Birthright Denied

On Monday, September 23, 2013, Juliana Deguis Pierre was mopping the floors of the house of a wealthy family in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo when a journalist from the daily newspaper El Caribe appeared at the door. “They can’t give you your document because your father came from Haiti,” the journalist told her before snapping her photo without permission and abruptly departing.

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Visual Moment // History, Demolished

The world watched in horror earlier this year when videos went viral showing ISIS bulldozing the 3,000-year-old ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital of Nimrud in Iraq—a city so old it is mentioned in Genesis. The militants toppled walls and bas-reliefs, sledgehammered statues and used a bulldozer to overturn and shatter a majestic human-headed, winged bull statue that had long guarded the city’s Nergal Gate…

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Hanukkah Lights // Debra Ginsberg

The Only Miracle by Debra Ginsberg Daniel was surprisingly hungry. He’d eaten a decent lunch—a sandwich with pickles and a side of slaw—and planned only a light supper but his stomach was twisting with desire for food at 5 PM and wouldn’t let up. It was the first night of Hanukah and the December sky was ablaze with the gold and scarlet sunset that only bad Los Angeles air can produce. In search of sustenance, Daniel found himself rambling aimlessly down La Cienega Blvd, another anomaly since he rarely walked to begin with and especially not on that street. Perhaps, then, given the already unusual circumstances of his unnatural hunger and decision to walk, it wasn’t so odd that he stumbled upon a diner he’d never seen before, wedged between a florist and a trendy bakery-slash-coffee-shop that...

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Hanukkah Lights // Anne Burt

For The Ghosts by Anne Burt My 13-year-old, as usual, is not eating her bowl of dry Honey Nut Cheerios. Her thumbs trawl across her iPhone even though in less than five minutes she needs to leave for the bus. “Eat,” I say from the counter where I am making the lunch she won’t eat. Josie doesn’t move her gaze from the screen. “I’m planning for tonight. Can Dina and Sami come over for candles and don’t even think about making any Hanukkah food like those disgusting oily latkes because the smell makes me gag, okay Mom?” “Okay what? Are you the Hanukkah Queen? Your version of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is ‘Don’t Ask, Only Tell.’” Daniel, who is ten, asks: “What’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?”   “A horrible failed policy from the 1990s, sweetheart. I’ll tell you all about it on our...

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