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That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore – In The Netanyahus, Joshua Cohen tries and fails to reanimate the canonical Jewish American novel.

September 29, 2021David Rutman, Meghan Froy

A Guide to the Fight Over Iron Dome Funding

September 28, 2021David Rutman, Meghan Froy

Last week, Congress was consumed by a debate over whether the United States should give Israel an additional $1 billion in military funds to restock the country’s anti-rocket Iron Dome system following the May conflagration in Israel/Palestine. On September 23rd, after the funding request sparked clashes between progressive and establishment Democrats and fueled claims by […]

The vast majority of progressives overwhelmingly backed Iron Dome funding — but with a caveat

September 27, 2021Mark Hershlag

WASHINGTON (JTA) — After the controversy last week surrounding a progressive push to block extra Iron Dome anti-missile funding for Israel, the final vote to pass it was lopsided: 420-9. And in the end, most progressives backed it: Of the 95 members of the Democrats’ progressive caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, 85 voted […]

Matt Gaetz calls the ADL ‘racist’ after it again calls on Tucker Carlson to step down for promoting white supremacist conspiracy theory

September 25, 2021Mark Hershlag

(JTA) — Rep. Matt Gaetz called the Anti-Defamation League “racist” after it again called on Fox News host Tucker Carlson to be fired for promoting the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Gaetz, the Republican congressman from Florida, also endorsed the conspiracy theory. On his popular show Wednesday, Carlson trumpeted the idea that Democrats are […]

Does Everybody Really Hate the Jews?

September 24, 2021David Rutman, Meghan Froy

ON MONDAY, Bari Weiss—the former New York Times opinion editor who now publishes her own popular right-wing email newsletter—sent out an essay titled “Everybody Hates the Jews.” Like much of Weiss’s work, the piece centered on the specter of rising antisemitism in the United States. As a central piece of evidence, she cited a just-released […]

Los Angeles teachers union votes to postpone Israel boycott motion indefinitely

September 24, 2021Mark Hershlag

(JTA) — Los Angeles’ main teachers union voted Thursday to indefinitely postpone a motion in favor of boycotting Israel. For months, the United Teachers of Los Angeles, which has approximately 30,000 members, has been debating a motion to support BDS, or the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. The motion was first raised […]

A Prison Break Liberates the Palestinian Political Imagination

September 23, 2021David Rutman, Meghan Froy

AFTER SIX Palestinian detainees escaped the maximum-security prison of Gilboa in northern Israel on September 6th, mass euphoria reverberated across the occupied Palestinian territories. Celebrations erupted in the West Bank cities of Jenin and Hebron as well as in Gaza: People on the street waved flags and handed out sweets while drivers honked their horns […]

What the Record Doesn’t Show

September 22, 2021David Rutman, Meghan Froy

This review appears in our Fall 2021 issue. Subscribe now to receive a copy in your mailbox. Discussed in this essay: Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993, by Sarah Schulman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021. 736 pages. EVEN BEFORE AIDS, patriarchy has made an association between queers and plague. In the West, […]

Poway synagogue shooter pleads guilty to 113 federal hate crimes charges

September 20, 2021Mark Hershlag

(JTA) — The man who opened fire on a synagogue in Poway, California in 2019, killing one and injuring three, has pleaded guilty to a 113-count federal hate crime indictment. The guilty plea comes with a recommended sentence of life in prison plus 30 years. The charges the shooter faced, which also relate to his […]

Reclaiming the Covenant of Fate

September 20, 2021David Rutman, Meghan Froy

THIS SPRING AND SUMMER, as violence engulfed Israel-Palestine and antisemitic attacks in the US made media headlines, some hawkish Jewish commentators began using an arresting phrase to describe Jews who oppose the Jewish state. In a tweet in May, UCLA professor Judea Pearl proposed that just as Jewish leaders in the 17th century excommunicated the […]