13 Aug
Latest, Opinion

Opinion | Returning A Mensch to the White House

“In this age of pandemics and polarization, it may be hard to envision. But it’s not a mystery. Someone who prizes decency and embodies dignity. Someone who exercises empathy and exhibits patience and understanding. Someone who lives, breathes and acts on the basic beliefs which are unique to Jewish tradition and universal in application—to pursue justice, welcome the stranger, open your hand and your heart to the needy and love your neighbor.”

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05 Nov
Latest

Election Edition

You may have heard that tomorrow is Election Day. In anticipation, here's a round-up of some of Moment's recent political coverage: Editor Nadine Epstein explains in The Hill why Jewish voters will largely choose Obama over Romney: "Despite quadrennial predictions that Jewish voters will abandon the Democratic Party and throw in their lot with Republicans because of Israel, the overwhelming preponderance of American Jews, remain social liberals. Although they need to know Obama is a strong supporter of Israel in order to vote for him, they are not and never have been single-issue voters." We talk to the Green Party's Jill Stein, the Jewish, Harvard-educated physician who'll be on the ballot in 37 states and Washington, DC. Mitt Romney may become the first Mormon president in American history--will this matter to Jews? Nathan Guttman fact-checks some of the persistent myths...

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10 Feb
Religion, U.S. Politics

Catholic Candidates, Voters and Contraception

By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil From the announcement of President Obama’s controversial new contraception policy, to Rick Santorum’s unexpected triple-win on Tuesday—Catholics have determined this week’s news cycle. To understand these developments, Moment speaks with Shaun Casey, a religious outreach advisor to the Obama campaign and author of The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy v. Nixon 1960. He is also associate professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. MM: What does it mean that we have two prominent Catholic candidates vying for the Republican nomination right now? Is this the first time all the top candidates—from either party—have not been Protestant Christians? SC: Of course the Democratic Party has nominated Catholics—John F. Kennedy and John Kerry. But on the Republican side, I don’t believe we’ve ever had a non-Protestant be the nominee. The evangelical...

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27 Jan
Religion, topics

CAP’s “God in Politics” Forum

By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil The Center for American Progress in Washington, DC hosted a forum earlier this week on “God and Politics: Examining Religion in the 2012 Religion.” Jews were never mentioned in the 90-minute talk, but speakers raised some illuminating points about the country’s religious voters: Changing Demographics: The white mainline Protestant population is in decline, says Robert Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute. While the Catholic population has been steady, the demographics are shifting—the number of white Catholics is dwindling as Hispanic Catholics are on the rise. These racial divisions are also reflected in voting patterns: non-white Christians voted heavily for President Obama, while white Christians were split. Evangelicals and Mormons: Almost half of white evangelicals—49 percent—say Mormonism is not a Christian religion, slightly higher than the 47 percent who say they would be...

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27 Jan
Religion, topics

CAP's "God in Politics" Forum

By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil The Center for American Progress in Washington, DC hosted a forum earlier this week on “God and Politics: Examining Religion in the 2012 Religion.” Jews were never mentioned in the 90-minute talk, but speakers raised some illuminating points about the country’s religious voters: Changing Demographics: The white mainline Protestant population is in decline, says Robert Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute. While the Catholic population has been steady, the demographics are shifting—the number of white Catholics is dwindling as Hispanic Catholics are on the rise. These racial divisions are also reflected in voting patterns: non-white Christians voted heavily for President Obama, while white Christians were split. Evangelicals and Mormons: Almost half of white evangelicals—49 percent—say Mormonism is not a Christian religion, slightly higher than the 47 percent who say they would be...

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17 Nov
Uncategorized

Go East, Mr. President

by Maddie Ulanow We’ve passed the first two weeks of November, and the 2012 presidential elections are now just a year away. It seems the campaign is already in full swing, and Israel is already an issue on the table; Republicans are scrambling to defend it and place President Obama’s Middle East policies in a bad light, and Obama is similarly grasping at straws to defend himself. In response to Republican claims that he “threw Israel under the bus” (from Mitt Romney) and that his policies are “naive, arrogant, misguided and dangerous” (courtesy of Rick Perry), the President’s supporters have claimed he doesn’t get enough credit for what he’s done for Israel, and the President himself gave a highly political, heavily worded speech at the United Nations seemingly designed to pull the Jewish vote back in his...

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15 Jun
Uncategorized

Israel and the Left

by Theodore Samets In its consistent effort to commoditize political positions as “left” or “right,”“conservative” or “liberal,” much of American media has determined that to be pro-Israel is to be right-wing, to be anti-Israel is left-wing. It exists even here on InTheMoment, when last week a blogger called CAMERA, a pro-Israel media monitor, “conservative,” without qualifying what she meant by that term. CAMERA itself claims to be “non-partisan.” This equation of “right equals pro-Israel” is problematic on a number of levels, but each time a writer, pontificator or politician repeats it, it seems to gain ground. Why is this concerning? Because the people who will be most hurt by making support for Israel a partisan issue are the Israelis; the country whose existence will be threatened is Israel. Israel has long enjoyed high popularity among the American left, and that should...

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05 May
Uncategorized

Celebrating Bin Laden’s Death

By Symi Rom-Rymer When President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden in the late hours of May 1st, the country breathed collective sigh of relief.  Spontaneous celebrations broke out in front of The White House, at Ground Zero and in Times Square.  College students mugging for the camera chanted "U-S-A, U-S-A!"  There were even some reports of kegs.  Eugene Robinson, a columnist for the Washington Post, wrote the next day,  “The flag-waving, horn-honking crowd that converged at the White House Sunday night was brimming with unrestrained joy, unmitigated patriotism and a sense of unlimited possibility—which meant Osama bin Laden had suffered not only death but defeat as well.” The frat-party atmosphere, however, made others queasy.  The sense of unease seems to come not so much from the question of whether it was right to kill...

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05 May
Uncategorized

Celebrating Bin Laden's Death

By Symi Rom-Rymer When President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden in the late hours of May 1st, the country breathed collective sigh of relief.  Spontaneous celebrations broke out in front of The White House, at Ground Zero and in Times Square.  College students mugging for the camera chanted "U-S-A, U-S-A!"  There were even some reports of kegs.  Eugene Robinson, a columnist for the Washington Post, wrote the next day,  “The flag-waving, horn-honking crowd that converged at the White House Sunday night was brimming with unrestrained joy, unmitigated patriotism and a sense of unlimited possibility—which meant Osama bin Laden had suffered not only death but defeat as well.” The frat-party atmosphere, however, made others queasy.  The sense of unease seems to come not so much from the question of whether it was right to kill...

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