Opinion | Crossing the Covid Chasm
Aron Wieder, a Satmar Hasid active in New York politics, finds himself in a complicated position.
From the Deputy Editor | Why We Must Have a Jewish Fourth Estate
One perk of working at a Jewish magazine is getting Jewish publications from all over the world in the office mail.
Hawkeye Pierce: An Appreciation
B.F. Pierce is a brilliantly developed, multifaceted character, perhaps best analyzed by M.A.S.H.’s Army psychiatrist, the Jewish Dr. Sydney Friedman (played by Alan Arbus). The doctor’s observation that “while anger turned inward becomes depression, anger turned sideways is Hawkeye Pierce.”
Opinion | Debating the Jewish Canon
One day last spring, I got a call from a woman I didn’t know, asking if I objected—as she did—to a work of mine being included in The New Jewish Canon: Ideas and Debates 1980-2015 along with works by men identified as notable abusers by the #MeToo movement.
Opinion | Covid Is Ripping Israel Apart
When COVID-19 reached Israel last March, I was not unduly worried.
Opinion | Indifference Is Complicity
In writing about the unspeakable mass atrocities targeting the Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang region of China, I’m reminded of the words of Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and conscience of humanity, that “silence in the face of evil is complicity with evil itself”—and that, as he would remind us again and again, “Indifference always means coming down on the side of the victimizer, never on the side of the victim.”
From Denmark: Fortunate Man, Fortunate Country
A Fortunate Man, dubbed in English, is long and dark and drags some. Still, it reminds us that—wherever in the Diaspora Jews have settled—there are among us people driven by altruism and a passion for social justice.
A Post Election View with Journalists E.J. Dionne and Robert Siegel
What’s in store for America and what can be done to strengthen our democracy? Join us for a post-election conversation on the state of our democracy with E.J. Dionne, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post and Robert Siegel, former NPR host of All Things Considered.
Beshert | Love on the Line
“For Arie, it was love at first sight when I entered the Zolla Lieberman Gallery on the near north side of Chicago in the spring of 1979. For me, it was the glowing images on the walls of the cavernous loft. Light reflected from aluminum extrusions upon a white canvas created an evanescent aura of rich pastel colors. I had to meet the creator.”
Jews and Presidential Elections with Historians Jonathan Sarna and Lauren Strauss
Presidential candidates have wooed Jewish voters as far back as Abraham Lincoln. Why did candidates seek out the Jewish vote and how did they do it? How has the landscape of Jewish voters changed in modern times?
Jonathan D. Sarna, Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and Chief Historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History and Lauren B. Strauss, Scholar in Residence in the Jewish Studies Program at American University and Senior Historical Consultant for the forthcoming Capital Jewish Museum, in conversation with Moment’s opinion and book editor Amy E. Schwartz.
Twenty Five Years After Yitzchak Rabin’s Assassination, Israel Remains Divided
“The incitement and rhetoric did not come from all sides. In Israel, incitement reads from right to left.”
Final Moments of the 2020 Campaign
Hard to believe, but the elections do not center around the Jewish community, its anxieties, wishes and aspirations.
But this doesn’t mean that Jewish issues are off the table, or out of the stump speeches both candidates have been delivering in their endless rallies these past days.