Jewish Word | The Joyful Power of Hallelujah
In American culture, the word “hallelujah” is so associated with Christian prayer and music—and overall rejoicing and jubilation—that people often forget it is originally Hebrew.
In the Shadow of the Lynching Memorial
Midsummer, in an aging subcompact rental car, because that was all we could get, my husband and I took a civil rights tour through the Deep South.
Essay | Leo Strauss, Bigotry and the Blues
The progress of equality is arguably the mainspring of modern political history. Alexis de Tocqueville considered the spread of equality to be the inexorable tendency of Western societies, and the 20th-century wars with Nazism and Communism can be interpreted as struggles over the principle’s validity and scope: Nazism fought to establish racial hierarchy in place of equality, while Communism fought to extend equality to the economic sphere, at least in theory.
An Inconvenient Genocide
In the 1930s, America failed to stand up to Nazi actions against the Jews. Will history repeat itself with the Uyghur minority in China’s Xinjiang region?
Book Review | America’s Homegrown Jewish Terrorist
For liberal supporters of Israel, the unresolved status of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza presents a dilemma: a choice between a single state with so many Arab citizens as to inevitably dilute the Jewish character of the country, or the insistence of control over but denial of equal rights to millions of Palestinians, diluting if not destroying Israel’s democratic character.
Visual Moment | The Compelling Odysseys of Looted Art
In the sumptuous catalogue for the New York Jewish Museum’s late summer exhibition, Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art, on view through January 9, 2022, a cropped image of French artist Pierre Bonnard’s color-diffused painting Still Life with Guelder Roses appears alongside an army photograph of the salt mine in Altaussee, Austria, where the Nazis secreted looted art and other treasures.
It’s Rosh Hashanah, Did You Remember to Call Your Jewish Voters?
Following the tradition of speaking to Jewish communal leaders on the eve of the High Holidays, President Joe Biden made his first such call last Thursday.
September/October 2021
MAGAZINE September/October 2021 SUBSCRIBE DONATE BACK ISSUES NEWSLETTER FEATURES An Inconvenient Genocide BY TOM GJELTEN In the Shadow of the
Opinion | Mine, Mine, All Mine
What makes a place holy? And who gets to decide? Such abstract questions become concrete and emotional when we talk about Jerusalem.
Moment Debate | Is Critical Race Theory a Threat to Education?
It’s incompatible with the essence of a liberal arts education.
From the Editor | We Can No Longer Take Enlightenment Values For Granted
2021 has turned out to be another unpredictable year. As wave after wave of news stories reporting death and mayhem rolled over us, I found myself thinking about the Enlightenment.
Aimee Bikel Remembers Ed Asner
Aimee Ginsburg Bikel was the wife of the late Theodore Bikel, the renowned actor, folksinger and activist. She reflects on her friendship with actor Ed Asner, best known for playing Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, who passed away on August 29.