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Roundtables on the state of the American Jewish community, bringing together people from a shared demographic or background—everyday people with personal opinions, not experts who earn their salaries discussing these issues.

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Scott Heins/Getty Images
Scott Heins/Getty Images
How to Talk to Your Kids About Police Brutality

And how to talk to them about anti-racist protesting

Like the Holocaust, the refugee crisis, the Yizkor service, and Bubbe’s mortality, racism and bias are subjects white Jewish parents often viscerally want to shield their kids from. But that’s our own discomfort talking. When you don’t help your child interpret the world, you’ve left a negative space in which other people will do your job. The TV, the car radio, the street, Instagram, other kids in Google Classroom. So what do we tell our white kids about the whats, hows, and whys of today’s protests against police brutality? Before we talk at all, we need to listen. A good place to start is by listening to African American Jews. Kenny Kahn, an African American Jewish educator in Northern California and dad to Theo and Harris, told Tablet in an interview, “Both the Black and Jewish sides of my family are good talkers, but sometimes it can feel less attentive to say, ‘I have a remedy!’ than to listen and be present in the moment.” Within both the Jewish and Black communities it’s important that we can’t call ourselves allies until we determine how each of us is oppressed. It’s not the same. Heschel marching with Martin is the easy reference. You have to go beyond that.” (He’s right, of course. There is a troubling Ashkenazi Jewish tendency to point out Jews’ participation in the Civil Rights Movement while ignoring the dictum of the great theologian Janet Jackson: “What have you done for me lately?”) Kenny’s wife, Alex Kahn, who is also Black and Jewish, points out that anti-Blackness is complex and systemic, and we all carry biases. “All four officers complicit in George Floyd’s murder were not all white,” she told Tablet in an email. “Racism did not start with Trump nor will it end with his presidency. It also does not diminish with your political affiliation. It does not change if you have Black friends, a Black partner, or Black children. In order to combat racism we all have our own roles and work to be allies for and with one another.” She provided what she called a “starter pack” for white people, a treasury of helpful links making clear that anti-racist work is invariably an ongoing process that demands vigilance. Passivity and neutrality are not passive or neutral; by not taking a stand, you’re taking a stand. “Active violence is just as problematic and dangerous as silence,” Alex said in the email. “No child is too young to learn about being anti-racist. I have no choice in shielding my 2-year-old from seeing how the world treats my husband nor do I in preparing him for a world that will cause him pain. Your 2-year-old can handle developmentally appropriate ways in talking about racism.” ...

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COVID-19 Three Years Later

Here we are, three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, and so much has changed. The way we work, the way we mourn, and the way we gather with our families. Read on for some stories about the pandemic from years past:

Original photo Instagram/@cupcakeproject

Putting Bubbe in the Spotlight

The pandemic made a lot of younger Jews realize how much their grandparents meant to them

Tablet Magazine

Not Quite Back to Normal

As the pandemic evolves, synagogues scramble to adjust their High Holiday services to accommodate shifting risks and expectations

David DeHoey via Flickr

The Slow Road to Sanity

How spending 100 hours making brownies kept me from sinking into despair during the pandemic

Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

The Pandemic’s Toll on the Dead

Around the world, COVID-19 upended Jewish burial rituals

Dillon F. Meyer

Will the Coronavirus Wedding Model Outlive the Coronavirus?

The pandemic turned 300-person hotel weddings into 10-person backyard affairs. Some newlyweds say it was for the best.

Tablet talks about Judaism a lot, but sometimes we like to change the subject. Maggie Phillips covers religious communities across the U.S.—from Christians to Muslims, Hindus to Baha’i, Jehovah’s Witnesses to pagans—to find out what they’re talking about.

On Abortion

Listen to Tablet

Navigate to An Unwed Woman of Valor podcast page

Vox Tablet

An Unwed Woman of Valor

In My Mother’s Wars, Lillian Faderman recalls her single mother’s frustrated efforts to save her family from the Holocaust

March 11, 2013

Listen to Tablet

Navigate to Family podcast page

Hebrew School

Family

Season 3, Ep. 9: Join contestant Betzalel on our kids game show podcast as he plays three games and challenges all about family

March 13, 2023

Navigate to Sesame Shtisel podcast page

Unorthodox

Sesame Shtisel

Ep. 354: Grover does Passover, plus Ruth Markel on trauma and grandparent alienation, and Indian comedian Zarna Garg on learning from the Jews

March 23, 2023

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