Brandeis Magazine

“For people of my parents’ generation, there was a certain sense of safety with regard to antisemitism in America. Things have gotten more dangerous for us.”

— Meshulam Ungar ’24, vice president of the Brandeis
Orthodox Organization, on the rise of antisemitism
in the U.S., in The New York Times (Nov. 4).

“Algorithms on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube are programmed to register engagement. The more engagement a post receives, the more users see it. […] Even social media users who post critical comments on hateful content often don’t realize that, because of the way the algorithms work, they end up contributing to spreading hate.”

— Sabine von Mering, professor of German, and women’s,
gender, and sexuality studies, on how social media sites
spread antisemitism, on the Inside Higher Ed website (Oct. 6).

“The [gap] is quite significant in the life changes […] that translate into family wealth — homes, best health care, business and investment opportunities, kids’ college, down payments for kids’ first homes.”

— Thomas M. Shapiro, the David R. Pokross Professor of Law
and Social Policy, on the financial impact of the institutional
bias that prevents the NFL’s Black assistant coaches from rising
to head coach, in The Washington Post (Oct. 12).

“How very fitting that we now remember this bridge builder with this bridge.”

— University Professor Jonathan Sarna ’75, GSAS MA’75, on the renaming
of a Duxbury, Massachusetts, bridge to honor American Jewish writer
Cora Wilburn, on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency website (Oct. 13).

“This decline in child poverty is very significant. I cannot say it enough. If we still had the rates as we had in the 1990s, there would be 12 million more children in poverty.”

— Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, the Samuel F. and Rose B. Gingold
Professor of Human Development and Social Policy, on the effect
of safety-net expansion in the U.S., in The New York Times (Sept. 11).

“Essentially, we’ve located Burgundy. It’s that critical a piece of the puzzle.”

— Anthropologist Charles Golden, equating the discovery
of a lost Maya kingdom with knowing where Burgundy lies
on a medieval European map, in The New York Times (Sept. 13).