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Jewish history



  • 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. 



  • 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. 



  • 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."



  • 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. 



  • 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.



  • 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. 



  • 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.



  • 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. 



  • 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.