Issue: Anti-Zionism / AntisemitismRSS feed

On Dec. 25 (three days prior to the Monsey stabbing attack), a TTN colleague, historian Shulamit Magnus, blogged in The Times of Israel under the title “A plea against ‘anti-Semitism‘.”   This is about the nomenclature, arguing that the term itself is problematic*: “The pseudo-scientific term, coined by a German racist, obscures the rising tide of […]

A number of African Americans have attacked Jews, and some observers on the left can only see white supremacy.  For example, Alex Myers twists himself into knots to assert that “White Supremacy Is the Root of  Violence Against Jews“; while clearly true in Pittsburgh and in other instances, it’s hard to see this in the […]

Initially, a factually flawed article in the NY Times alarmed our Third Narrative discussion group by reporting that the Trump administration’s new executive order was redefining Jewishness in “national” or even “racial” terms.  The actual text of the “Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism” does not do that however.   Two of our Third Narrative colleagues are in […]

A number of Third Narrative colleagues were eager to discuss Sen. Bernie Sanders’ article in Jewish Currents magazine, “How to Fight Antisemitism.”  Steven Lubet has blogged twice on Sanders’ essay, beginning with praise for Sanders lauding (in the Senator’s words) “the enormous achievement of establishing a democratic homeland for the Jewish people after centuries of […]

This is a brief point-counterpoint taken by permission from The Third Narrative’s email discussion group.  It began with TTN’s editor, Ralph Seliger, commenting on an essay by Shaul Magid (pictured), a Jewish studies scholar at the University of Indiana from 2004 until 2018, now at Dartmouth, and a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute.  Prof. […]

The following is my response to Batya Ungar-Sargon’s original article in The Forward; my piece was published as a letter to the editor: Forty-eight years ago, as a first-year student at Bard College, I saw graffito in a bathroom stall: “If I didn’t believe it with my own mind, I never would have seen it.” I saw affirmations […]

On the evening of Sept. 16, New York’s YIVO Institute sponsored a massively attended panel discussion called “Bundism’s Influence Today.”  The panel was diverse in age, but less so in viewpoint.  The audience included an impressive number of engaged young Jews, but apparently few with sympathy for the Jewish state.  Although the panel’s moderator, Prof. Jack Jacobs […]