Jewish history

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/14/2023
  

  As More Schools Ban "Maus," Art Spiegelman Fears Worse to Come

  “It’s a real warning sign of a country that’s yearning for a return of authoritarianism,” Spiegelman tells Post columnist Greg Sargent of the challenge made against his graphic-format Holocaust history by residents of Nixa, Missouri. 

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• SOURCE: Forward
  5/15/2023
  

  Leon Uris's "Exodus" Shaped Jewish Identity for a Generation—Does it Matter Today?

  By fictionalizing many of the events surrounding the founding of the Israeli state (and ignoring others), Uris helped launch a profoundly influential view of Israel's place in the world and Jews' relationship to Israel. But a younger generation of Jewish readers seems indifferent. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  5/8/2023
  

  Daniel Boyarin's Argument for a Non-Zionist Jewish Nationalism

  by Joshua Abramson Cohen

  Boyarin's latest work makes provocative arguments that there is a real collective identity of the Jewish people as a nation, but that it is independent of the Israeli state and territory. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/10/2023
  

  Who Attacked Jascha Heifetz in 1953?

  Although ties to Jewish extremist organizations were suspected, the person who attacked a violinist in 1953, allegedly for performing the works of Richard Strauss, has never been found. The story resonates with conflicts in Israeli society today. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/3/2023
  

  Is Holocaust Education Making Antisemitism Worse?

  by Dara Horn

  It's becoming clear that more lessons about the Holocaust won't address the problem of antisemitism in contemporary America, because it places both Jews and prejudice against them in another time and place. 

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• SOURCE: Substack
  3/19/2023
  

  A Prominent Story about How "Diversity" Entered College Admissions is Wrong

  by Charles Petersen

  The plaintiffs in a case seeking to outlaw affirmative action in admission policies are relying on a false narrative that "diversity" entered Harvard's admissions criteria as a way to limit the number of Jews admitted. While the existence of Jewish quotas is documented, the two aren't connected. 

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• SOURCE: LitHub
  3/6/2023
  

  How Superman Became a Christ-Figure

  by Roy Schwartz

  How did the comic book creation of two American Jews, whose origin story incorporates Moses, come to be understood as a stand-in for Jesus? Mostly through the movies. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  3/7/2023
  

  Will the Right Wing Israeli Government Break American Jews' Relationship with Israel?

  Shaul Magid, Distinguished Fellow of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth, argues that the new government's agenda will force American Jews to recognize that Israel has become an illiberal country, while historian Hasia Diner says it has long been so. 

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• SOURCE: Forward
  2/27/2023
  

  Philosopher Lewis Gordon's Impact on Black Jewish History

  Gordon said for him, “Black consciousness links to all oppression and that’s exactly the kind of Jewishness I was raised in. It was always explained as connected to the ethical, the political dimensions of what it was to be Jewish."

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• SOURCE: Tablet
  2/26/2023
  

  Parallels and Divergences in Jewish and Asian American History

  by Joel Kotkin

  "The fate of Asians and Jews in America is about more than two minority groups. It is about the efficacy of equal and fair treatment under the law, and a democratic system based on merit rather than ethnicity."

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  1/22/2023
  

  How the Russian Jews Became Soviet

  The novelist Gary Shteyngart, who emigrated from the USSR to the US as a child, reviews Sasha Senderovich's "How the Soviet Jew was Made," a work that gives short shrift to neither the "Soviet" nor "Jewish" sides of the question. 

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• SOURCE: Jewish Currents
  1/19/2023
  

  Antisemitism is Resurgent. Why are News Organizations Screwing Up the Story?

  When journalists turn to representatives of legacy Jewish organizations as authentic voices of American Jewry, they often end up generating reporting about antisemitism that strips away historical nuance and fails to accurately describe the forces driving attacks on Jews today. 

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• SOURCE: Jewish Telegraphic Agency
  1/22/2023
  

  Eric Alterman on the Shifting Debate over Israel-Palestine in America

  The writer discusses his conclusions about the evolution of the debate among American Jews about the nature of their relationship to Israel and the moral status of American policy. 

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• SOURCE: Jewish Currents
  1/10/2023
  

  Beinart: Antisemitic Zionism Isn't a Contradiction in Terms

  Conservative Zionists have reached accommodated American evangelicals' demands for a Christian-dominated America in exchange for support for a Jewish greater Israel. The media are reluctant to discuss this connection.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/9/2023
  

  Adolfo Kaminsky, 97: Forger of Identity Documents Saved Thousands of Jews

  Experience as a stain-remover in laundry work helped the teenaged Kaminsky to remove supposedly indelible ink from French ID cards, enabling Jews to escape deportation. 

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• SOURCE: Jerusalem Post
  1/4/2023
  

  Can Religious Zionists Reject the Religious Zionist Party?

  by Gil Troy

  Can religious Zionism survive being hijacked by a party of anti-democratic and anti-humanist zealots? One historian of Zionism says he's not on board with the Israeli far right.  

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  12/21/2022
  

  Will MAGA Be the Last Straw for Conservative Jews' Partnership with the Christian Right?

  by Eric Alterman

  Since the 1970s, an alliance between Christian and Jewish conservatives has been brokered over mutual support for Israel's occupation and settlement of the West Bank. Are changing attitudes toward the occupation among American Jews and the naked antisemitism of the MAGA right breaking the alliance? 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  12/21/2022
  

  Enjoying the Christmas Lights? Thank Jewish Refugees from the Ottoman Empire

  by Devin E. Naar

  The story of Christmas lighting in America follows the paths of Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Turkey, who coped with nativist prejudice, linguistic difference, and labor exploitation to find community and work—including in light bulb factories. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  12/16/2022
  

  Jews of Color have Made Traditions of "Untraditional" Hanukkah Celebrations

  by Samira Mehta

  Jews from outside Ashkenazi heritage present celebratory and food practices that show the diversity in Jewish communities and the navigation of tradition in interfaith families. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/20/2022
  

  Israel's Religious Right Pushes for Restrictive Changes to Law of Return

  As Jews around the world are considering Israel as a refuge from antisemitism, that country's religious fundamentalist parties have the political leverage to decide that many fewer people are Jewish enough to qualify for immigration and citizenship. American Reform Jews are particularly affected.