28 Sep
Latest, Zoominars

From Undocumented Child to Successful American Jewish Lawyer and Writer with Qian Julie Wang and Sarah Breger

Qian Julie Wang came to America with her parents when she was seven years old, living in the shadows and always looking over her shoulder throughout her childhood. Learning English and surviving the harsh realities of being undocumented, Qian Julie eventually made her way to Swarthmore College and Yale Law School, marrying and converting to Judaism. Wang is in conversation with Moment editor Sarah Breger about her family’s search for the American dream, her connection to Judaism and the struggles and antisemitism faced by Jews of Color from within the Jewish community.

This program is part of a Moment series on antisemitism supported by the Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation.

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22 Sep
Jewish World, Latest, Zoominars

A Wide-Open Conversation with Author and Linguist Deborah Tannen

Deborah Tannen, New York Times bestselling author of You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation and Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, discuss Deborah’s just-published book Finding My Father: His Century-Long Journey from World War I Warsaw and My Quest to Follow.

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25 Mar
History, topics

Reflecting on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

by Symi Rom-Rymer One hundred years ago today, 146 immigrant women, primarily Jewish and Italian, died while trying to escape a fire that raged through the upper floors of the sweatshop where they worked. In closed-off rooms full of highly flammable scrape of fabric and swirls of cigarette smoke, anything could have set off the blaze; its cause has never been determined. As we commemorate those who lost their lives in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire this week, the tragic aspects often stand out the most: the avoidable deaths, the destitute families left behind and the seemingly heartless factory owners. It is especially chilling to remember that the factory owners themselves were Jewish and had helped to bring over many of the women who were killed in the fire.  They apparently cared enough about their fellow Jews...

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29 Oct
Culture, Latest, Religion

What’s In a Name?

By Gabriel Weinstein For hundreds of years, Ethiopian Jews dreamed of strolling through Jerusalem’s supposed golden streets and celebrating the Sigd festival in its hills. By the late 1970’s, Ethiopians decided that dreaming of Israel no longer sufficed, and embarked on foot to the Promised Land. Scores of Ethiopian Jews fulfilled their dream of reaching Israel through Operation Moses in 1984 after trekking through deserts, skirting Ethiopian border authorities and toiling in unsanitary Sudanese refugee camps. But Ethiopians never dreamed that in Israel, their utopia, they would abandon their Amharic names. Journalist Ruth Mason explores how Ethiopian immigrants traded their Amharic names, and ultimately a sense of identity, for new Israeli-sounding Hebrew names in her documentary These Are My Names.  The film, which premiered last week at the Jewish Eye World Film Festival in Ashkelon, Israel, expresses...

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