Sophie Hills

3 weeks ago | csmonitor.com | Patrik Jonsson |Sophie Hills

It was getting so hard to talk in Boulder that Hilary Kalisman, a university professor, worried that vitriol over Gaza would end in violence. City Council meetings had become heated, and chants, to some, felt threatening. Professor Kalisman, who teaches Jewish history at the University of Colorado Boulder, had felt the blowback herself. A practicing Jew, she has been called an antisemite for allowing words like “genocide” and “apartheid” in discussions.

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Jackie Valley |Sophie Hills

A deadlocked Supreme Court sidestepped a decision about whether to allow the United States’ first public religious charter school, preserving the church-state wall for now. The divided court tied 4-4 Thursday in a consolidated pair of cases –​​ Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond – that could have eroded a key tenet of the First Amendment while also profoundly changing America’s public schooling system.

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Sara Miller Llana |Whitney Eulich |Peter Ford |Sophie Hills

The selection of Robert Francis Prevost as the first American pope stunned Vatican watchers around the world. Many had long believed that an American would never be chosen to lead an institution with 1.4 billion followers because the United States already wields so much global power. Taking the name Pope Leo XIV, he stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as tens of thousands gathered below him.

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Jackie Valley |Henry Gass |Sophie Hills

The U.S. Supreme Court has taken several swings at the invisible wall separating church and state in public education. Two education cases being heard this month have the potential to either remove a few more bricks, or perhaps pull it down. The legal maneuvers underpinning the lawsuits give the courts an opportunity to profoundly change America’s public schooling system. And, in a twist, opponents of one case include people who favor both religious schooling and public charter schools.

2 months ago | csmonitor.com | Sophie Hills

Antisemitism in the United States is surging to levels not seen in nearly half a century. A new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) shows there was an average of 25 incidents per day over the last year – the highest since 1979, when the organization began tracking it. In the United States, about 2% of the population is Jewish, yet Jews are targeted in more than two-thirds of religious hate crimes.