The absence of Palestinians and their advocates from news coverage isn’t just unfair. Sarah Gertler, a Jewish American, argues it is harmful, silencing criticism of Israel and making news media complicit in war atrocities.
Commentary
Kristallnacht, 85 Years Ago: Hitler’s Anti-Semitic Turning Point
Kristallnacht–the Night of Broken Glass–was the logical culmination of Hitler’s malevolent intentions going back many years before 1938. Seeing it that way allows us to view the two different kinds of antisemitism in Hitler’s thinking, one involving emotions and the other involving the law and reason. The latter foreshadowed the mass shooting squads and death camps of the early 1940s.
The Fascist Tradition Behind Trump’s Increasingly Violent Rhetoric
Former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric has regularly bordered on the incitement of violence. Lately, however, it has become even more violent. Yet both the press and the public have largely just shrugged their shoulders. This rhetoric may seem like crazy bluster. But put in its historical context, what Trump is doing is echoing views that are part of a long tradition of outright fascist thought. For fascists have always seen the use of violence as a virtue, not a vice.
Teachers Union Blisters School Board Over ‘Fiscal Irresponsibility’ and ‘Unjust Actions’ in Attorney’s Pending Firing
In a letter to her membership, Elisabeth Dias, president of the Flagler County Education Foundation, the teachers union, calls attention to what she terms the potential “wrongful termination” without due process of School Board Attorney Kristy Gavin, which would set a precedent and pose “a serious threat to the rights and well-being of our members, as well as the financial stability of our school district.”
How Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor Became Halloween’s Theme Song
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is an organ work composed in the early 18th century. Most people today recognize it as a sonic icon of a certain type of fear: haunting and archaic, the kind of thing likely to be manufactured by someone – a ghost, perhaps – wearing a tuxedo and lurking in an abandoned mansion.
Why Some People Equate Criticism of Israel with Anti-Semitism
Many Jews are still grieving, shocked and traumatized by what happened on Oct. 7. But other people, in the U.S. and around the world, have already moved on from Oct. 7, and they are much more concerned about the war that Israel is now waging against Hamas and the devastating impact it is having on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
‘In God We Trust’ Tests Limits of Religion in Public Schools
Louisiana passed a law in August 2023 requiring public schools to post “In God We Trust” in every classroom – from elementary school to college. Even under recent Supreme Court precedents, the Louisiana law may violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from promoting religion.
DeSantis’s Censorship University System Is Causing a Brain Drain
DeSantis is obsessed with remaking education according to his authoritarian tendencies, doing his damnedest to wreck K-12 with his army of book-banning harpies in “Moms for Liberty” and his Scared Karens legislation, and forbidding honest discussion of slavery and racism so as to never make white kids feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress.”
How a School Superintendent in Maine Addressed the War in Gaza with Students and the Community
Jim Tager, a former superintendent of schools in Flagler, describes himself “privileged and inadequate to fully grasp the experiences of people in the Middle East,” but seeing his district through its prism of diversity and tolerance, he urges students and colleagues to form the kind of friendships across boundaries that enrich local and global communities.
Israel’s Gaza Campaign Risks Replicating U.S. in Iraq
The conflict will likely resemble heavy urban fighting similar to other battles over the past 20 years elsewhere in the Middle East against Iraqi militants and the Islamic State group – and very different from the more limited engagements Israel has attempted in Gaza up until now.