As scholars of Jewish history, we are acutely attuned to the fragility of democracies and the consequences for minorities when democracies fail to live up to their highest principles.
In his inspiring book \”Words That Hurt, Words that Heal,\” Rabbi Joseph Telushkin wrote: “Because words can be used to inflict devastating and irrevocable suffering, Jewish teachings go so far as to compare cruel words to murder.”
Dear Mr. President-elect, I started writing this letter before your appointment of Steve Bannon, a move that hasn’t been well received in my Jewish community. I was hoping to reach you before you made any moves. In any case, since you will make hundreds of other decisions, I’m now even more motivated to share my thoughts.
The following is an open and unedited letter to Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President-elect Donald Trump, from actress, producer, and political activist Noa Tishby.
At a time when the globe reverberated with Nazi jackboots, the poet William Butler Yeats lamented: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
In her Clinton wardrobe and hair, accompanying herself on the piano, Kate McKinnon’s cold open of the \”Saturday Night Live\” after Election Day was a dirge for the loss of Leonard Cohen, for the loss of Hillary Clinton and for the lost Americans now struggling for hope and direction.
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