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Threatening Jews is now acceptable — so long as you call them Zionists
It is now clear all manner of antisemitic sins can be indulged under the guise of opposing Zionism. On Monday, Within Our Lifetime, a militant pro-Palestinian group that refuses to condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack, led protests outside a Lower Manhattan exhibition about the massacre at the Nova Music Festival. They set off smoke...
First they came for our abortions, now they’re coming for our embryos
On Wednesday, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to condemn the use of in vitro fertilization. As the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. that helped elect Donald Trump, the evangelical campaign against embryos does not surprise me. In fact, it frightens me. As someone who went through nine rounds of IVF, saw 10 fertility doctors and...
Welcoming ‘Sabbath Queen,’ a new documentary about a rabbi who breaks all boundaries
There is a moment smack in the middle of the sprawling, subversive new documentary Sabbath Queen where the film’s subject, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, explodes with anger. It is 2014, during the last major Israel-Hamas war, and he is at a protest holding a sign that says “Stand with Israel/Mourn with Gaza” when a woman calls him a mamzer, Hebrew...
‘We’re all scarred in different ways’: The next generation of Holocaust testimony
YONKERS, New York — Joan Poulin paced the bima of Lincoln Park Jewish Center as she told the story. Her tone was urgent, almost severe, as she spoke to 100 teenagers about what it was like growing up in a well-off Jewish family in Hamburg, Germany, as the Nazis came to power; surviving Kristallnacht and...
24 hours on Israel’s northern front as clashes with Hezbollah intensify
KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel – For years, residents of this town a mile from Lebanon have kept fragments of Katyusha rockets fired from across the border in their china cabinets or on their keychains, reminders of the ongoing danger Israel faces from its neighbor. The hard-headed few who have stayed in Kiryat Shmona since Oct. 7...
Mexican Jews love their country. But do they love the next president? It’s complicated
Jews are a tiny minority in Mexico’s population of 130 million: 60,000, according to the latest national census. Those connected to the tight-knit Jewish community clustered in suburbs around Mexico City are estimated to be around 45,000. On the face of it, those small numbers make it remarkable that a Jewish woman, Claudia Sheinbaum, won...
Israeli-born far-right Dutch politician rejected from ministerial role after security check
An Israeli-born Dutch politician who has long attracted criticism in the Netherlands will not serve as immigration minister in the new far-right government following a security check. Gidi Markuszower is a longtime top official in the Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders, which swept to a top finish in the Netherlands’ national election in...
For French Jews, a choice between two widely divergent parties, each with a history of antisemitism
Among the many questions raised in France by last week’s European elections is “Est-ce bon pour les juifs?” — “Is it good for the Jews?” Though this perennial question usually arises in times of crisis, it is especially existential today: For the first time in French history, the country’s next government risks falling into the...
Stating that Palestinians don’t deserve peace due to Oct. 7 doesn’t solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Re: “Palestinian terror should not be rewarded with a state,” by Gedalia Guttentag. To the editor: When I read that the horrors of Oct. 7 means Palestinians don’t deserve a state of their own, but the article that says little to nothing about the oppression of Palestinians, and nothing about the terrorism of the Jewish...
Exclusive: Mexico’s new Jewish president has not been telling the truth about her family’s Holocaust story
Claudia Sheinbaum, who last week was elected Mexico’s first female president, does not speak often about her Jewish identity or family history. The story she has told is that her grandparents escaped their native Bulgaria in 1940 and that her mother, Annie Pardo Cemo, was born the next year in Mexico City. “My maternal grandparents...
Vandals painted a red triangle on the home of a Jewish museum director. What does it mean?
Vandals spattered the Jewish director of the Brooklyn Museum’s home with blood-red paint, hung a banner vilifying her as a “White-Supremacist Zionist” and also daubed an red inverted triangle on her windows. That triangle inspired perhaps the most anxiety after the Tuesday night incident, which Mayor Eric Adams and others are calling an antisemitic hate...
A Palestinian-American chef just won a James Beard Award. Here’s what it means
It was a very Palestinian evening at the 2024 James Beard Awards. Michael Rafidi, whose maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Ramallah in 1948, following Israel’s founding, accepted the award for Outstanding Chef wearing a black-and-white-checked kaffiyeh. “This award is dedicated to Palestine,” Rafidi, founder and head chef of Albi in Washington, D.C.,...
Honesty about the flaws of Hollywood’s Jewish founders isn’t the same as antisemitism
American Jews are increasingly scared of antisemitism; an overwhelming 87% of respondents to a recent American Jewish Committee survey think that antisemitism has risen since Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7. But I worry about one response to that fear that I’m seeing more and more: My fellow Jews trying to make sure that people don’t...
The war comes to the Park Slope Food Coop — could it also provide the blueprint for peace?
In the checkout line of the Park Slope Food Coop, my companion, a longtime member, bumped into a man who was stacking shopping baskets. She apologized; “We’re all in this together!” he replied cheerfully. These are the vibes one expects at the cooperatively owned grocery store in Brooklyn famed for its steep discounts and strict...
A railway museum in Zambia offers a clue to the African country’s rich Jewish history
LIVINGSTONE, Zambia — On the outskirts of this frontier town about seven miles from spectacular Victoria Falls, a wooden building marked “Gateway Jewish Museum” stands amidst 100-year old steam locomotives and vintage coaches showcasing the railway industry of the country. There’s no doubt railways were key to the development of landlocked Zambia. But Jews? “A tiny...
What Jewish life looks like for teens from Iceland to Beijing, where the Jewish communities are small and antisemitism is high
ORLANDO — When Elias Joaquin Burgos arrived in Orlando for a Jewish youth group event in February, he found himself surrounded by 3,700 other Jewish teenagers — roughly 15 times the number of Jews who live in the entirety of his home country of Iceland. Burgos was attending the annual international convention for BBYO, the...
Is it antisemitic to protest Hillel?
“Antisemitism Notebook” is a weekly email newsletter from the Forward, sign-up here to receive the full newsletter in your inbox each Tuesday Early in my days covering antisemitism at the Forward, I tried to find hypotheticals that stumped partisans on both sides of the debate over whether anti-Zionism was antisemitic. One was whether it was antisemitic...
This Auschwitz book trend has got to stop — the sooner the better
To the publishing industry: I am begging you, please, to stop publishing books titled The [Blank] of Auschwitz. Truly, seriously: Please. We’ve had The Tattooist of Auschwitz. The Midwife of Auschwitz. The Violinist of Auschwitz. The Twins of Auschwitz. The Sisters of Auschwitz. The Brothers of Auschwitz. The Daughter of Auschwitz. The Redhead of Auschwitz....
‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe people could choose peace’: A Nova survivor on protests of Manhattan exhibit
After anti-Israel activists descended upon an exhibition commemorating the victims of the Nova festival massacre earlier this week, one survivor, Eilat Tibi, was taken back to the early, terrifying days surrounding the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel. The Lower Manhattan exhibition space hosting October 7th / 6:29 am: The Moment Music Stood Still...
‘Abhorrent’: NY officials deplore attacks on homes of Brooklyn Museum director, board members
New York City Mayor Eric Adams promised to bring to justice what he described as the “criminals” responsible for defacing the home of the Brooklyn Museum director, who is Jewish, and members of the museum board, calling the anti-Zionist graffiti “overt, unacceptable antisemitism” on the social platform X (formerly Twitter). Vandals spattered the facades of...
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