Sigal Samuel is the former Opinion Editor at the Forward. When she’s not tackling race or identity politics, she’s hunting down her Indian Jewish family’s Kabbalistic secret society. Her novel THE MYSTICS OF MILE END tells the story of a dysfunctional family with a dangerous mystical obsession. Her writing has also appeared in The Daily Beast, The Rumpus, and BuzzFeed. Follow Sigal on Twitter.
“I have lived for 26 years under the illusion that I am unconditionally white…. Recently I have started looking at my face and going, ‘Oh man, do I look too Jewish?’” Sydney Brownstone, the reporter who voiced this question in a recent Blabbermouth podcast, is not alone in wondering this. Many Ashkenazi Jews who have…
Donald Trump has won the 2016 election, so by all means, take the next 24 hours to cry, mourn, scream, panic, and beg your Canadian friends to marry you and run away together. And then, if you can, please get back to work. Now that America has elected a racist, misogynist emboldener of white supremacists…
Need a little something hopeful to break our tense political mood right now? Look no further than this video of Iranian scholar Sadegh Zibakalam. A well-known professor at the University of Tehran, the 68-year-old is seen performing some very unique physical and political gymnastics as he enters a building at another university. Even as everyone…
If you want to get black Jews, Mizrahi Jews and a Palestinian-American Muslim to burst into tears at the same time, invite Yavilah McCoy to talk about hair. Speaking at the opening plenary of the Jews of Color National Convening, which took place May 1–3 in Manhattan, McCoy gestured at the woman beside her, a…
If you’ve been tuned in to the Israel-Palestine conversation over the past few months, you’ve probably heard the word The idea that different forms of oppression are linked — so that standing up for victims of sexism and homophobia should also mean that we stand up for, say, victims of Israeli state violence — has…
“Can anyone explain why Hollywood’s rich and powerful need $200,000 worth of extravagant goodies?” That’s the question The Daily Beast asks the absurdly luxurious swag bags being given to Oscar nominees this year. The goody bags, which include everything from a $55,000 first-class Israel trip to a $250 vape to a $1900 “Vampire Breast Lift”…
Today, November 30, is a special day in Israel. It’s “,” the day that the country commemorates the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries. It’s also supposed to be the day when the Israeli government recognizes its own historic discrimination against Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. How awkward, then, that today is also the day a…
On the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, Sigal Samuel presents a short story about what happens when the famous scientist can no longer be trusted. I had been dating Ben for two weeks, three days, eight hours, twenty-nine minutes and fifteen seconds when my best friend, Jay, got dumped. I biked to…
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