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Jan 8, 2025 | 
forward.com | Aviya Kushner
The American Historical Association, the largest association of professional historians in the U.S., passed a resolution this week condemning what it called the "scholasticide" in Gaza - a term that might be unfamiliar to many.
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Jan 6, 2025 | 
forward.com | Aviya Kushner
By Aviya Kushner January 6, 2025When headline writers try to describe the weirdness of Jan. 6, and the surreal experience Vice President Kamala Harris has had today, the word "awkward" keeps coming up. "Harris Faces an Awkward Election Task: Certifying the Vote She Lost," The New York Times blared. I'm pretty sure this will be an "awkward" day for Joe Biden too, so I typed "Biden" and "awkward" into Google. Whew.
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Jan 2, 2025 | 
forward.com | Aviya Kushner
By Aviya Kushner January 2, 2025Adieu: A Memoir of Holocaust Survival By Alfred J. Lakritz Belmonte Press, 250 pages, $25Adieu: A Memoir of Holocaust Survival, by Alfred J. Lakritz, is the most detailed, well-researched, and moving account of life as a hidden child in France during the Holocaust that I have ever read. It is also an exploration of the aftermath of that experience, and an investigation into who helped and who collaborated, in small and large ways.
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Dec 30, 2024 | 
forward.com | Aviya Kushner
Aviya Kushner December 30, 2024As 2024 ends, votes for "word of the year" are pouring in - " polarization" from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, " memecoin" from The Financial Times, and " " from The Oxford English Dictionary. But I think the real word of the year is "Israel."Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza and dramatic decimation of Hezbollah in Lebanon have transformed the Middle East.
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Dec 12, 2024 | 
forward.com | Aviya Kushner
By Aviya Kushner December 12, 2024It's rare that a letter to the editor is newsworthy, but that's the case with a letter in The New Yorker about a review of Ta-Nehisi Coates' book, The Message, which repeats the oft-repeated claim that Holocaust reparations funded the displacement of Palestinians. What's remarkable is not just that this incendiary - and untrue - claim made it into the pages of The New Yorker, but what it says about how facts are treated in contemporary American culture.
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Nov 8, 2024 | 
forward.com | Aviya Kushner
Last night in Amsterdam, when Israeli soccer fans were chased through the streets and attacked, some called it a "pogrom.""The mobs had been prepositioned at stadium exits, subway station entrances, and near and around the hotels at which Israelis who had come to town to support their team were staying," John Podhoretz wrote in Commentary, in a piece titled "Pogrom 2024." "This was a pre-planned attack.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
forward.com | Aviya Kushner
As I waited nearly three hours to vote early in Chicago, the one highlight was watching the Language Assistance guy. He was a tall young Indian guy with a great head of hair, wearing a maroon sweatshirt and black sweatpants, and he constantly scanned the line for those who might need help. My brother happens to speak Hindi, I told him, as I asked which languages were listed on his Language Assistance tag. "Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi," he said proudly.
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Oct 8, 2024 | 
forward.com | Aviya Kushner
When Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff planted a pomegranate tree outside the vice president's residence to honor the victims of Oct. 7, I immediately thought of the Hebrew word for pomegranate - It appears prominently in the Torah as one of the seven species native to the land of Israel, along with wheat, barley, grapes, figs, olives, and honey, or date honey.
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Sep 30, 2024 | 
forward.com | Aviya Kushner
I was driving on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago when I heard Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah described on National Public Radio as "this towering figure and leader." I nearly swerved into the next lane. Towering figure? Leader? Well, maybe to the Supreme Leader of Iran. Hezbollah, or the "party of God," was formed in 1982 by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with the goal of removing the Israeli troops then in Lebanon.
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Sep 19, 2024 | 
forward.com | Aviya Kushner
I was eavesdropping on two older ladies in Chicago. They were discussing Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, and the fact that he wasted no time asking Kamala Harris on a first date. "He's no schlub," one woman said to the other. With everything going on in the world - beepers, walkie-talkies, interest-rate cuts, attempted assassinations of Presidential candidates - you may be forgiven for not noticing that the word "schlub" has been having an extended moment this year.
