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Words of the Week

by Erika Dreifus on
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“In Vindman, we see one of us: We see a person who graduated from the same schools as we did, the schools of herring on black bread, of Brighton Beach apartments, of Russian television, of hardworking parents. We see a product of similar stories: a Judaism of whispers, often defined by a lone Sholom Aleichem book; the stories of relatives who disappeared; the family members who applied for exit visas, seeking freedom, for which they were thrown out of the Party, for which they were blasted in the Komsomol newspaper as traitors, ‘enemies of the state’.

Yet now, in a cosmic twist of fate, Vindman finds himself in a situation not so different from that of his grandparents: persecuted by the executive branch of the very country his father hoped would offer a life of peace.”

Source: Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, “The Devastating Irony of the Impeachment Hearings for Russian Jews” (Forward.com)

Words of the Week

by Erika Dreifus on
0

“At many American universities, mine included, it is now normal for student organizations to freely call Israel an imperialist power and an outpost of white colonialism with little pushback or discussion — never mind that more than half of Israel’s population consists of Israeli Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, and that the country boasts a 20 percent Arab minority. The word ‘apartheid’ is thrown around without hesitation. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is repeatedly dragged into discussions ranging anywhere from L.G.B.T.Q. equality (where to mention Israel’s vastly better record on gay rights compared with that of any other country in the Middle East is branded ‘pinkwashing’), to health care to criminal justice reform.”

Source: Blake Flayton, “On the Frontlines of Progressive Anti-Semitism” (The New York Times)