“In Yiddish’s arsenal of gently mocking dismissal, no single feature is quite as interesting as the “shm-” replacement”
In Yiddish’s arsenal of gently mocking dismissal, no single feature is quite as interesting...
Author Archives: Drew Kaplan
How to pronounce כלאים and פתאים
The word is pronounced kil’ayim and not kilayim, as there is a sheva under...
“despite the lasting hold of brainwashing on the public imagination, the scientific community has always regarded the term with some skepticism”
The term “brainwashing” was originally used to describe the thought-reform techniques developed by the...
“Burnout may be our contemporary condition, but it has very particular historical origins”
Burnout may be our contemporary condition, but it has very particular historical origins. In...
“The Torah is warning against twisting our basic moral code on behalf of the oppressed”
The oft-quoted maxim tzedek tzedek tirdof (Deuteronomy 16:20) — usually translated as “justice, justice shall you...
“Why did the rabbis in the early period (for the most part) divide people based on righteousness and virtue, and in the later period based on ethnicity?”
Why did the rabbis in the early period (for the most part) divide people...
“Every impeachment reinvents what impeachment is for, and what it means, a theory of government itself”
Every impeachment reinvents what impeachment is for, and what it means, a theory of...
“Because impeachment happens so infrequently, it’s hard to draw conclusions about what it does, or even how it works, and, on each occasion, people spend a lot of time fighting over the meaning of the words and the nature of the crimes”
The U.S. Senate has held only eighteen impeachment trials in two hundred and thirty...
“To believe that Presidents can do anything they like is to give up on self-government”
In 1787, the delegates in Philadelphia narrowed their list down to “Treason & bribery,...
“The ‘high’ in ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ has its origins in phrases that include the ‘certain high treasons and offenses and misprisons’ invoked in the impeachment of the Duke of Suffolk”
The “high” in “high crimes and misdemeanors” has its origins in phrases that include...