Ye sings into a microphone. Blue light is shining on him and he is wearing a watch and a sweatshirt

What You Need to Know About Kanye West’s Recent Comments About Jewish People

This article has been updated to reflect ongoing developments.  Ye, formerly Kanye West, has placed himself amid yet another cycle of conspiracy theories — this time against Jewish people.  This month, Ye—a well-known rapper, business owner, and cultural icon— made several antisemitic comments in television clips and on social media regarding Jewish “control” of media and finance. The comments have caused backlash from celebrities and Twitter users, both Jewish and not. A pioneer of “introspective, melodic rap music,” according to Complex, a pop culture media outlet, Ye, who is also an artist, entrepreneur and ex of Kim Kardashian, has a large and loyal following and a net worth of approximately $1.8 billion.  Ye’s platform is large. He has 18.2 million followers on Instagram and 31.5 million on Twitter. In 2015, he topped TIME Magazine’s List of 100 Most Influential...

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Moment Magazine Stories on Sheldon Adelson, Anti-Semitism are Finalists for Newhouse Mirror Awards

  (Washington, DC—June 6, 2018)— Two of the four stories up for this year’s prestigious Mirror Award in the Best Single Story category were produced by Moment Magazine, a small Washington, DC-based independent publication that covers the political, cultural and religious complexities of the Jewish world. The stories are “Sheldon Adelson: Playing to Win,” by Nadine Epstein and Wesley Pippert, and “Report From Whitefish: After the Cyber Storm,” by Ellen Wexler. The other finalists are from The New York Times Magazine and Bloomberg BusinessWeek. “It's not every day that a small, scrappy but erudite magazine researches, reports, writes and publishes two separate articles that are finalists in the Mirror Awards best article/story category,” said Charles Lewis, Executive Editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University in Washington, DC. Lewis also serves on the advisory board for...

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The Equality Myth

The story of Israel’s founding usually  goes something like this: Sun-kissed male and female pioneers plowed the fields by day, danced the hora by night, did guard duty until dawn and together built an egalitarian utopia. The equality of men and women, the narrative continues, was enshrined into law upon independence in 1948 when women were given full equal social and political rights. Three years later, gender discrimination was outlawed. Meanwhile, as part of universal conscription, women also fought alongside men. To top the story off, Israel was the third country in the post-World War II world to be led by a female prime minister, following Ceylon and India: Golda Meir was elected Israel’s fourth prime minister in 1969 after long stints as labor minister and foreign minister. Although some of this is true, Israel is not...

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Ask The Rabbis | How Would You Counsel A Sexual Predator?

In every contact with serial bullies, victimizers or predators, we must carefully balance natural empathy for the person before us with solidarity and justice concerning the victims. Teshuvah (repentance) is always the goal, yet false expressions of remorse are an abuser’s modus operandi. INDEPENDENT Many a predator and addict I work with has been helped by the mystical concepts of Kabbalah. Every one of us comes into this world with an emptiness born of a cosmic vacuum we glibly refer to as Genesis. Thus, you and I are children of the vacuum, and we endeavor throughout our lives to fill that void as best we can with meaningfulness. Some of us, however, try in vain to fill it with food, others with drugs or alcohol and yet others with sex, either at our own expense or that...

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