Jewish history

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• SOURCE: Substack
  3/19/2023
  

  A Prominent Story about How "Diversity" Entered College Admissions is Wrong

  by Charles Petersen

  The plaintiffs in a case seeking to outlaw affirmative action in admission policies are relying on a false narrative that "diversity" entered Harvard's admissions criteria as a way to limit the number of Jews admitted. While the existence of Jewish quotas is documented, the two aren't connected. 

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• SOURCE: LitHub
  3/6/2023
  

  How Superman Became a Christ-Figure

  by Roy Schwartz

  How did the comic book creation of two American Jews, whose origin story incorporates Moses, come to be understood as a stand-in for Jesus? Mostly through the movies. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  3/7/2023
  

  Will the Right Wing Israeli Government Break American Jews' Relationship with Israel?

  Shaul Magid, Distinguished Fellow of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth, argues that the new government's agenda will force American Jews to recognize that Israel has become an illiberal country, while historian Hasia Diner says it has long been so. 

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• SOURCE: Forward
  2/27/2023
  

  Philosopher Lewis Gordon's Impact on Black Jewish History

  Gordon said for him, “Black consciousness links to all oppression and that’s exactly the kind of Jewishness I was raised in. It was always explained as connected to the ethical, the political dimensions of what it was to be Jewish."

• 
• SOURCE: Tablet
  2/26/2023
  

  Parallels and Divergences in Jewish and Asian American History

  by Joel Kotkin

  "The fate of Asians and Jews in America is about more than two minority groups. It is about the efficacy of equal and fair treatment under the law, and a democratic system based on merit rather than ethnicity."

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  1/22/2023
  

  How the Russian Jews Became Soviet

  The novelist Gary Shteyngart, who emigrated from the USSR to the US as a child, reviews Sasha Senderovich's "How the Soviet Jew was Made," a work that gives short shrift to neither the "Soviet" nor "Jewish" sides of the question. 

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• SOURCE: Jewish Currents
  1/19/2023
  

  Antisemitism is Resurgent. Why are News Organizations Screwing Up the Story?

  When journalists turn to representatives of legacy Jewish organizations as authentic voices of American Jewry, they often end up generating reporting about antisemitism that strips away historical nuance and fails to accurately describe the forces driving attacks on Jews today. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jewish Telegraphic Agency
  1/22/2023
  

  Eric Alterman on the Shifting Debate over Israel-Palestine in America

  The writer discusses his conclusions about the evolution of the debate among American Jews about the nature of their relationship to Israel and the moral status of American policy. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jewish Currents
  1/10/2023
  

  Beinart: Antisemitic Zionism Isn't a Contradiction in Terms

  Conservative Zionists have reached accommodated American evangelicals' demands for a Christian-dominated America in exchange for support for a Jewish greater Israel. The media are reluctant to discuss this connection.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/9/2023
  

  Adolfo Kaminsky, 97: Forger of Identity Documents Saved Thousands of Jews

  Experience as a stain-remover in laundry work helped the teenaged Kaminsky to remove supposedly indelible ink from French ID cards, enabling Jews to escape deportation. 

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• SOURCE: Jerusalem Post
  1/4/2023
  

  Can Religious Zionists Reject the Religious Zionist Party?

  by Gil Troy

  Can religious Zionism survive being hijacked by a party of anti-democratic and anti-humanist zealots? One historian of Zionism says he's not on board with the Israeli far right.  

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  12/21/2022
  

  Will MAGA Be the Last Straw for Conservative Jews' Partnership with the Christian Right?

  by Eric Alterman

  Since the 1970s, an alliance between Christian and Jewish conservatives has been brokered over mutual support for Israel's occupation and settlement of the West Bank. Are changing attitudes toward the occupation among American Jews and the naked antisemitism of the MAGA right breaking the alliance? 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  12/21/2022
  

  Enjoying the Christmas Lights? Thank Jewish Refugees from the Ottoman Empire

  by Devin E. Naar

  The story of Christmas lighting in America follows the paths of Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Turkey, who coped with nativist prejudice, linguistic difference, and labor exploitation to find community and work—including in light bulb factories. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  12/16/2022
  

  Jews of Color have Made Traditions of "Untraditional" Hanukkah Celebrations

  by Samira Mehta

  Jews from outside Ashkenazi heritage present celebratory and food practices that show the diversity in Jewish communities and the navigation of tradition in interfaith families. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/20/2022
  

  Israel's Religious Right Pushes for Restrictive Changes to Law of Return

  As Jews around the world are considering Israel as a refuge from antisemitism, that country's religious fundamentalist parties have the political leverage to decide that many fewer people are Jewish enough to qualify for immigration and citizenship. American Reform Jews are particularly affected.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  12/19/2022
  

  Reissued 1933 Novel in Translation Captures Fascism's Rise Around You

  Lion Feuchtwanger's "The Oppermans" captures the complexity of a dilemma faced by German Jews in 1933: whether a society has become sufficiently hostile to a minority group to force its members to leave. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/5/2022
  

  A Stranger's Gift: Family Photos from Before the Holocaust

  Software engineer Daniel Patt has developed an artificial intelligence program that can expedite the searching of photos from repositories like Yad Vashem and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and has provided strangers with the gift of a connection to their relatives. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/30/2022
  

  Study: Ashkenazi Jews Have Become More Genetically Similar over Time

  Analysis of remains from a medieval Jewish cemetery in Germany suggests that two distinct populations of Jews that remained largely separate before merging about 1,000 years ago. 

• 
• SOURCE: Modern Medieval (Substack)
  12/1/2022
  

  Which Medieval Jewish Stories Need to Be Told?

  by David M. Perry

  The history of European Jews in the medieval period is unfortunately dominated by discussions of death that make violent antisemitism seem inevitable and inescapable. 

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• SOURCE: Jewish Currents
  10/19/2022
  

  Today's Conflicts Among American Jews Rooted in Political Origins of Conservative Judaism

  The tendency of many Conservative Jewish leaders to eschew partisan politics isn't a reaction to recent polarization, it's the result of a century old effort by influential donors to the Jewish Theological Seminary to marginalize radical immigrants from American Jewish life.