ZOA’s personal attack on New Voices editor

By David A.M. Wilensky May 2, 2012

Not to get too overwrought, but here’s my blog post in response to a Zionist Organization of America press release in response to my JTA op-ed in response to their JTA op-ed. Throughout the press release, notice how many of my points are avoided by going on an ad hominem rampage against me. NEW YORK,…

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The refugee camp where my grandparents met

By Gabe Weinstein May 2, 2012

Two weeks ago on Yom Hashoah, the Jewish day of Holocaust remembrance, I remembered how lucky I was to be sitting in a balmy lecture hall listening to a boring lecture about Native American history. On an April afternoon 70 years ago my grandma Ethel was in Siberia, where she and her mother landed after fleeing Poland, peddling trinkets after school. Grandpa Sam might have been hopping a train to the Russian-Chinese border or waking up from a nap on top of a gravestone.

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Bar Rafaeli is awesome; why ordaining cantors matters; Shmitah and our economy; and more. [Required Reading]

By John Propper May 2, 2012

Topless Bar Rafaeli jumps around. Or something. [Daily Mail] You’ve already clicked away, haven’t you? Ordaining cantors and why it matters [Jewish Journal] Recent news that the Hebrew Union College (the U.S. Reform seminary) would begin ordaining cantors, rather than “investing” them was met with a bit of a question mark from many. (At least, from what…

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Hazing, Why? [Campus]

By pkessler May 1, 2012

Recent articles about hazing at Dartmouth, as well as the embattled chapters of Jewish Fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi, left me wondering: why do we give fraternities, as institutions of our peers with little, if any, distinguishable qualities from the rest of the student body, positions of power in our colleges and universities? What makes otherwise respectable…

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Animal House(s) lose University recognition, Murdoch ‘unfit’ to lead NewsCorp, Fighting Technological Illiteracy, and more [Required Reading]

By pkessler May 1, 2012

Bye Bye AEPi [JewSchool] The Gamma chapter of international Jewish fraternity AEPi is being shut down, amidst reports of repeated hazing. The chapter, located at the University of Pennsylvania, is not the only chapter of AEPi whose bad behavior has been making ripples lately. The virtues of the fraternity with the highest national GPA are…

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