Jess Schwalb

“The Itch to Create”: A Jewish Currents Fellowship Reflection

By Jess Schwalb February 6, 2020

I rediscovered the power of art and creativity from the other New Voices fellows; when I write the next niggun, I will send it to them first.

Read More...

Maccabee Games

By Jess Schwalb December 27, 2019

“The reason that I went was that everything was paid for,” she said, adding, “It was so clear that there was an agenda, but I didn’t ask who funded it. I didn’t really want to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Read More...

Red Line Rebellion

By Jess Schwalb July 9, 2019

Though JOOOT-affiliated independent groups lack the financial resources and name recognition of Hillel International, they offer students a powerful invitation: create the Judaism you want to be a part of. Kahn believes that JOOOT’s impact will extend far beyond the campus. “We’re giving people a taste of what the potential of radically inclusive Judaism can be,” he says.

Read More...

Campus Freedom Seders: Freedom For Who, Exactly?

By Jess Schwalb April 23, 2019

Lift your head from the haggadah. Where is Pharaoh’s army today? This inquiry motivated Rabbi Arthur Waskow to create the first Freedom Seder. After Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s April 1968 assassination, Waskow saw the police occupation of black neighborhoods in DC and other cities nationwide as an uncanny parallel to the Passover story. The…

Read More...