In These Times

12/10/2025

Don't mind the armed thugs!

by Kirk Andereson for In These Times

12/10/2025

A growing movement is reshaping Jewish life in the United States and beyond.

As young Jews break with mainstream institutions over Gaza, new anti-Zionist shuls, chavurot, yeshivas and educational projects are emerging—creating spaces where Jewish learning, ritual and community are grounded in justice, solidarity and a diasporic identity.

In this new story by Shane Burley, rabbis, educators and organizers describe how they’re building an alternative Jewish future: one that welcomes hard questions, rejects nationalism, and reconnects people to Hebrew, text study and spiritual practice outside the traditional pro-Israel establishment.

The Jewish Diaspora Movement isn’t just opposition to the status quo—it’s a flourishing new model of Jewish life.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/jewish-diaspora-movement-antizionism

12/09/2025

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the end of the Assad regime — a turning point Syrians waited 50 years for. But even as people rebuild their lives, the country’s healthcare system is still on its knees.

This story looks at how years of sweeping U.S. and EU sanctions devastated hospitals and medical supply chains long before Assad fell — and why lifting those sanctions now won’t undo the damage overnight.

Read the full piece by Andrei Popoviciu, with on-the-ground reporting and photos by Alexandra Corcode:

https://inthesetimes.com/article/syria-sanction-hts-sharaa-trump-healthcare-gaza-middle-east-assad

12/09/2025

Tenants across the country are taking bold steps to organize for safe, stable housing — and some landlords are responding with the same tactics used to fight workplace unions.

A new investigation by Rebecca Burns and Thomas Birmingham examines what’s happening inside buildings owned by Capital Realty Group, a private equity landlord with more than 22,000 units across 28 states. Tenants from New Haven to Detroit to Kansas City say they’ve faced surveillance, threats, “no trespass” orders for organizers, and even the creation of a rival, landlord-friendly “tenant association.”

When residents at Sunset Ridge in New Haven formed a tenant union to address mold, pests and steep rent hikes, they were met not only with pushback at home, but counter-protesters summoned to Capital Realty’s New York headquarters during a tenants’ rally. According to a police officer on site, those counter-protesters were invited by the property owners themselves.

Capital Realty has also retained Reed Smith, a law firm known for running “union avoidance” programs for employers.

Yet tenant unions are growing. With support from the Tenant Union Federation, renters in nine Capital Realty buildings have organized to demand repairs, fair leases and collective bargaining — and in some cases, they’ve already won key concessions.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/tenants-union-busting-landlord-capital-realty

12/08/2025

"The freedom fighter’s complicated life calls us to test our tongues against the burning sting of truth."

Atarah Israel on the revolutionary life of Assata Shakur.

The freedom fighter's complicated life calls us to test our tongues against the burning sting of truth.

12/08/2025

In Texas, thousands of elderly and disabled people are being pushed into boarding homes that look like care on the surface but in reality can mean isolation, neglect and even death. In a major new investigation for In These Times and Type Investigations, reporter Ottavia Spaggiari follows survivors like 53-year-old Angelique Estes, who says she was held against her will in an Arlington boarding home, left on a mattress, underfed and sedated with drugs she was never prescribed.

This isn’t just one “bad actor.” Texas has lost dozens of nursing homes in recent years as costs rise and Medicaid funding shrinks, and a patchwork system of boarding homes has rushed in to fill the gap. People with serious medical needs are discharged from hospitals into private houses where residents can be abused, financially exploited or simply left without food, water or basic care. And as massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid move forward nationwide, Texas offers a chilling preview of what long-term care could look like across the United States.

Read the full investigation:

https://inthesetimes.com/article/texas-boarding-homes-elderly-disability-justice-healthcare-investigation-nursing-neglect-abuse

12/07/2025

12/07/2025

Elected leaders with Local Progress discuss how they are moving progressive policy forward while defending against the assaults of the Trump administration.

Elected leaders with Local Progress discuss how they are moving progressive policy forward while defending against the assaults of the Trump administration.

12/07/2025

Last month, voters repudiated MAGA in elections large and small across the country. Those of us on the left need a clear-eyed assessment of the political terrain and a vision that can look beyond the current fight.

This month voters repudiated MAGA in elections large and small across the country. Those of us on the left need a clear-eyed assessment of the political terrain and a vision that can look beyond the current fight.

12/07/2025

In August 2022, Refaat Alareer wrote about growing up under Israeli occupation in Gaza, about childhood terror, the randomness of violence, and the stubborn insistence on telling stories that refuse to disappear.

A year later, in December 2023, as the Israeli military carried out a campaign of mass killing in Gaza, news spread that Refaat himself had been killed. The man who asked, “How many dead Palestinians are enough for the world to care?” became one of the lives taken.

We are resurfacing his original piece, not as an artifact from the past but as a record of what he lived through and what he insisted the world needed to hear. His words still push against silence.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/palestinian-struggle-armed-conflict-gaza-israel-idf

12/07/2025

In a new piece for Labor Notes’ roundtable on how unions can defend worker power under Trump 2.0, Alex Han, Executive Director of In These Times, looks at why talk of a general strike is gaining momentum and why the idea may be more realistic than it first appears.

Han describes the moment we are in: federal attacks on collective bargaining, expanded immigration enforcement, shrinking budgets for states and cities, and growing pressure on public institutions. He points to actions workers have already taken in recent years, such as the 2006 “Day Without an Immigrant,” Chicago’s one-day strike in 2016, the Red for Ed teacher walkouts, and the coordinated contract campaigns in the Twin Cities. These examples show that the labor movement has been laying the groundwork for large-scale collective action.

Rather than proposing a national plan, Han argues that the real work now is to link the fights already happening in our communities and draw lessons from these earlier moments. Those lessons include lifting up immigrant-led shutdowns as economic action, strengthening coalitions between unions and neighborhood groups, taking strategic risks even where strikes are restricted, and coordinating contract timelines and shared demands.

With major state budget battles coming and a large expansion of ICE enforcement on the way, Han writes that the first half of 2026 will be a critical moment for determining what kind of power working people can bring to the table and how they can use it.

https://labornotes.org/2025/12/maybe-general-strike-isnt-so-impossible-now

12/07/2025

Union leaders Everett Kelley of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and David Huerta of SEIU-West speak about the escalating attacks on workers’ rights during the second Trump administration.

Kelley describes how the recent Ninth Circuit ruling has cleared the way for the administration to strip collective bargaining rights from federal workers at 21 agencies, beginning with the Department of Veterans Affairs. He outlines what these changes mean for the 820,000 federal and D.C. government employees AFGE represents, and how cuts to staffing and resources affect the public.

Huerta discusses his own arrest during an ICE operation, the charges he faces, and how service-sector workers are positioned in the broader struggle over labor rights. He also talks about the role unions can play in organizing disruption and strengthening rank-and-file power.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/despite-trumps-threats-labor-leaders-say-theyre-not-going-anywhere