In an unlikely pairing, Jon Ossoff, the Jewish Democratic senator from Georgia, introduced bipartisan legislation with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to investigate unsolved racially-motivated murders from the Civil Rights era. Building on a 2018 law, the legislation would extend the term of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board to 2027 and…
It recently came to light that the ADL — the vaunted anti-extremism and civil rights organization — had released a controversial definition of racism a few years ago. Public awareness of ADL’s new definition happened to coincide with Whoopi Goldberg’s ill-chosen words that the Holocaust “is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity,” and unsurprisingly…
On March 29, 1968, less than a week before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. went to Memphis to support a strike by Black sanitation workers who were exposed to hazardous chemicals and dirty air and water on a daily basis — far more often than their white counterparts, and for far less pay. That…
On the way to school, 10-year-old Ruth Winkelmann saw Nazi stormtroopers painting a Star of David onto the back of a religious Jew’s coat. In an interview with the BBC, Ruth said: “I thought, ‘My dad is with me and nothing bad can happen to me,’ but it was a very disturbing sight, and I…
Jackie Mason, who died on Saturday at age 93, will forever hold a storied place in American comedy for helping introduce to the mainstream a brand of humor that was fearlessly, unapologetically Jewish. But the late comedian’s brazen style of commentary also carries a dark legacy in his history of racist remarks. In 1989, Jewish…
Leandra Medine Cohen, founder of quirky fashion site Man Repeller, said she always assumed she’d be canceled — she just thought it would be because she was a terrible leader, not because of racism or privilege. She didn’t even realize she was privileged, she said in a recent podcast interview, until last summer’s racial justice…
Rav Tiferet Berenbaum is a busy woman these days, but she will absolutely and happily find time to slot you in for a phone call while she runs out to get coffee for herself and her fellow rabbis. The pandemic has not slowed her duties: in addition to her usual work as a clergy member…
Editor’s note: This story has been updated. It was originally published on February 22, 2021. Dr. Cornel West is an intellectual giant, one of a select group of academics who have recognition outside their field; he has published a wide range of books and has frequently appeared as a talking head on TV, and he…
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