Last week, a journalist I admire asked me a question: Why won’t I call Steve Bannon an anti-Semite? He had seen me on television debating two GOP-leaning Jewish commentators who were eager to defend Trump’s chief strategist from the charge. Why hadn’t I leveled it? …
With every passing year, the American Jewish establishment poses a greater threat to free speech in the United States. The reason is simple. With every passing year, Israeli control of the West Bank grows more permanent. And so, with every passing year, more American progressives question Zionism. …
To understand what American Jewish politics will look like in the age of Donald Trump, look closely at what happened at New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel on the evening of Sunday, November 20. Inside the hotel, the Zionist Organization of America held its annual gala. Never heard of the ZOA? You’re not alone. For decades, it has been overshadowed by its larger and more moderate ...
I don’t know if Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s chief strategist, is anti-Semitic. I can’t see inside his soul. What I do know is this: Citing his support for Israel doesn’t exonerate him of the charge. You can believe that Jews are a malevolent force in the United States and still love the Jewish state. It’s easy. …
Future historians will puzzle over this question: When Donald Trump ran the most bigoted presidential campaign in modern American history, why did America’s most powerful Jewish organizations remain silent? When even Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan denounced Donald Trump’s attacks on Mexican-American Judge Gonzalo Curiel as racist, why did The Conference of Presidents of Major American Organizations say nothing? Why didn’t it issue a single ...
I’ve never felt less American and more Jewish. As an American, a white one, I’ve always felt safe. I’ve always assumed my country would be stable. I’ve always assumed the Constitution would restrain power’s tendency to corrupt. I’ve never feared my government or the people with whom I share my country. I’ve never hated them. …
The conversation took place more than twenty years ago, but I still remember it. I was walking with another American through Oxford University, where we had both recently arrived as graduate students. In the middle of our conversation, she said something along the lines of: “You probably feel pretty comfortable here.” I struggled to explain how untrue that was. I found the culture of Oxford ...
Last week, born-again Christian, gay marriage opponent, former all-star pitcher and likely senate candidate Curt Schilling poured out his bewilderment to CNN host Jake Tapper. “I don’t understand how people of Jewish faith can back the Democratic Party,” Schilling declared, “which over the last 50 years have been so clearly anti-Israel.” Tapper, who is Jewish, looked like he had entered the twilight zone. But he ...
When you deny a people’s identity, you deny that they have rights. That’s why it’s so dangerous that powerful American Zionists — from billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson to former presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum — have claimed that the Palestinian people do not exist. If Palestinians don’t exist — if they’re just generic Arabs — then they have no right to their ...
Over the coming days, many American Jewish parents will take their children to synagogue for the only time all year. And the kids will be bored out of their minds. From a child’s perspective of the High Holidays, Rosh Hashanah offers only one attraction: the blowing of the Shofar. Yom Kippur offers none. Both holidays are somber. They’re not tactile. The services are long. And ...