Investigate Mayor de Blasio
On Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that city parks will reopen on Monday. This is a sharp about-face for a mayor who opposed reopening parks on Tuesday and wouldn’t commit to “Phase II” reopening on Wednesday. New Yorkers should likely thank Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jews for the change. City park closures have inconvenienced families … Continue reading
Does American Jewry’s Future Include Officers Guarding Us In Riot Gear?
Passing on religious rituals was something I remember looking forward to before I became a mother. Little did I know that the Jewish High Holidays in 2019 would hardly resemble the holidays of my childhood. Growing up in the 1980s and ‘90s, anyone could walk into my suburban New York synagogue for Rosh Hashanah or … Continue reading
Chirlane McCray: Bad Mom?
New York is up in arms. Amidst a fawning and largely unremarkable New York magazine cover story, the First Lady of New York City, Chirlane McCray, acknowledged that her transition to motherhood was rocky. That single paragraph launched a round of attack and counter-attack, including Mayor de Blasio’s demanding that the New York Postand Daily … Continue reading
Strangers Are My New Best Friends
How a New Baby Turns Strangers Into Friends Years ago, a matchmaker told me, “A stranger is just a friend you’ve yet to meet.” I laughed, finding the sentiment corny. After all, as a native New Yorker I’d been raised with the opposite philosophy. My father had warned: “If a stranger talks to you, run … Continue reading
Pretending Racism Against Jews Is Only The Right’s Problem Is Fueling It
Posted by melissa braunstein on December 21, 2019 · Leave a Comment
It’s time to have a national conversation about antisemitism. Not an abbreviated one that starts with neo-Nazis and ends with the alt-right. No, a real one. For the mainstream media and many public officials (cough, Bill de Blasio, cough), it’s been convenient and even preferable to discuss antisemitism in that one, narrow way. Like a predictable … Continue reading →
Filed under Clips, Cultural Commentary, Judaism, Politics · Tagged with Anti-Semitism, Jersey City, Mayor de Blasio, New York City