Articles written by Andrew Lapin
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Columbia cancels commencement amid pro-Palestinian protests
(New York Jewish Week) – Columbia University announced Monday that it would be canceling its commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protest, campus turmoil and hundreds of student arrests. Beginning nearly three weeks ago, the p...
Unrest on American campuses: Inspired by Columbia example, pro-Palestinian encampments spring up at colleges nationwide
(JTA) – A pro-Palestinian protest at Yale University allegedly turned violent with dozens of arrests. The University of Southern California canceled all its planned commencement speakers. Encampments have sprung up at campuses from Boston to Ann A...
USC Shoah Foundation distances itself from pro-Palestinian valedictorian whose speech was canceled
(JTA) – A Holocaust research center founded by Steven Spielberg has gotten embroiled in a drama over campus Israel speech that is dividing the University of Southern California, where it is housed. The USC Shoah Foundation is downplaying its role i...
School district will let students opt out of Holocaust lesson
(JTA) – A school district in suburban Virginia is drawing backlash for announcing that middle school students could opt out of a talk by a Holocaust survivor on Monday. Critics of the school connected the announcement with widespread reports of s...
Police in Newton, Massachusetts, investigating string of vandalism targeting pro-Israel homes as hate crimes
(JTA) – Authorities in Newton, Massachusetts, said they are investigating a string of seven recent instances of vandalism targeting homes with pro-Israel signs as individual hate crimes. In one incident this week, more than 100 posters displaying Isr...
'Origin' story: How Ava DuVernay's new movie connects the Holocaust, slavery and caste
(JTA) - Early in the new drama "Origin," the Pulitzer Prize-winning Black author Isabel Wilkerson (played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) calls her cousin from Berlin to share that, as part of her research...
'Barbenheimer,' 'Maestro' and 'The Zone of Interest' lead large crop of Jewish-inspired Oscar nominations
(JTA) – The year’s biggest movie phenomenon was a one-two punch of blockbusters with Jewish roots — and they both came up big at Tuesday’s Oscar nominations. “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s biopic of the Jewish “father of the atomic bomb,” l...
Citing risk to Elie Wiesel's 'Night,' Iowa judge blocks key parts of state book ban law
(JTA) – A federal judge in Iowa has blocked much of a state law forbidding school libraries from stocking books depicting “sex acts,” in part because he said it was keeping a classic Holocaust memoir off shelves. U.S. District Court Judge Steph...
Claudine Gay resigns from Harvard
(JTA) – Harvard University President Claudine Gay has resigned in the wake of plagiarism allegations and months-long criticism of her response to allegations of antisemitism at the school. Gay is the...
Florida district pulls many Jewish and Holocaust books, including Saul Bellow's 'Herzog' and 'Black, White and Jewish'
(JTA) — A global bestseller by a Jewish Holocaust victim; a novel by a beloved and politically conservative Jewish American writer; a memoir of growing up mixed-race and Jewish; and a contemporary novel about a high-achieving Jewish family are among...
A new 'Color Purple' adaptation hits theaters, returning author Alice Walker's history of antisemitism to spotlight
(JTA) - The bright, colorful movie musical "The Color Purple," which opens in theaters on Christmas, tells a story that has by now become a familiar part of the American canon - of a young Black...
Feds to probe University of North Carolina's response to harsh anti-Israel speech
(JTA) – Earlier this month, a lawyer acting on information from a pro-Israel group of North Carolinians told the federal government that their state’s flagship public university should be investigated for allowing anti-Israel rhetoric on campus. Now...
MIT federal civil rights investigations
(JTA) – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Davis, both of which have recently experienced widely publicized episodes of conflict around Israel, are among six new institutions facing U.S. Department of E...
'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' HBO's especially Jewish comedy, to end after upcoming 12th season
(JTA) - A decades-long era of Jewish comedy on television will come to an end next year, as "Curb Your Enthusiasm," Larry David's HBO comedy, is set to end after its 12th season. The imminent...
Harvard president will remain in office despite criticism of her response to antisemitism
(JTA) – Harvard University’s board of directors will keep Claudine Gay as the school’s president despite pressure to force her out after she declined to say outright that calls for the genocide of Jews violated campus rules. The Harvard Corpo...
Norman Lear, Jewish creator of pioneering TV, dies at 101
(JTA) - Norman Lear, the Jewish TV pioneer behind iconic comedies of the 1970s and 1980s that helped bring social commentary and Black characters into the mainstream, has died at 101. Lear's death...
Susan Sarandon and Melissa Barrera among Hollywood figures facing blowback for stances on Israel and Jews
(JTA) — The star of a blockbuster horror franchise and an Oscar-winning veteran actress saw their careers take a hit this week over their public comments on Jews and Israel in some of the most high-profile examples yet of how the ongoing I...
Jewish groups condemn shooting of 3 Palestinian students
(JTA) – Jewish congregations, politicians and campus groups in the Vermont area and beyond condemned the shooting of three Palestinian college students in Burlington, an incident authorities are investigating as a possible hate crime. A 4...
Elon Musk says he'll donate X ad revenue to hospitals in Israel and Gaza
(JTA) — Elon Musk announced Tuesday that his social network X would be “donating all revenue from advertising & subscriptions associated with the war in Gaza to hospitals in Israel” and to a humanitarian organization operating in Gaza. The promi...
The first Mom For Liberty to successfully ban Anne Frank went on an antisemitic livestream
(JTA) — A Florida organizer of the right-wing activist group Moms For Liberty who successfully pressed her school district to remove a version of Anne Frank’s diary recently appeared on a livestream banned from YouTube because of its pastor hos...
White House decries 'grotesque' antisemitic campus activities in support of Hamas attacks
(JTA) — The White House denounced “antisemitic messages being conveyed on college campuses” in a statement Thursday, condemning students groups that have praised Hamas’ attack on Israel or “call for the annihilation of the state of Israel.” The state...
An avowed Holocaust denier is running for school board in Minnesota
(JTA) — One of the candidates on the ballot for an upcoming Minnesota school board election is an avowed Holocaust denier who has called for all Jews to be sterilized and tattooed with the Star of David, all synagogues to be closed and all Jewish c...
Biden's new book ban czar is a longtime progressive Jewish leader
(JTA) – The Biden Administration’s new point person for combating book bans at school districts and public libraries across the country is a gay, Jewish progressive activist who has served as a government liaison to the Jewish and LGBTQ com...
Texas teacher reportedly fired after reading from Anne Frank's diary to students
(JTA) — A middle school teacher in a district outside Houston, Texas, has been fired reportedly for reading a sexual passage from Anne Frank’s diary out loud to eighth-grade students, the district told local news. The passage came from a 2018 gra...
Farrakhan follower leaves meeting
(JTA) – Days after a synagogue in St. Petersburg, Florida, was forced to evacuate services following a bomb threat, the local city council met to discuss a resolution about antisemitism. The resolution was about whether to endorse a definition of a...
