U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on November 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Re “The impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas is a high-tech lynching of an American Jew” by Rob Eshman

To the editor:

I truly love the Forward, which I first learned about from my father Rabbi Benjamin M. Kahn z”l, who was in sequence Hillel director at Penn State University, national director of Hillel, international head of B’Nai B’rith, and director of Jewish studies at American University.  The Forward is my idea of a family inheritance.

Antisemitism Notebook

Your weekly guide through the news and the noise of how rising antisemitism and disputes over how to address it are shaping American Jewish life.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

But as someone who worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas during the Civil Rights Movement, and whose uncle, Arnold Aronson, was a co-founder of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights together with A. Philip Randolph and Roy Wilkins (two storied civil rights activists), I respectfully request that you not use the word “lynching” except in its proper historical context.

To do otherwise diminishes the true historical meaning of the word, in the same way that using ‘holocaust” with a small “h” for any mass slaughter, no matter how horrific, undercuts the unspeakable nature of the Holocaust.

 Thanks for understanding.

— Si Kahn
Charlotte, North Carolina

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount