Drew Kaplan

“Invoking the word does not demean the memory of the Holocaust. Instead, the lessons of the Holocaust will be lost if we refuse to engage with them.”

24 June 2019 Drew KaplanPolitics in America

…it’s important to note that despite the contemporary association of concentration camps with the Shoah, they are not a Nazi invention. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, various imperial forces — including the[…]

“Yom Yerushalayim often gets the short end of the stick, often overlooked even by those who profess to celebrate it”

2 June 20192 June 2019 Drew KaplanIsrael

Yom Yerushalayim often gets the short end of the stick, often overlooked even by those who profess to celebrate it. This can be understood in light of the complex nature of the day. For many[…]

“After years of fragmentation, Israeli society seems to be consolidating anew – fusing Jewishness and nationalism, and decidedly on the right”

28 May 2019 Drew KaplanIsrael

After years of fragmentation, Israeli society seems to be consolidating anew – fusing Jewishness and nationalism, and decidedly on the right. Since the 1970s the meta-story of Israel has been the steady crack-up of Labor,[…]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “has become a handy and versatile symbol — the representative representative”

22 May 201922 May 2019 Drew KaplanPolitics in America

The congresswoman has become a handy and versatile symbol — the representative representative. For the leftward and younger wings of the Democratic Party, she serves as a figurehead and a hero; for conservative media outlets,[…]

“Likability is associated with an emotional connection between candidate and voter that makes a politician worthy of trust”

22 May 2019 Drew KaplanGender

Likability seems to have emerged as an important personality trait in the late 19th century, when it became closely associated with male business success. Before this, people liked or disliked one another, of course, but[…]

Anti-vaxxers are “emblematic of too many people’s willful disregard of evidence, proud suspicion of expertise and estrangement from reason”

1 May 201930 April 2019 Drew KaplanAmerica

…the anti-vaccine crowd (or anti-vaxxers) aren’t trafficking in anything as concrete, mundane and quaint as facts. They’re not really engaged in a debate about medicine. They’re immersed in a world of conspiracies, in the dark[…]

“Spreading conspiracy theories once had a price — printing or even mimeographing a tract costs money — but now…, anyone can post a madcap theory or a doctored photograph virtually for free”

29 April 2019 Drew KaplanAmerica

Democracies depend on buy-in; citizens need to believe in certain basics, starting with the legitimacy of elections. Trump both runs the government and runs it down. The electoral system, he asserts, can’t be trusted. Voter[…]

“In the early days of coding, women flocked to programming because it offered more opportunity and reward for merit, more than fields like law. Now software has the closed door.”

25 April 2019 Drew KaplanGender

If biology limited women’s ability to code, then the ratio of women to men in programming ought to be similar in other countries. It isn’t. In India, roughly 40 percent of the students studying computer[…]

“American cultural history could probably be parcelled out as a sequence of sensational murder cases”

23 April 2019 Drew KaplanIncarceration

American cultural history could probably be parcelled out as a sequence of sensational murder cases. There was nothing remotely “typical” about the Manson murders or, for that matter, about the O. J. Simpson case, but[…]

“as the culture of the mid-twentieth century was replaced…, the notion of students grappling with their yeshiva and college educations…, producing a grand synthesis called ‘Modern Orthodoxy’, seemed increasingly quaint”

18 April 201918 April 2019 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

Yeshiva College has also changed along with the broader landscape of higher education. We still have impressively bright, industrious, passionate students. But as the culture of the mid-twentieth century was replaced by that of the[…]

Excerpted

Excerpts of Interest

Author: Drew Kaplan

“Invoking the word does not demean the memory of the Holocaust. Instead, the lessons of the Holocaust will be lost if we refuse to engage with them.”

“Yom Yerushalayim often gets the short end of the stick, often overlooked even by those who profess to celebrate it”

“After years of fragmentation, Israeli society seems to be consolidating anew – fusing Jewishness and nationalism, and decidedly on the right”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “has become a handy and versatile symbol — the representative representative”

“Likability is associated with an emotional connection between candidate and voter that makes a politician worthy of trust”

Anti-vaxxers are “emblematic of too many people’s willful disregard of evidence, proud suspicion of expertise and estrangement from reason”

“Spreading conspiracy theories once had a price — printing or even mimeographing a tract costs money — but now…, anyone can post a madcap theory or a doctored photograph virtually for free”

“In the early days of coding, women flocked to programming because it offered more opportunity and reward for merit, more than fields like law. Now software has the closed door.”

“American cultural history could probably be parcelled out as a sequence of sensational murder cases”

“as the culture of the mid-twentieth century was replaced…, the notion of students grappling with their yeshiva and college educations…, producing a grand synthesis called ‘Modern Orthodoxy’, seemed increasingly quaint”