Harold Brackman

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Nov 16, 2017, 2:38 AM

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Race Relations, Post-Charlottesville, and the Jews

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ long essay in the "Atlantic"—“The First White President: The Foundation of Donald Trump’s Presidency is the Negation of Barack Obama’s Legacy” (October, 2017), —is in my view the most revealing about the current state of race relations,...

Oct 22, 2017, 5:34 AM

My family has always fought fascists: from cossacks to Charlottesville

As an American Jew, one might think I grew up a Jewish “family history” buff. Yet—like many American Jewish historians of my “post-greatest” generation—I came of age more interested in African American and even African history. Why is another...

Apr 13, 2015, 1:17 PM

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” and the Likud-GOP alliance in the age of Obama

The Netanyahu and the Obama camps have each tried to cool things down a bit in recent weeks. Netanyahu has walked back or “clarified” his hyperpolarizing campaign rhetoric, while Obama has just reiterated to Tom Friedman of the New York...

Feb 16, 2015, 11:31 AM

Mr. President: Global Warming is Real—But So Is the Clear-and-Present Danger of Islamist Anti-Semitism

President Obama started 2015 well a statement to a UN General Assembly Meeting in January: “Anti-Semitic attacks like the recent terrorist attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris pose a threat that extends beyond the Jewish community. They also...

Feb 8, 2015, 11:44 AM

A Black-Jewish perspective on the Jazz Age

The 1920s—the Jazz Age—were also an emergent era in the modern cultural nexus of Jews with Africans and African Americans. Embarrassing images of Al Jolson in blackface are not the most interesting. Instead, take African American performer, Reb Tuviah,...

Nov 13, 2014, 10:28 PM

Martine Rothblatt’s Take on Israel’s Future in a Post-National Mideast

The stale joke is that Israel is already “the fifty-first state.” My friend, Martine Rothblatt, seriously explored the underlying premise over a decade ago in "Two Stars for Peace: The Case for Using U.S. Statehood to Achieve Lasting Peace in...

Nov 2, 2014, 7:51 AM

Harold Brackman’s Interview with David Brion Davis

I am devoting my first blog entry to an interview with my mentor and friend, David Brion Davis. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a special medal from President Obama for his lifework, including the just-completed third volume of...

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About Me

Born in the shadow of the old Yankee Stadium, I grew up in Los Angeles where I did my undergraduate and graduate work at UCLA. I spent 10 years teaching at American universities before joining the Wiesenthal Center. I've published widely, both in journalism and in scholarship. My new book, coauthored with Ephraim Isaac, "From Abraham to Obama: A History of Jews, Africans, and African Americans," will be published next month by Africa World Press.