Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
At the University of Chicago Hillel the students aren’t the rebellious ones. The Jewish federation of Chicago fired the professional head of the U. Chicago Hillel along with its entire board on March 30, the Forward reports (written by former New Voices editor Josh Nathan-Kazis). There’s a whole lot of weird in this story: What…
The other day, we brought you this editorial about the endlessly expanding list of flora you can add to your seder plate. Now the Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross (actually Storahtelling founder Amichai Lau-Lavie in one of his alter-egos) has this charming video encouraging us all to add an apple to our seder plates. Why? As the…
April Fool’s editions of college newspapers are a storied tradition on American campuses. They are also a never-ending source of cringe-worthy jokes that end up on the wrong side of the line between satire and offense, genuine outrage and bashful after-the-fact apologies from their creators. (As evidenced by these “f*ck-cats;” this issue, which included stories…
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…
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…
You’ve waited all year for it. And now it’s finally time to register for the National Jewish Student Journalism Conference! Get excited. It’s on Facebook. This year’s conference will take place May 20-22, 2012 at the NYU Bronfman Center in New York City. It’s sponsored by New Voices Magazine, the Jewish Student Press Service and The Jewish Daily…
41 years ago today, the Jewish Student Press Service (the wire service that preceded New Voices Magazine and the name of the organization that still publishes New Voices) was front page news in The New York Times. Yesterday morning, I went by the American Jewish Historical Society, with the current JSPS board chair, Mik Moore….
Whew. That was quite a week. Now that it’s over, check out Dafna Fine’s terrific piece of news analysis on this year’s Israeli Apartheid Week: While reactions came in different forms from different pro-Israel groups, they were almost unanimous in their embrace of a new strategy this year: Avoid a direct attack on pro-Palestinian groups…
I can’t figure out how to embed the podcast, though that would have been ideal: In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis [a former editor of New Voices] talks with Forward Washington correspondent Nathan Guttman about the odd collection of groups that make up the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Then, with…
Two op-eds caught my eye over the weekend. They got me wondering where the middle ground is between belligerently attacking anti-Israel sentiments and ignoring them while spewing lovely factoids about Israel. In one op-ed, the founders of the David Project take issue with their organization’s new direction, arguing — as summed up in the headline…
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…
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…
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…
The David Project has long been known as one of the most aggressive, acrimonious pro-Israel voices on campus. But their new report, “A Burning Campus” Rethinking Israel Advocacy at America’s Universities and Colleges,” is starting to change that reputation. Full of new strategies for combating what they see as destructive efforts to delegitimize Israel on campus, they hope the report will form the basis for a new unifying strategy for all on-campus Israel advocacy organizations. At its core is a complete 180: the idea that vigorously attacking “anti-Israelism” on campus is counterproductive.
David Bernstein was hired as the executive director of the David Project two years ago. I spoke with Bernstein yesterday. We went beyond the new report and touch on everything from the definition of pro-Israel to the upcoming Israeli Apartheid Week — and Bernstein talked about correcting common misconceptions about what Jewish campus life is like today.
Wilensky: After working at the American Jewish Committee for several years, what drew you to the David Project?
Bernstein: I started out as a pro-Israel student activist in college. I was the head of the pro-Israel student group at [Ohio State University], an activist in the Soviet Jewry movement and I was on the national Hillel student executive committee. I’ve always felt a special kinship to the campus scene.