti-Semite doesn’t (in his or her view) hate Jews because ugh, Jews. Rather, the anti-Semite believes Jews to be an all-powerful force, a…
On Election Day, Hillary Clinton supporters and Donald Trump supporters alike are making the urgency in their votes known across every social media platform, with both camps gunning hard for their candidate. Of course, in Trump’s camp, there’s one subset of supporters that has made itself quite loudly, consistently and troublingly known throughout the 2016…
I spent Yom Kippur this year dipping pork chops in olive oil, preparing lunch for the clients of St. John’s Bread and Life, an amazing anti-poverty organization in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. It marked a significant transformation from my upbringing: I grew up in one of the few religious households in a Conservative synagogue in Hamilton, Ontario,…
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has, alas, said something disappointing. She told Yahoo’s Katie Couric that she finds football player Colin Kaepernick and others’ refusal to stand for the national anthem was “really dumb.” Ginsburg added that she believes the protest should be legal, but the criticism of what is, after all, a peaceful…
A whole lot has been said about Trump’s disastrous (and, come on, Trump supporters, it was disastrous) performance during the Second Presidential Debate. From his shameful and insulting use of Bill Clinton’s accusers as props to his threat to literally imprison his opponent to his pacing around the debate floor like a trapped, orange animal,…
100% of profits support our journalism
