Bad Jews: American Jewish Politics & Identities
Emily Tamkin
Chair: Zoe Strimpel
You can be called a ‘Bad Jew’—by the community or even yourself—if you don’t keep kosher, don’t send your children to Hebrew school, or enjoy Christmas music; if your partner isn’t Jewish, or you don’t call your mother enough. But today, amid rising antisemitism, what makes a Good or Bad Jew is a particularly fraught question.
There is no answer, former New Statesman US editor Emily Tamkin argues, as she reflects on the complex, conflicting and evolving story of American Jewishness. In conversation with fellow journalist and author Zoe Strimpel.
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Emily Tamkin is the former Senior Editor, US, at The New Statesman, based in Washington, DC; and the author of Bad Jews and The Influence of Soros. Previously a foreign affairs staff writer at Foreign Policy and BuzzFeed News, her work has also appeared in The Economist, The New Republic, Politico, Slate and The Washington Post.
Zoe Strimpel is an author, broadcaster and historian of gender in Modern Britain. She is a flagship columnist for the Sunday Telegraph and co-presents Hyped!, a podcast that unpicks the hype around recent cultural products. She is the author of What the Hell Is He Thinking? All the Questions You Ever Asked About Men Answered (2010), The Man Diet: One Woman’s Quest to End Bad Romance (2012) and Seeking Love in Modern Britain: Gender, Dating and the Rise of 'The Single' (Bloomsbury, 2020).
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