Bambi, Before It Was a Kids’ Movie
When I first saw Disney’s Bambi as a child, the whole cinematic experience was overshadowed by the emotional wallop of watching Bambi lose his mother. More like an old fashioned Grimms’ fairy tale than a typical, modern kids’ movie, Bambi planted the terrifying and highly realistic fear of losing a parent. And yet, Disney’s movie is saccharine compared to … Continue reading
Lessons from Colleyville
Shabbat-morning services took an unexpected turn on Jan. 15 when four Jews were taken hostage for 11 hours in their Texas synagogue. While the FBI initially announced that the attack by armed assailant Malik Faisal Akram “was not specifically related to the Jewish community,” Jews worldwide instantly knew otherwise. It was indeed motivated by Jew hate, specifically … Continue reading
This Is Not How Holocaust Education Was Supposed to Work
Understanding the world’s capacity for cruelty is a lot for children to handle, which is why responsible history education accounts for children’s developmental readiness. This is especially true when it comes to the Holocaust. Holocaust survivors carry physical and psychological wounds, which live on in their descendants as epigenetic trauma. But not all adults are responsible. Kimberlynn … Continue reading
Zahra Billoo criticizes ‘polite Zionists,’ the ADL responds
ADL national director and CEO Jonathan Greenblatt deserves credit. On Dec. 7, he posted two tweets. He urged CAIR to condemn their San Francisco Bay area executive director Zahra Billoo for her “textbook vile, #antisemitic, conspiracy-laden garbage attacking the mainstream US Jewish community” and sounding like a white supremacist. Unsurprisingly, CAIR stood by Billoo. They condemned Greenblatt instead. Days later … Continue reading
Publishers against the People of the Book
Writing stars such as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth illuminated the postwar era, a veritable golden age for American Jewish authors. The People of the Book were storytellers for popular consumption, and publishers eagerly kept those stories coming. What was once a love affair between Jewish writers and the publishing industry, however, is looking more … Continue reading
Fixing Baltimore’s schools: A model
Baltimore City’s public school system is clearly broken. But what would repairing and rebuilding education in the city look like? To answer that question, I turned to Laura Hawkins, chief of strategic advancement and communications for New Schools for New Orleans, and Patrick J. Wolf, distinguished professor of education policy and 21st Century Endowed Chair in School … Continue reading
The Troubling Prevalence of Antisemitic Attacks in Brooklyn
The FBI recently reported hate crime data for 2020 showing that Jews remain widely susceptible to attacks. Fifty-eight percent of religiously motivated attacks in 2020 involved Jewish victims, accounting for 9 percent of all hate crimes last year. While those numbers look grim for a group that makes up only about 2 percent of the … Continue reading
What Does It Mean To Be Jewish?
Ben M. Freeman writes that his new book, Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People, isn’t about fighting antisemitism. But there’s no way to understand the Jewish Pride movement the Hong Kong-based Holocaust educator hopes to build without understanding both the history of Jew hatred and its multiple forms. Since Jew hate is what’s historically driven Jews to … Continue reading
This report on online antisemitism looks bad. Could reality be worse?
Anyone who is Jewish and has been online knows that social media is awash in antisemitism. Still, it’s rare that anyone quantifies the toxicity. The London- and Washington, D.C.,-based Center for Countering Digital Hate recently did just that. Its new report spotlights the incredibly lax enforcement of community guidelines regarding antisemitism. From May 18-June 29, CCDH reported … Continue reading
Progressive pints: The politicization of ice cream
Ice cream companies aren’t usually known for their foreign policy. Then again, Ben & Jerry’s isn’t typical, and they clearly have strong opinions about Israel. The Vermont ice cream maker has always been synonymous with progressivism. They’re so committed to those views, in fact, that they remained one of only four corporate partners for the … Continue reading
melissa langsam braunstein 