A few days after we finished Moment’s last issue, I got on a plane to China, a country I had never visited. There is so much to say about China. To begin with, it is no longer the shattered country I studied in college in the years following Mao’s death and the end of the Cultural Revolution.
When I left off writing in our last issue, anti-Semitism had made a startling comeback in the United States, and Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, was about to be installed as chief strategist to the new man in the White House.
Washington has had unseasonably warm weather, with leaves clinging to branches and roses blooming into the first weeks of winter. But the winds of political change have also blown into the nation’s capital.
This summer we lost Elie Wiesel, a great and kind man who was an inspiration to me. Moment has now lost both of its founders, and I, two friends. Without Elie and Leibel—Leonard Fein—it is more important than ever that Moment continue its work and carry on their legacies.
On occasion, tectonic shifts occur that break apart continents of political thought and reshape them into new ones
We live in disquieting times. It seems we make progress in creating a better world, and then some of what we achieve slips away. We overcome prejudice, only to find it has metastasized into new forms. That is the story of anti-Semitism today, and it is also the story of other deeply ingrained prejudices.
When I was in Israel in late 2013, I drove across the rugged expanse of the Negev on Route 31. At the time, Israeli newspapers were full of articles describing highly controversial demolitions of Bedouin homes and villages, failed plans to resettle the Bedouin, and ongoing tensions between the Bedouin and the Israeli government.
As we enter the year 5774 on the Jewish calendar, I find myself thinking about where the world was 100 years ago
