Category Archives: Essay
New York Socialists in the Legislature—and Out
Five socialists are headed to the New York state legislature. The story of the five socialists elected in 1919 provides a sobering warning.
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The Sound of Messianic Time
Yo La Tengo’s new drone album, released into the formlessness of quarantine, evokes the unfulfilled waiting of Jewish messianism.
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In the Dark
Covid-19 has illustrated the stakes of a lack of access to information in prisons.
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Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine
The two-state solution is dead. It’s time for liberal Zionists to abandon Jewish–Palestinian separation and embrace equality.
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Against Analogy
To build solidarity in this moment, white Jews should resist the impulse to highlight similarities between histories of antisemitism and anti-Blackness.
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Translating Black Lives Matter into Yiddish
Amid an eruption of protests over police brutality, a Black performer of Yiddish music reflects on an attempt to “touch Blackness from inside Yiddish.”
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On a Man’s Greatness
One of Israel’s most esteemed poets celebrates her teacher, scholar Paul Ernst Kahle, for his quiet heroism in Nazi Germany.
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