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Four young women, the daughters of Sidonia Kahn, in fancy dresses and hats.

Southern Jews Have Always Debated Zionism

Conflicts over Israel’s founding encompassed religion, race, and politics.
by Shari Rabin via Zócalo Public Square on August 4, 2025
Mike Gold fading into a field of stars of David.

On the Decades-Long Erasure of Jewish Working-Class Anti-Zionism

Mike Gold, Alexander Bittelman, and the paradoxes of left-wing Zionism.
by Benjamin Balthaser via Literary Hub on July 23, 2025
The Communist National Convention at its first session on June 24, 1936, at the Manhattan Opera House in New York City.

The Long Anti-Zionist History of the American Jewish Left

Thousands of left-wing American Jews have protested Israel. They are taking part in a tradition of anti-Zionist Jewish radicalism.
by Benjamin Balthaser via Jacobin on July 21, 2025
Illustration equating Israel's “Who is a Jew?” policy with the Nazi selection process.

Jew? Not a Jew?

The untold story of how American Jewry and the Jewish state almost resolved the question of who is a Jew.
by Tracy Frydberg via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on June 10, 2025
Gertrude Berg.

The Forgotten Inventor of the Sitcom

Gertrude Berg’s “The Goldbergs” was a bold, beloved portrait of a Jewish family. Then the blacklist obliterated her legacy.
by Emily Nussbaum via The New Yorker on June 9, 2025
Jewish activists hold Passover Seder outside ICE headquarters in New York City to demand an end to Israel's war on Gaza.

The Past, Present, and Future of Left Jewish Identity

Jewish-led Palestine solidarity demonstrations are part of a long history of Jewish identity being bound up in leftist politics.
by Benjamin Balthaser, Shane Burley via Jacobin on June 8, 2025
Two bridges in Grand Island, New York.

Almost Zion: Remembering a Short-lived Jewish State in New York

Ararat, a settlement dreamed up in the 1800s, was meant to offer a refuge to Jews. But after an ornate ceremony, plans never got off the ground.
by Adam L. Rovner via The Conversation on April 29, 2025
A drawing of cannons being fired at Fort Sumter.

What Can We Learn From the Jewish Debate Over Slavery?

This Passover, American Jews should embrace the fight for “emancipation of all kinds.”
by Richard Kreitner via Slate on April 10, 2025
Stamp commemorating "Contributors To The Cause... Haym Salomon, Financial Hero."

Dusting Off the Old Stories

What does the Jewish experience in the Revolutionary War say about America?
by Richard Kreitner via Jewish Review of Books on January 15, 2025
The American Flag, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and a Jewish Star with Hebrew words.

The Spirit of '76: A Jewish Perspective on the American Revolution

What was “exceptional” about the American Revolution wasn’t so much the creation of a single republic but the immediate opportunity it provided for action.
by Michael Hoberman via Marginalia Review of Books on September 27, 2024
From left, Sam Warner, Harry M. Warner, Jack L. Warner, and Albert Warner.

Are Hollywood’s Jewish Founders Worth Defending?

Jews in the industry called for the Academy Museum to highlight the men who created the movie business. A voice in my head went, Uh-oh.
by Michael Schulman via The New Yorker on July 17, 2024
NYPD arrests hundreds, including members of the Jewish group Not In Our Name, at a pro-Palestinian protest in Brooklyn on April 23, 2024.

Jewish Critics of Zionism Have Clashed with American Jewish Leaders for Decades

American foreign aid to Israel has long relied on the support of American Jews. But American Jews have never been unified in their support for Israel.
by Marjorie N. Feld via The Conversation on June 20, 2024
Mary Baker Eddy and a church.

Christian Science as Jewish Tradition

Why did so many American Jewish women find Christian Science appealing?
by Noah Berlatsky via The Revealer on June 11, 2024
A drawing of Magneto wearing a kippah over his helmet.

The Judgment Of Magneto

From villain to antihero, nationalist to freedom fighter, the comic book character has always been a reflection of the Jewish cultural identity.
by Asher Elbein via Defector on April 24, 2024
Larry David.

The End of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Marks the End of an Era

Larry David is the last of his kind—and in several ways.
by Daniel Bessner via The Nation on April 8, 2024
American and Israeli Jews protest outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's New York hotel in support of democracy for all in Israel-Palestine, September 19, 2023.

The Forgotten History of American Jewish Dissent Against Zionism

In resurrecting stories of non- and anti-Zionist critics, a new book shows American Jews how questioning Israel is deeply rooted in their community.
by Shaul Magid via +972 Magazine on February 14, 2024
Jewish activists demanding ceasefire in Gaza.

When ‘Nice Jewish Boys and Girls’ in the US First Took up the Palestinian Cause

According to Geoffrey Levin’s ‘Our Palestine Question,’ divides over Israeli policy aren’t new – they existed before American Jews fully embraced Zionism.
by Geoffrey Levin via The Times Of Israel on February 5, 2024
Palestinian Arab women and children in Israel, 1949

American Jews Have Fought for Palestinian Rights Since Israel Was Born

My research shows that this tradition runs deep.
by Geoffrey Levin via Slate on January 28, 2024
Blanche and Alfred Knopf

Toward the Next Literary Mafia

Understanding history can help us understand what will be necessary if we’re serious about finally having a more diverse, less exclusionary publishing industry.
by Josh Lambert via Public Books on November 21, 2023
Jacob Schiff.

Jewish Leaders a Century Ago Had Complicated Feelings About Israel

Fierce disagreements over Zionism have played out from the movement’s inception among Jews, including community leaders who worried it would spark antisemitism.
by Daniel Schulman via Retropolis on November 19, 2023
Jewish characters in television and film

The Long History of Jewface

Bradley Cooper’s prosthetic nose is the latest example of the struggles around Jewish representation on the stage and screen.
by Jody Rosen via The New Yorker on October 7, 2023
John Trumbull's painting of Alexander Hamilton, 1806 (National Portrait Gallery).

Founding Philosemitism

Alexander Hamilton always believed that the providential protection that kept the small Jewish world alive would embrace his own extraordinary nation.
by Juliana Geran Pilon via Law & Liberty on October 3, 2023
Shelby Foote with a drawing of a Civil War battle superimposed over him.

The South’s Jewish Proust

Shelby Foote, failed novelist and closeted member of the Tribe, turned the Civil War into a masterpiece of American literature.
by Blake Smith via Tablet on September 6, 2023
The Garden Cafeteria, New York City.

Jews and Joe

From European streets to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Jews have been deeply involved in the history of coffee and the café scene.
by Orge Castellano via Tablet on August 29, 2023
The Jewish Catalog

When Judaism Went à la Carte

On the 50th anniversary of "The Jewish Catalog."
by Jane Eisner via The Atlantic on July 28, 2023
The Osterizer’s Spin Cookery Blender and Cook Book.

Of Potato Latkes and Pedagogy: Cooking for the History Classroom

A cooking assignment helps illuminate the lives of Jewish women in the past for students.
by Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall via Perspectives on History on May 23, 2023
Two campers kissing at Camp Cejwin, 1982.

The Jewish Summer Camp Hookup Scene Is Real. Here’s Why It Was Built.

All coed camps can be like this. But Jewish ones were different.
by Sandra Fox via Slate on March 7, 2023

The Making of Norman Mailer

The young man went to war and became a novelist. But did he ever really come back?
by David Denby via The New Yorker on December 19, 2022
Black-and-white photograph of Jacob Schiff, banker and philanthropist, from a side profile

The Sanitizing of Conservative Judaism

Conservative Judaism’s origins lie in a donor plan to neutralize and refine the radical Jewish immigrant masses.
by Allen Lipson via Jewish Currents on October 19, 2022
Rabbi Meir Kahane stands among Jewish Defense League protestors, 1977.

Are We all Kahanists Now?

Shaul Magid attempts to show us how much contemporary Jews have inherited from a man most have tried to forget.
by Sara Yael Hirschhorn via Jewish Review of Books on July 13, 2022
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