NOTE: Today is Human Rights Day. I’m republishing this blog from Human Rights Day 2019 because its message bears repeating. Incidents of racialized violence in the US are as numerous as grains of sand, and in one of the specific categories I mentioned, anti-semitic incidents in the US, 2019 saw a record-breaking total of 2,107, …
Where is the boundary between what’s called implicit or unconscious bias—internalizing and enacting beliefs about specific groups without being consciously aware of doing so or the harm it causes—and culturally encoded entitlement, the conviction of having the prerogative—even the duty—to exert authority over others? Hint: the answer definitely can be found on YouTube. We are …
If you’re ever on social media, you’ll see that people are up in arms over #IMPOTUS’ stated plan to hold a campaign rally (unmasked, at close quarters) in Tulsa, OK, on June 19th. This is a holiday called Juneteenth, commemorating the long freedom struggle of African Americans. The timing is one flashpoint. The rally’s planned …
Alexandra Schwartz’s short, informative essay in the New Yorker—well, the title almost says it all: “The Tree of Life Shooting and the Return of Anti-Semitism to American Life.” Almost, but not quite. Please read it. Why? To glimpse the seemingly evergreen historical uses of antisemitism if you didn’t grow up like me, constantly reminded by …
What is “The Big Lie” and why is the Present Occupant of the White House so committed and adept at deploying it? When Hitler coined the expression “The Big Lie,” he meant it as an accusation against German Jews, charging them in Mein Kampf with falsely condemning Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff for losing World War …
Jews of my generation are trained from infancy to sense which way the wind is blowing. If you descend as I do from a long line of nomads and refugees—if your family tree is stunted, the branches disappearing into cracks in history, if the images of children being torn from their parents’ arms are imprinted …