28 Sep
History, Latest, topics

The St. Louis, Then and Now

By Sarah Breger The contentious debate over Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his actions during the Holocaust is ongoing. There are those who argue that FDR was a true friend to the Jews, who led the United States to victory against the Nazis; others say that FDR turned a blind eye to reports of what was happening to the Jews in Europe. The St. Louis has become a symbol of the United States perceived indifference. In 1939, the St. Louis sailed from Germany with 938 Jewish passengers seeking refuge in Cuba. After being refused entry, the ship searched for other safe havens, including the U.S. From the port of Miami, passengers sent FDR cables begging for refuge. Their pleas were denied and the ship was forced to sail back to Europe. About 1/3 died in Auschwitz. For Special Envoy...

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03 Aug
Arts & Culture, Culture, Latest, topics

A Pioneer of Jewish Music

By Rebecca Borison Born in Odessa in 1879, Jacob Weinberg was a talented and prolific Jewish composer, who sought to preserve and promote his Jewish heritage through his music. He is survived today by three granddaughters, and one of those granddaughters, Ellen Mausner, is working to revive and foster her grandfather’s legacy. As apart of that effort, Mausner is producing an hour-long concert version of Weinberg’s opera, The Pioneers, on Monday, August 20, in Manhattan. Moment was able to talk to Mausner to learn a bit more about her grandfather and the relationship between music and Judaism. Can you tell me a bit of background about your grandfather? He was a trained concert pianist and composer. He composed many works that have been published. In 1924, he wrote an opera called The Pioneers, or Chalutzim in Hebrew, that...

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24 Jul
History, Latest, Religion, topics

The (True) Myth of the Jewish Democrat

By Daniela Enriquez Elections are around the corner and once again the question presents itself—are Jews by nature Democrats? That American Jews tend to lean left is not news. After all, 74 percent of Jews voted for President Obama in 2008; the only group that voted more heavily for him was African Americans. However, the November elections are going to be quite interesting from this point of view. On one hand, Republicans keep saying that Jewish support for President Obama will decrease over the coming months. On the other hand, the GOP candidate, if elected, would become the first Mormon president and it’s hard to know whether this would impact “new world” Jewry and its relationship with Israel. In the latest issue of Moment Magazine, we analyzed the most famous—and infamous—Jewish myths of all times; that got...

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18 Jul
History, Latest, topics

TIAA-CREF Divests from Caterpillar

By Julia Glauberman In recent weeks, TIAA-CREF, a leading financial services organization that manages nearly $500 billion in assets, has announced that it will remove Caterpillar, Inc. from its socially responsible investment portfolio and to sell Caterpillar’s shares, which are worth around $73 million. Like the company’s move to divest from companies with business ties to the Sudanese government three years ago, this decision comes after much contentious debate on the subject. Caterpillar has recently been the target of criticism for selling bulldozers to the IDF, which uses the machines to demolish Palestinian homes in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. However, TIAA-CREF’s public relations department has avoided citing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the source of its decision, instead pointing to Caterpillar’s recent downgrading in MSCI’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings index. TIAA-CREF’s apparent desire to...

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12 Jul
Culture, Latest, topics

The Kosher Higgs Boson

by Daniela Enriquez Last week, on the Fourth of July, while most Americans were celebrating their Independence Day, scientists working at CERN (the European Center for Nuclear Research) finally discovered the Higgs Boson, also known as “the God particle.” The entire scientific world celebrated the announcement, which signaled a new era of human knowledge. Israeli scientists were among the researchers who shared in this success. Eilam Gross, a member of the team and a professor at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, said: “When I walk around now and see the trees, I feel better connected to nature.” Don’t worry if you’re not so interested or think that your life doesn’t seem so different than it did a week ago. I wasn’t thrilled about the sensational news either, until I ran across a number of articles about the...

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04 Apr
History, Misc, topics

Escape from Freedom?

By Martin Berman-Gorvine As Passover approaches, I have been reading the psychologist Erich Fromm’s 1941 work, Escape from Freedom. Writing when Nazi Germany was at its height, Fromm sought the reasons why so many people felt their freedom to be “an intolerable burden” that they wished to escape. The questions he raised are still vital. We often think of people who live under tyrannical regimes as helpless victims. This neatly avoids the problem that even the most monstrous regimes enjoy some level of popular support, without which they could not continue to function; and even worse, that a people granted the vote may freely elect a dictatorship, as happened in Germany in 1932 and as appears to be happening in Egypt today. Why does this happen? In the case of Egypt, we can begin with the failure of...

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08 Mar
Arts & Culture, Culture, History, Religion, topics

Aviva Kempner and "The Rosenwald Schools"

By Monika Wysocki In celebration of Black History Month, the National Archives in Washington, DC hosted a preview of Aviva Kempner’s newest film, The Rosenwald Schools, which chronicles the story of Chicago businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. Inspired by the social justice-oriented teachings of his rabbi, Emil Hirsch, and Booker T. Washington’s book, Up From Slavery, Rosenwald helped finance more than 5,000 schools for black children and awarded scholarships to up-and-coming luminaries such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison. Speaking to a packed room last week, Kempner shared the stage with Stephanie Deutsch, author of You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South. Moment caught up with Kempner after the event to find out more about this fascinating bit of history. MM: What...

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08 Mar
Arts & Culture, Culture, History, Religion, topics

Aviva Kempner and “The Rosenwald Schools”

By Monika Wysocki In celebration of Black History Month, the National Archives in Washington, DC hosted a preview of Aviva Kempner’s newest film, The Rosenwald Schools, which chronicles the story of Chicago businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. Inspired by the social justice-oriented teachings of his rabbi, Emil Hirsch, and Booker T. Washington’s book, Up From Slavery, Rosenwald helped finance more than 5,000 schools for black children and awarded scholarships to up-and-coming luminaries such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison. Speaking to a packed room last week, Kempner shared the stage with Stephanie Deutsch, author of You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South. Moment caught up with Kempner after the event to find out more about this fascinating bit of history. MM: What...

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06 Mar
Culture, Moment Magazine, Religion, topics

Religion in the News

By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil The biggest religion news stories in 2011 involved tensions with Islam, followed by faith in presidential politics, a new Pew report reveals. Some of the key findings in the study, “Religion in the News,” include: Religion coverage made up just 0.7 percent of all mainstream media coverage in 2011, down from two percent in 2010 Religion received as much attention as race, gender and LGBT issues Islam made up nearly one-third of all religion news stories last year The top religion stories of the year included: religion in the election, Peter King’s “Radical Islam” congressional hearings, anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, the Westboro Church protests, religion in September 11th commemorations, the Catholic priest abuse scandal and Terry Jones’s Quran burning For more on religion coverage in the mainstream media, Moment speaks with Jesse Holcomb, a research...

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24 Feb
Culture, Religion, topics

Election News Roundup

By Monika Wysocki Here's a look at a few religion and politics highlights from this week... The newest front-runner in the wildly unpredictable GOP primary, former Senator Rick Santorum, has dominated the media cycle with his provocative remarks about President Obama—accusing the President of governing based on “a phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible,” and accusing him of orchestrating an “assault on all religion in America.” On Monday, Santorum’s spokeswoman mentioned President Obama’s “radical Islamic policies” in an interview on MSNBC—only to call the show after the interview to say she misspoke. In the midst of the religious attacks, Santorum is surging in national polls and attracting larger crowds at public events, putting him on the stage as a serious contender for the nomination. Despite widespread disapproval and calls from 15 religious organizations for presidential...

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