Pete Seeger, California, 1950s / Public Domain In the spring of 1998, Pete Seeger headlined a free concert in Central Park celebrating Israel’s 50th birthday, sponsored by the Cantors’ Assembly. The event prompted a critical press release from the Zionist Organization of America, protesting the Cantors’ Assembly’s giving a platform to a harsh critic of…
Some songs for the holiday. First, Paul Robeson’s immortal rendition of “The Ballad of Joe Hill.” It still has incredibly moving power. (Read this and this for some fascinating comment on Joe.) Then, Harry “Haywire Mac” McClintock (author of “The Big Rock Candy Mountain”) sings Joe Hill’s “The Preacher and the Slave” (“Pie in the…
A Forward reader who modestly asks to remain anonymous writes: “As an American Jew, my sources of information on Israeli politics are from English-language publications, the Forward being one of them. During the recent elections in Israel, I read about the Jewish Home party — and also about the Habayit Hayehudi [“Jewish Home” in Hebrew]…
Two of my young Israeli friends, key activists in Solidarity, the folks who for nearly two years have demonstrated every Friday afternoon at Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem where Israeli Jews have been buying up Palestinian property and claiming that the neighborhood is legally Jewish, were assaulted September 30. My friends, graduate…
They decided that the best way to show their solidarity was by doing time in solitary. Beginning last Saturday evening at 8:00 PM and lasting for 24 hours, various high-profile Israelis took turns sitting in a dark, depressing mock prison cell reflecting the conditions in which Gilad Shalit is likely living in captivity. The cramped…
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