Author: Andrew Silow-Carroll

In Jewish time, history often has a way of rhyming with the calendar. So when Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli air strike on the Shabbat before Purim — the holiday that commemorates the downfall of Haman, a Persian tyrant who sought to annihilate the Jews — it was perhaps inevitable that rabbis, politicians and social media commentators would reach for the Book of Esther. Some did so reverently, others triumphantly, and a few with a wink. But as Jews prepared to don costumes and drown out Haman’s name with noisemakers, the ancient story of survival…

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — Did a New York City coffee shop’s workers quit over the owner’s pro-Israel stance? Was the library at Cooper Union barricaded to protect Jewish students inside from an angry pro-Palestinian mob? Ten weeks into the Israel-Hamas war, these are the kinds of stories fueling angry debate on social media, with Jews charging bigotry and critics of Israel saying antisemitism is being weaponized to silence them. These weren’t the kinds of events being debated—at least formally—at the 55th annual convention of the Association for Jewish Studies, held this week in San Francisco. Some 1,000 scholars gathered to…