The website XOJane.com published a post by one of its regular contributors, India-Jewel Jackson, entitled “Let’s Talk Paula Deen and Apology Culture – Should Celebrities Be Forced to Apologize In Spite of Their Beliefs?” However, it wasn’t Jackson’s post on June 24 that caused controversy among the blog’s devoted followers – it was one of…
Three years before he would go on to become the founding editor of the Yiddish Forward, Abraham Cahan was already deeply worried about the prostitution and, indeed, enslavement of Jewish immigrant women on New York City’s Lower East Side and the police corruption that enabled it to flourish. “The most disgusting area of the city…
Just before the doors of the Old Family Dining Room swing open to welcome Elijah to the White House Seder, Dr. Eric Whitaker, a friend of President Obama, reads aloud the Emancipation Proclamation. Last week, as I researched the Obama Seder (the only Seder hosted by a sitting President), I was struck by several things,…
Recently there has been a spate of films, articles and plays about the Civil War and slavery, including “Lincoln” by Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained.” Few of these have mentioned Jews, and appropriately so since the numbers of Jews who owned slaves in the United States was relatively small. Nevertheless, the play “The…
The anonymous 16th-century painter who recorded a scene of everyday life at the king’s fountain (Chafariz d’El Rei) in Lisbon depicted an impressive range of people and animals. In addition to a swan, a seal, fish, horses, dogs and birds, the artist also included more than 150 human figures. There’s so much going on in…
Every day this week, the Forward is publishing pieces from opinion leaders in different fields about their prescription for policy in President Obama’s second term. One hundred and fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery still exists in America. It takes place in just about every industry — agriculture, manufacturing, restaurants, domestic work and the…
Congregants at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church cried out in testimony, prayer and song at a New Year’s Eve service recalling the vigils held by blacks 150 years ago as they awaited President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. The document that helped end slavery in the United States resonated deeply in Charleston, where…
Across the United States, there will be re-enactments and parades, cannon salutes and speeches. The U.S. Postal Service plans to issue a commemorative stamp, while the Massachusetts Historical Society will display the pen Abraham Lincoln used on Jan. 1, 1863, to formally declare millions of slaves free. But the star of next week’s 150th anniversary…
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