Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
The J Street conference kicks off here in D.C. tomorrow night. I’ve come down from New York to cover it and I’ll be joined by four more New Voices contributors by the time the whole shebang kicks off. There’s a great piece in Tablet today in anticipation of the J Street conference about Breira, a…
After one of Jerusalem’s largest ethnic clashes, no arrests made [Haaretz] It became one of Jerusalem’s largest clashes between ethnic groups. Yet when the smoke cleared, not a single arrest was made, and no charges were pressed. After a soccer game, a group of Beitar Jerusalem fans poured into a shopping mall and began harassing…
This year I became a Peer-Network Engagement Intern (PNEI) for my Hillel, which is a paid position that works in conjunction with Hillel International in DC. The program varies from campus to campus, but essentially my responsibility at Johns Hopkins is to help engage Jewish students on campus, and to try and connect them to…
Mohammad Merah, the 23-year-old French-Algerian accused of going on a spree of killings culminating in Monday’s deadly assault on a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, was killed trying to evade police after a 30+ hour stand off with law enforcement at his apartment. With Merah apprehended, France and Jewish communities everywhere can lick their wounds,…
Knesset passes “photoshop law” [Haaretz] Earlier this week, the Knesset passed a law banning the use of underweight models in advertising campaigns and requiring ad agencies to disclose when a photo has been digitally altered in order to make a model look thinner. The measure, which comes on the heels of similar efforts in the U.S….
Rising indie pop artist Chana Rothman seems tailor made for an enthusiastic fandom. With greater numbers of young people embracing the roots of their cultures, music that blends Western sensibilities with world sounds is in greater demand. In the Jewish world, musicians have capitalized on this need for both cultural authenticity and tame worldliness to…
The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the leaves are back to their original color- signs I personally look forward to every year. And no, not just because I’m excited to wear sandals and paint my nails pink- it’s almost Pesach, one of the biggest holidays of the year. I don’t know about…
Correction appended “He still seems to be the most viable candidate,” Epstein said, even as media elites predict a Santorum-Gingrich ticket in a brokered convention. Epstein is no casual voter. She is currently taking a class taught by Democratic strategist James Carville, where she and her peers are studying the presidential election with the help of…
Daily Reform prayer? There’s an app for that [Forward] Following the recent release of the Reform movement’s Kabbalat Shabbat siddur in iPad form, the movement has now released an update featuring daily morning prayers. The Jewish Daily Forward reports: “The new application, which costs less than $5, was launched at the annual gathering of the…
As a cognitive psychology major, I’m incredibly biased when I say that Roi Ben-Yehuda’s outline of the cognition behind Israel’s recent inflammatory rhetoric is fascinating. However, there’s no denying that history and psychology are irrevocably intertwined, and hopefully Ben-Yehuda and I can make the case that when it comes to diplomacy, a cognitive analysis of…
The actions of University of California President Mark Yudof following a string of disturbing events are commendable, and should be an example to the rest of us.
Standing Silent in Baltimore [Washington Post] Standing Silent, a new documentary exposing sexual abuse in the Jewish community in Baltimore, is Phil Jacobs’, a reporter for the Baltimore Jewish Times, healing project after he too was the victim of sexual abuse. The Washington Post offers haunting photo coverage of Jacobs as he speaks to…
The title of this post could be the setup for a joke. Or it could be a ham-fisted intro to a post about Mormon baptism. Actually, it’s both – and neither. Yes, it’s true that Mormons posthumously baptized Hitler, Anne Frank, Gandhi and Elvis. But sometimes reality is a bit of joke. And yes, this…
Jewish artist Marc Chagall did not grow up around art. He claimed the concept was totally foreign to him when he one day asked a classmate how he learned to draw. According to the bohttp://blog.newvoices.org/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=11626ok Marc Chagallby Jacob Baal-Teshuva, the friend replied, “Go and find a book in the library, idiot, choose any picture you…
In Friday’s Required Reading, we featured a short article by Gavriella Lerner on “ex-frum” stories and the implications they have for Orthodox Jews. The article follows the publication of “Unorthodox,” the story of a young woman who flees a Satmar Chasidic community. The book is gaining momentum in the public eye. But Lerner’s not sure…