Category Archives: Newspaper Opinion Columns

Opinion Columns originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Newspaper Opinion Columns

Child labor making a come back – by Deborah Levine

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Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press   

Have we time-traveled back a century when child labor was a thing? That’s what I first thought when I heard that a food sanitation company was being sued for illegally employing over 100 children ages 13 – 17. The kids cleaned razor-sharp saws with caustic chemicals while working overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states including Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Texas.

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Newspaper Opinion Columns

CELEBRATE AND ACT ON BLACK HISTORY MONTH – by Deborah Levine

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published originally in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Honoring Black History Month often comes with events that tell African American history through arts and culture, which resonate across cultural boundaries. For example: the National Center for Civil and Human Rights will display jazz music that “inspires movements, evokes revolution, and lightens troubled spirits.”

Corporate celebrations may elevate Black artists, creators, entrepreneurs through storytelling, content and products. But as memorable as these celebrations are, they may be considered once-a-year, check-the-box events.

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Newspaper Opinion Columns

Social Media Insanity – by Deborah Levine 

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(Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press)

I was transfixed when Elon Musk first took over as Twitter’s CEO. It was like watching a massive highway car pile up as folks headed for the hills as Musk cried, “No, we’re not dead!”. I was tempted to exit, but was persuaded to stay and fight the good fight. So when the GOP first tweeted their intent to tear apart Hunter Biden, I responded, “How about the $2 billion Kushner got from the Saudis… Are you going to investigate that?” The support was beyond anything I’d experienced from Twitterers. 

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Black-Jewish Dialogue, Newspaper Opinion Columns

Hate enablers should not prevail – by Deborah Levine

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Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Have you heard that Kanye West might buy the self-styled free speech platform called Parler? Supposedly “conservative”, the app was used to organize and recruit for the Capitol siege. Parler continually enables hate with accounts that use swastikas as their profile pictures along with posts with Holocaust denial, antisemitism, and racism. Proud Boys, QAnon conspiracy theorists, anti-government extremists and white supremacists have all promoted their views on Parler.

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Newspaper Opinion Columns

Counteracting the “Heil Hitler” phenomenon – by Deborah Levine

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 originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

On the morning before the Jewish New Year, I walked into a neighborhood grocery store and was greeted by a customer with “Heil Hitler!” and a Nazi salute. My stunned silence prompted the man to shout “Heil Hitler” even louder.  He eagerly came closer to me, repeating the Sieg Heil salute, which was adopted in the 1930s to signal national obedience to Adolf Hitler. The crowd waiting in line for the cashier giggled. I gagged, and hoped it was all just a bad joke.

But it wasn’t. He turned to the crowd and explained why they should join him. “Hitler could rally the crowd, inspire everyone to join him. So follow me, Heil Hitler, then we’ll all say a prayer.” Hearing this linking of  Hitler to faith and prayer, the cashier turned green. I turned purple. 

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Newspaper Opinion Columns

Royal Ripples – by Deborah Levine

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originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press

With the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, I remember when my daughter first heard the queen speak on the radio. “Wow! I never heard English spoken so beautifully. Who is that?” I smiled because I’d grown up trying to imitate the “Queen’s English” as a youngster in the British colony of Bermuda. I was doubly saddened by the queen’s passing because it came just days before my birthday. How does one celebrate life and death at the same time? My first instinct was to ignore my birthday. Who wants to celebrate getting older anyway?  So I vacillated between mourning and sulking. 

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Music, theater, TV, dance, Newspaper Opinion Columns

Brace for hard lessons in Ken Burns’ new documentary

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Originally published as opinion column in The Chattanooga Times Free Press)

To all of you who, like me, have been long time Ken Burns fans, his documentaries have been mesmerizing: Civil War, Jazz, Baseball, Vietnam and The Roosevelts. And while I eagerly await his upcoming movie, The U.S. and the Holocaust, I have a certain amount of dread about its release. We’re living in a time when even The Diary of Anne Frank is controversial. The banning of Maus demonstrated how divided we are over telling the stories of the Holocaust. Given Ken Burns’ focus, I suspect the outcry is going to be loud and vicious.

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Newspaper Opinion Columns

Why Diabetics need to vote – by Deborah Levine

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originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

It’s amazing that Medicare recipients just gained a cap on insulin prices. It’s truly incredible considering the pharmaceutical industry lobbying efforts against any price controls or negotiations. Spearheaded by The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, often known as Pharma, those efforts have been ongoing for years. And in September 2021, it was reported byThe Hill, a media company based in Washington, D.C., that Pharma was launching a seven-figure ad campaign against the proposals moving through Congress to allow negotiation of drug  prices. 

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Newspaper Opinion Columns

“Domestic Infant Suppliers” buckle up – by Deborah Levine

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originally published in  The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Writing about abortion is like leaping into a tornado, but here goes. I’ve always hated the idea of abortion, the term evokes pain and suffering as well as sorrow and mourning, whether you’re pro or anti-abortion. But I’ve advocated for giving women choice over their bodies since joining the many Jewish women involved in the first Women’s Liberation March in Manhattan in 1970.

While the protests of the seventies were a revolution, touching multiple area of our lives in the workplace and community,  anti-abortionists saw us as irrational, unattractive feminist shrews. They called us “anti-family,” “angry battle-axes” and “radical Commie lesbians.” The “Domestic Infant Supply” language in the current supreme Court draft doesn’t just echo those sentiments, it magnifies them.
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Artists, Newspaper Opinion Columns

Culture Wars: Can artists win? – by Deborah Levine

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Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press   

Why do we now say Kyiv instead of Kiev? It’s because Kyiv is the Ukrainian pronunciation and Russia’s invasion is a culture war.  Their disputes are old-as-dirt and Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev tried to enable a Ukrainian revival with the transfer of Crimea from Russia. But, Soviet repression went beyond land and sovereignty.

With the USSR dissolution, Ukraine established a new government with its own national anthem in Ukrainian, not Russian. It’s no accident that Putin’s treaty demands include protection for the Russian language. It may seem trivial, but imagine if England suddenly tried to re-establish British control over America and insisted that we revert to British English. If England were like Putin, you might go to jail if you refused to spell “color” as “colour”, the original, British version. Or what about our patriotic song, “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”? That melody was originally an unofficial national anthem of England. We wouldn’t tolerate going back to its original title: “God Save the Queen”. We’d fight a new War of Independence.

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