Portside

Reader Comments: Biden Recovery Plan; US History, Racism and Struggle for Racial Justice; Heroes But Not Saints; Myanmar; Yiddish, Immigrants, U.S. left; Book Sale; Puerto Rican Socialist Party; Climate Change; Pensions; Labor and Media; Zoom events

In September 2017, artist and scholar Yevgeniy Fiks visited the Jewish Autonomous Region to see what it is, instead of what it was expected to have been. He shared two essays with us, “Before Birobidzhan” and “Diocese of Birobidzhan”, originally published on his website http://yevgeniyfiks.com.

The Yiddish/Jewish element increases the feelings of isolation and societal pressure in Willie and his family in a way that seems both inherent, yet also novel. The job of art is to make familiar things new and new things familiar; this rendition does both, in its own mysterious way.

Reader Comments - We need a special prosecutor ((Cornell William Brooks, NAACP); Ferguson, Racism, Economic Inequality, Michael Brown, Police Militarization; Racism and Misuse of Genetics; Rosetta Comet; Jewish Resources for Resisting Nationalism; Robin Williams; Israel, Gaza and Hamas; NFL's New Low - Asks Performers to Pay to Play at Super Bowl; Today in History - Nat Turner's Rebellion; Tomorrow - Fannie Lou Hamer & the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

A New Generation of Civil Rights Fighters. The Story of Gershwin, Harlem and the Blues. Deport the Statue of Liberty. Cracking the Codes: A Trip to the Grocery Store. When Comedy Went to School. Richie Havens at Woodstock (in memoriam).