Aviya Kushner is the Forward’s language columnist and the author of Wolf Lamb Bomb and The Grammar of God. Follow her on Twitter @AviyaKushner.
Aviya Kushner
By Aviya Kushner
-
Culture No, the Trump Twitter ban isn’t ‘Orwellian’ – Stop saying it is.
Events that have been taking place in Washington will force dystopian novelists to try a little harder to imagine the collapse of civilization. When Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump’s social account in the aftermath of the violent riot that took over Capitol Hill, sending members of Congress into hiding and reporters fleeing for cover,…
-
Culture The danger when Nazis think of their victims as numbers, not people
It’s rare for a journalist to have the opportunity to interview the person who harassed him on television. Johnny Roman Garza was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison for putting a threatening poster up on the home of the editor of a prominent Jewish newspaper in Arizona and attempting to do the same thing…
-
Culture Even dictionaries couldn’t keep up with language in 2020
So much happened in 2020 that not even the Word of the Year folks at the Oxford English Dictionary could come up with just one word to describe the past year; instead, the august dictionary folks issued a 38-page report on “words of an unprecedented year” — complete with colorful bar charts distilling how we…
-
Opinion The right demonized journalists. Now they’re turning on scientists.
I am no longer shocked when I receive an email with a photo of my face super-imposed on an image of crematoria; like many other Jewish writers, and many other women journalists, disgusting harassment is the norm. But now, it’s scientists who are becoming a primary target; a chilling new article in The Boston Globe…
-
Culture A Jewish poet of survival, Louise Glück is an incredibly timely Nobel choice
For new readers and longtime readers, one of the great pleasures of Glück’s work is following her progression as a poet
-
Culture Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis has a Biblical precedent
President Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis and subsequent quarantine has got me thinking about the dramatic life of Uzziah, King of Judah, who contracted tsara’at — traditionally translated as leprosy, and who is described in II Chronicles as making a power grab that led to contracting a contagious disease that required quarantine. Uzziah’s reign, from c. 791–739…
-
Culture Why we should fear Trump’s call to ‘stand back and stand by’
President Trump directly addressed white supremacists through language they understand as a direct command during the first Presidential debate. Asked to condemn white supremacy, Trump instead said “stand back and stand by”— immediately setting off alarm bells among extremism researchers who are familiar with these terms. Alex Newhouse, an extremism researcher at the Center on…
-
Culture A senator’s slip of the tongue reveals a ‘material’ crisis with our ‘materialistic’ politics
“There’s a materialistic difference between 2016 and 2020,” Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the number three ranking Senate Republican, said on the “PBS News Hour,” speaking on the question of appointing Supreme Court judges in those two election years. First, I thought it was a slip of the tongue. But now I think it is…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
- 2
Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
- 3
Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
- 4
News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
-
Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
-
Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
-
Sports Texas A&M’s Sam Salz cherishes his first taste of DI college football — and the opportunity to inspire fellow Orthodox Jews
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
