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.

Continue reading

Dreams about Sarah Palin (with Jewish content)

At some point before I cast my ballot this November, I am going to have a dream about Sarah Palin. It is just inevitable—she is everywhere right now. And though I may be a would-be Palin dreamer, I am not alone. As of Friday, Slate received almost 500 letters from readers whose partisan, bipartisan, juicy and just plain weird dreams about Palin were, as we would say in California, totally awesome: It's hard to generalize about such a large group of dreams, but there were a few persistent themes: Palin as a gun-toting animal killer, pregnancies and denied abortions, baby Trig, and the landscape of Alaska. Many of you reported dreaming about John McCain dying and Palin taking over the Oval Office. Both men and straight women reported sexual fantasies involving the Alaska governor... Palin appeared sticking...

Continue reading