Joel Swanson is a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago, where he studies and teaches undergraduate courses on modern Jewish intellectual history. He teaches, speaks and writes widely on Jewish history and politics, for both academic and journalistic sources.
Joel Swanson
By Joel Swanson
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Opinion What Poland’s anti-Semitic ‘all lives matter’ moment can teach Americans
On Sunday, Poland will hold its presidential election, after postponing the original election date in May due to coronavirus lockdowns. The incumbent president, Andrzej Duda of the right-wing Law and Justice Party, is running for reelection to a second term, and while President Duda enjoyed a comfortable lead for most of the campaign, recent polls…
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Opinion Memo to the NYT: Black lives aren’t up for debate
Consider two articles that the venerable New York Times published in 1939, in the final months before the formal outbreak of World War II. In May 1939, the M.S. St. Louis set sail from Hamburg, Germany, for Havana, Cuba, carrying 937 passengers, nearly all of them Jewish refugees. When the Cuban government refused to admit…
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Opinion Blaming Soros for protests, the right exposed its anti-Semitism – again.
Over the past week, thousands of Americans have taken to the streets to protest the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who brutally kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for no less than eight minutes and 46 seconds until Floyd died. These protests, met with support from many corners of the…
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Opinion The last of his kind: ‘Jewish Arab’ Albert Memmi leaves a vital message about Zionism
Albert Memmi, the great Tunisian-born French Jewish intellectual, passed away in Paris last Friday at the age of 99. He was arguably the last surviving member of a generation of great mid-20th-century Francophone intellectuals. Sadly, few in the English-speaking world seemed to notice. While major French, German and Hebrew news sources reported on his passing,…
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Opinion The ADL’s data proves it: The right owns anti-Semitism in America
These are anxious times to be an American Jew. Of course, every time is an anxious time to be an American Jew. As a New York-born Ashkenazi Jew, chronic anxiety is as much a part of my cultural heritage as bagels and schmear. Trust me, if there isn’t some genuine threat to my safety, my…
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Opinion America’s Jewish institutions were failing. Coronavirus hastened their demise.
Borrowing from Tolstoy, one might say that every economic boomtime is alike in its happiness, while every economic crisis is unique in the misery it brings. And the particular economic crisis facing the United States in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which economists fear could culminate in the worst economic downturn since the Great…
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Opinion Debate | Should American Jews celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut?
Columnists Ari Hoffman and Joel Swanson discuss.
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Opinion Debate | Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitic?
Join Forward contributing columnists Ari Hoffman and Joel Swanson for a live debate on April 21 about whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. At a time of rising anti-Semitism, the question of how to define that ancient scourge that still plagues our modern world is a central one. It’s also a difficult one, given that we Jews…
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