As America continues its intensified reckoning with questions of racial justice, parents and educators are keenly aware of the need to speak to children about race in ways that feel authentic and relatable. The Jewish community can look to Yiddish literature for models of antiracist storytelling that took shape long before the storied alliances of…
On fabled Miami Beach, land of sunshine and escape, Blacks and Jews share a shameful history of discrimination and exclusion. Into the 1970s, Blacks were prohibited by racist “sundown” laws from swimming or spending the night on the Beach, or to be there without a work ID. Jews could not buy or rent property on…
Editor’s note: In observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Forward is resurfacing some of our recent coverage related to the Black-Jewish experience and racial justice. This article originally appeared in July, 2020. If you want to come to grips with the way race, injustice and real estate intertwine in America today, a good…
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in June, 2020. For chef and culinary historian Michael W. Twitty, studying the food of the past doesn’t just uncover what people used to eat; it reveals the stories they wanted to tell. “When you talk about people surviving to the next day or the next decade, what you’re…
How do you have a world-viewed, prime-time presidential primary debate for a major political party in Detroit — and then just kind of gloss over Detroit? You have Democrats lead it. Two nights of sometimes contentious, sometimes fumbling debates between presidential wannabes yielded no honesty about the true state of things in Detroit. Candidates seemed…
In 1972, I was six years old and attending first grade at an elementary school in Augusta, Georgia. My two older brothers and I were, as far as I knew, the only Jews in the school. But on March 15 of that year, we would also be the only white students in attendance. The previous…
With fresh eyes, some might argue there is less Juneteenth to celebrate in 2019 than there was in 1865. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps not: there’s a bit of selfish audaciousness in that reflection, comparing the lives of 21st century African Americans who, at least, can exercise basic freedom of movement, to the lives of…
On June 19, 1865, the Union army arrived in Galveston, Texas with big news for the thousands of human beings who were enslaved there: They were free! It’s worth noting that these folks had actually been free ever since the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863, a full two and a half…
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