Jewish history

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• 6/14/2020
  

  The SS Officer's Armchair

  by Daniel Lee

  The discovery of a trove of documents in an old armchair led the author on a five-year search for information about a previously anonymous Nazi, whose history intersected with the author's family in surprising ways.

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• 5/3/2020
  

  Lessons on Isolation and Humanity in a Family's Letters from Hiding

  by Daphne Geismar

  A virus doesn’t discriminate. But our social structures, systemic biases, and policy choices have made some populations particularly vulnerable. This pandemic has changed us. We must make changes so this tragedy, like the Holocaust, isn’t repeated.

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  4/7/2020
  

  What Were the Origins of the Holocaust?

  A review of German historian Gotz Aly's new book "Europe Against the Jews: 1880-1945."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/11/2020
  

  Ruth B. Mandel, a Voice for Women in Politics, Dies at 81

  Her experience fleeing the Nazis on the doomed “Voyage of the Damned” informed her faith in democracy as head of the Eagleton Institute of Politics.

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• SOURCE: Jewish News
  3/22/2020
  

  Czech Museum Director Fired

  Director of the Lidice memorial, Martina Lehmannová, was let go amid accusations that the government is trying to whitewash inconvenient facts to suit its preferred narrative.

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  3/19/2020
  

  Civic Republicanism: Good for the Jews

  The ancient roots of communal liberty.

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• SOURCE: Jewish News of Northern California
  2/26/2020
  

  This Historian Draws Lessons About Family Separation at U.S.-Mexico Border from Kindertransport Artifacts

  Craig-Norton’s findings offer parallels to the migrant child-parent separation issues of today and provide valuable lessons.

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• SOURCE: NY Times
  2/23/20
  

  A Bittersweet Homecoming for Egypt’s Jews

  A rare ceremony at an ancient synagogue brought 180 Jews back to Egypt, decades after they were pressured to leave. But few Egyptians knew about it, highlighting government ambivalence.

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• SOURCE: Haaretz
  2/18/20
  

  George Steiner: The Last Viennese Jew

  by Arie M. Dubnov

  The Holocaust was an impulsive rebellion by 'polytheistic instincts' against the 'noble tyranny' of Jewish monotheism, claimed Jewish American essayist and literary critic George Steiner, who passed away this month, aged 90.

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• SOURCE: Retropolis
  1/27/20
  

  The first transport of Jews to Auschwitz was 997 teenage girls. Few survived.

  Though Auschwitz was liberated on Jan. 27, 1945, most of the surviving girls weren’t there to see it.

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• 1/26/20
  

  BBC Whitewashes U.S. Refusal to Bomb Auschwitz

  by Rafael Medoff

  The new BBC documentary about the question of bombing Auschwitz deserves an award—for creative fiction. Through omissions, distortions, and “re-enactments” of conversations with imaginary dialogue inserted for effect, the BBC has made a shambles of the historical record concerning this important issue.

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• 1/14/20
  

  Annual Jewish Film Festival, Following New Wave of Anti-Semitism, Offers Hope and Inspiration

  by Bruce Chadwick

  Given the attacks on Jews all over the country, the Jewish Film Festival, one of the oldest in the United States, could not have come at a better time

• 
• 12/29/19
  

  Why Holocaust Education Is So Important Today

  by Claudia Moscovici

  The Never Again Education Act is an effort by a bipartisan group of US legislators in both the House and the Senate to promote Holocaust education.

• 
• 12/18/19
  

  Why FDR Turned Away Jewish Students

  by Rafael Medoff

  American immigration policy was governed by a strict quota system, based on national origins. But the law contained three major exceptions: clergy, professors, and students could be admitted outside the quota restrictions.

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• SOURCE: The Third Narrative Blog
  12/14/19
  

  Trump's Executive Order, Jewish Identity, and Free Speech

  The prevailing notion that Jews are basically followers of a religion does not adequately define most Jews, who are either not religious or only marginally so. 

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• SOURCE: NY Times
  12/15/19
  

  In Era of Hardening Identities, Trump Order on Jews Kindles Questions Old and New

  The president said he wanted to target anti-Semitic speech on campuses, but in the time of new nationalism, nothing is really that simple.

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  12/12/19
  

  Donald Trump is attacking both Jews and the left with one clean blow

  by Kate Aronoff

  Anti-Semitism and anti-leftism share a violent and intimate history that is being revived under Donald Trump.

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian Magazine Online
  11/26/19
  

  A Brief History of the Crock-Pot

  Eighty years after it was patented, the Crock-Pot remains a comforting presence in American kitchens.

• 
• 12/1/2019
  

  How did November become the Mizrahi Heritage Month? And what’s Mizrahi anyhow?

  by Lior Sternfeld and Arie M. Dubnov

  The Mizrahi heritage month is not a local, grassroots initiative that emerged in response to experiences of discrimination or marginalization. Instead, it is a transatlantic importation of recent attempts by the Israeli government to commemorate the forced expulsion of Jews from the Arab and Muslim world in the wake of the establishment of Israel.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  11/8/19
  

  The Forgotten Mass Destruction of Jewish Homes During 'Kristallnacht'

  Attacks on Jewish homes have often been a neglected aspect of "the Night of Broken Glass", until now.