JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The year is 1897. Cuba is in the throes of a multi-year war of independence. Thomas Edison is patenting an early motion picture device. Two babies destined to change the world of entertainment — and rock iconic bowl cuts — are born into the world. This paper first arrived on the laps of Yiddish-speaking socialists…
Outside 58 Weidestraat in Amsterdam’s Betondorp district, two brass stones lie set into the sidewalk. Known by the Dutch as stolpersteine, or “stumbling stones,” the square plaques are engraved with the names of Jews who moved to this neighborhood upon its creation after the First World War and were deported during the Second. Herman Richard…
Read this article in Yiddish. Transatlantic Russian Jewishness: Ideological Voyages of the Yiddish Daily Forverts in the First Half of the Twentieth Century Gennady Estraikh Academic Studies Press, $119, 354 pp In the history of American journalism, the Forverts is a genuine outlier. Over the course of the first half of the last century, the…
The 2020 Democratic primary will likely offer the most diverse field of candidates either party has ever put forward for the presidency. At least four serious African-American contenders (Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Andrew Gillum, and Eric Holder) have been floated so far, as have at least four women (Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, and…
Over the past year, scholars and journalists have reflected on the centennial of the Russian Revolution. On November 7, 1917, Vladimir Lenin led the Bolsheviks in a coup against the Provisional Government, which triggered the Russian Civil War and led to the establishment of the Soviet Union. Nearly forgotten, however, is America’s own socialist revolution,…
At an early Passover seder last week at the City Winery, the poet Kevin Coval was, to the surprise of no one, assigned the Hagaddah reading of the Rebellious Child, an updating of the old-school Wicked Son. It’s been Coval’s nature to question all forms of established dogma, going back to his Hebrew school days…
At a rally last October, Remaz Abdelgader — a hijab-wearing Muslim, a senior at George Mason University and the daughter of Sudanese immigrants — stood to ask Bernie Sanders a question. She started by referring to the Islamophobic bigotry of many of the Republican candidates. As she continued, calling herself “an American Muslim student who…
This is a talk I delivered yesterday afternoon at the Holocaust commemoration ceremony of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust in Pan Pacific Park. My theme could probably best be summed up by quoting Joe Hill’s final message to Big Bill Haywood: “Don’t waste time mourning. Organize! The Talmud teaches us that from the…
