On top of the rising number of violent acts and vandalism incidents, American Jews are dealing with microagressions and prejudice that take a toll on their lives.
Halloween can also be a time of expression of cultural and social anxieties.
AP Photo/Richard Vogel
In the early 1970s, rumors about poisoned candy on Halloween led to mass paranoia. A historian explains why such fears emerge – and what, in reality, feeds them.
Seventy-eight percent of the people executed for witchcraft in New England in the late 17th and early 18th centuries were women.
Jef Thompson/Shutterstock.com
Powerful men often proclaim baseless accusations to be a ‘witch hunt.’ But American witch trials have always targeted a persecuted minority: women.
Refugees awaiting municipal bread distribution in Akcakale, Turkey, Oct. 20, 2019. Three-quarters of the Syrian refugees in Turkey are women and children.
AP Photo/Mehmet Guzel
Turkey is threatening to send 3.6 million refugees back to the Syrian territory it just invaded. Deporting these vulnerable people would make them the collateral damage of a chaotic, many-sided war.
Pope Francis at the start of the Amazon synod, at the Vatican, Oct. 7, 2019.
AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
Hundreds of bishops, priests, missionaries and tribal leaders are at the Vatican for the Synod of the Amazon, a three-week meeting focused on the environmental crisis threatening Amazonian peoples.
Fred Rogers rehearses with some of his puppet friends in Pittsburgh,.
Gene J. Puskarg/AP
A new film on beloved children’s television icon Fred Rogers hits theaters next month. Rogers’ moral values contributed to the power and appeal of his neighborhood.
Naloxone, available as a nasal spray called Narcan or in injectable form, resuscitates 100% of people who overdose if administered quickly.
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
Opioid overdoses killed 47,000 Americans in 2017 — more than gun violence. Many fewer would have died if they’d been treated with the life-saving drug naloxone, also called Narcan.
Nathan Atkinson, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
How much is your suffering worth in court? Often, it depends on the judge. But justice may be better served by letting victims choose between monetary compensation and a more restorative remedy.
A survey conducted in Jauary 2018 by the Pew Research Centre showed 84 percent of US Catholics had a ‘favourable’ opinion of Pope Francis. Six out of ten people also said he represented a ‘major change for the better’.
Vatican Media/AAP
Pope Francis continues to champion the importance of science in our world. Having the head of the Catholic Church support various scientific movements is a win for us all.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces at al-Omar oil field in Deir Al Zor, Syria, at the announcement that they had ended the Islamic State’s control of land in eastern Syria, March 23, 2019.
Reuters/Rodi Said
Kurdish women have fought on the front lines of military battles since the 19th century. A scholar explains the origins of Kurdistan’s relative gender equality in a mostly conservative Muslim region.
The life-sized wooden statue of the Black Christ in St. Philip Church in Panama.
Dan Lundberg/Flickr
Following the sexual abuse scandals, there is a push to force the Catholic Church to compromise the confidentiality of the confessional. A Catholic scholar explains why confession is so important.
Christian fundamentalists have become a politically powerful group since the movement’s foundation in 1919.
Raul Cano/Shutterstock
Institutions that benefited from donations from benefactors such as Epstein are facing hard questions. In a somewhat similar ethical debate in 1905, a pastor argued for return of a Rockefeller gift.
A procession of Christian girls, venerating the Cross, in the village of Qanat Bekish, Lebanon.
AP Photo/Hussein Malla
Sept. 14 is the the Feast of the Holy Cross celebrated by many Catholics and some other Christians. A religion scholar revisits the history of the cross, how it became a symbol of divine love, but also of violence.
The El Segundo Chevron oil refinery, left, and the Bom Futuro National Forest, right.
Pedro Szekely/WikimediaCommons, Reuters/Nacho Doce
Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are quintessentially Jewish holidays, but an ethicist argues that their values around becoming a better human being, transcend any one religion.
The Supreme Court ruled that baker Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, could refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because of his religious beliefs.
AP/David Zalubowski)