What happened to IAW at Portland State? [Israeli Apartheid Week]

By Gabriel T. Erbs February 29, 2012

The level of anti-Israel discourse at Portland State University is a “5.” What I mean to say is that pro-Israel students needn’t avoid the random keffiyah, but at the same time, a campus-wide Am Yisroel Chai party isn’t in the works either. The stairways of the student union are usually peppered with the latest BDS…

Read More...

Discussing the analogy of the week [Israeli Apartheid Week]

By Zach C. Cohen February 29, 2012

“Israel – Worse Than Apartheid?” was written on the whiteboard of an American University classroom yesterday during a “Discussion on the Israeli Apartheid Analogy,” part of AU Students for Justice in Palestine’s roster of events for Israel Apartheid Week. Being an SJP-organized event, opinions in the room tended to be favorable toward the pro-apartheid analogy…

Read More...

School is for ‘snobs’ [Politics]

By Zach C. Cohen February 29, 2012

Yup. You know all that debt you’re getting into paying your tuition? You better just drop out now, says presidential candidate Rick Santorum. Not really, but pretty close. Santorum, who has a BA, an MBA and JD, criticized President Barack Obama for saying in the State of the Union that everybody should go to college,…

Read More...

Don’t lick the Lubavitcher Rebbe; artsy synagogues; and more. [Required Reading]

By John Propper February 29, 2012

Up close and personal in the Gaza Strip [Vice News] After a failed attempt in 2007 to make it into Gaza, during a violent conflict there, Vice News finally makes it in, sharing their insights and experiences on one of the most hotly debated geographic regions on Earth. Licking the Lubavitcher Rebbe…? [Jerusalem Post] A…

Read More...

Students on hunger strike in solidarity with Palestinian prisoner

By Zach C. Cohen February 28, 2012

Students for Justice in Palestine members at American University protested the administrative detention of Khader Adnan, who was arrested last December by Israeli police forces, by going on their own hunger strike for five days. Israel believes he is an Islamic Jihad terrorist, but has been unable to produce any evidence. Authorities never formally charged…

Read More...

Modern vs. Orthodox [Religion]

By Simi Lichtman February 28, 2012

I’ve reached a point in my personal musings on Modern Orthodoxy that I’ve started to wonder whether such a thing is even possible: the merging of modern life and religious Judaism. Is Modern Orthodoxy a contradiction in terms? The Modern Orthodoxy ideal is living and engaging in the modern world while maintaining a lifestyle committed…

Read More...

Different ways of coping with IAW… and Brits fling water ‘missiles’ [Israeli Apartheid Week]

By David A.M. Wilensky February 28, 2012

I’ve got two items of note on the Israeli Apartheid Week front today:  Tablet Magazine has a nice selection of opinions on how to deal with IAW And Brits throwing water balloons. I’ll leave the water balloons aside for a minute and focus on the Tablet piece, which brings together a variety of people all combating IAW in their own…

Read More...

Not just another “Facebook marriage” [Activism]

By pkessler February 28, 2012

Facebook is a source of endless procrastination for college students, a place for middle schoolers to explore their burgeoning sexuality via pictures taken in mirror reflects, and occasionally, a place for political and social activism. This is one of the latter stories. As Rabbi Jason Miller commented in this Jewish Week blog post, Facebook is…

Read More...

Israeli Apartheid Week continues; Obama’s Jewish fundraiser; Agunot and Facebook, and more [Required Reading]

By pkessler February 28, 2012

Training to be a Jew [Tablet] Jake Kohlman, a Jewish soldier in the American armed forces, reflects on how his basic training enabled him to connect to his religion. “At that Sunday service, for the first time, I started to understand. The chaplain’s words lifted my spirits. I remembered why I had joined in the…

Read More...

Who critiques the critics?

By Harpo Jaeger February 28, 2012

Rabbi Mordechai Rackover, the Jewish chaplain of Brown University and the rabbi at Brown-RISD Hillel (which serves both Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design), doesn’t quite fit the popular conception of Orthodox Jews as out of touch with the modern world. He’s rarely found without his iPhone (except on Shabbat, of course), maintains a Kosher food blog, and is an almost alarmingly prolific tweeter. By any measure, he is as deeply involved in both modern American and Orthodox life as anyone can be. So what led him to strongly decry a recent statement by a group of Orthodox rabbis that condemned gay marriage, though he agrees with them that it is “halachically impossible”?

Read More...

Post Oscars [Academy Awards 2012]

By gedelstein February 27, 2012

There is a God, after 30 years and 17 nominations, Meryl Streep has won another Oscar. I say this because she is by far the finest actress of our time and yet every Oscar season it is a debate whether she will win the Oscar she easily deserves. This was a surprise considering her competition,…

Read More...

IAW starts early with a mic-check and some pepper spray [Israeli Apartheid Week]

By David A.M. Wilensky February 27, 2012

Israeli Apartheid Week began on Sunday. But some pro-Israel protesters at the University of California, Berkeley got started a day early, pepper spraying some folks on Saturday. Not to be outdone, a group of anti-Israel students mic-checked a speaker at the University of New Mexico on Thursday (see above video). On Thursday, protesters interrupted a…

Read More...

New Voices is gonna be on Al Jazeera. Kind of. [WTF]

By David A.M. Wilensky February 27, 2012

On Friday, we published an editorial about the NYPD’s practice of spying on Muslim college students. Apparently someone at Al Jazeera read it. Last night, I spoke on the phone with someone at Al Jazeera about talking on Al Jazeera about it. Kind of. Al Jazeera — yes, the English language version — has a…

Read More...

MSA meetings not quite so welcoming? [Letter to the Editor]

By Harpo Jaeger February 27, 2012

Our post on the NYPD’s spying on Muslim students elicited a letter to the editor from Marion D.S. Dreyfus: I have attended MSA meetings. They are not ecumenical, they are not inclusive, they are not unharmful. They surrounded me when they saw i was taking notes. Imams came in and began spouting shariah-filled  homilies that put the…

Read More...

Anti-Muslim prejudice rejects history, common sense [Politics]

By John Propper February 27, 2012

It doesn’t look like the controversy over news that the New York Police Department monitored the activities of Muslim students will be dying down anytime soon. Here at New Voices, we tracked the responses of various student presses to this disturbing report, and there have been many takes on the exact kind of prejudice this…

Read More...