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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Author Interview // Jennifer Weiner

What makes great literature? Do Jeffrey Eugenides and Stephen King write beach reads or books worthy of the canon—or both? And where do women writers fit in? One of the biggest advocates for breaking down barriers between popular and critically revered books is a writer whose trademark is creating quirky Jewish women who worry about their weight and eventually find true love—and themselves in the process.

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Book Review // The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forgery published in Russia in 1903, has been called a “warrant for genocide.” However, as early as the 12th century in England, what is now known as “the blood libel”—the false accusation that Jews murdered Christian children for their blood—may be the original warrant that gave the world a pretext to deny the Jewish people a place in civilized society.

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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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Léon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist by Pierre Birnbaum book cover

Book Review // Léon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist

In November 1938, as Hitler was preaching his gospel of hate, French Prime Minister Léon Blum delivered a speech to the International League Against Anti-Semitism about “the tragic Jewish question.” Urging European nations to open their doors to the growing number of Jewish refugees who had been condemned “to a bitter and unfortunate fate,” he left no doubt about his identity…

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