Sarah Asch

Anxiety, Trauma, and Judaism in the Trump Era

By Sarah Asch July 16, 2019

A few months after the Pittsburgh shooting, I had my first panic attack. It was triggered by something inconsequential, but my anxiety had been one the rise since that Shabbat. I could feel it in little moments—a rush through my chest, a clench in my stomach, a film behind my eyes.

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Beyond the Headline: A Student Reporter Reflects on a Story that Hit Home

By Sarah Asch April 18, 2019

Controversy erupted at Middlebury last week after a question from a chemistry midterm came to light that invoked the Holocaust. The question identified Hydrogen Cyanide as “a poisonous gas that Nazi Germany used to horrific ends in the gas chambers during the Holocaust,” and then asked students to calculate a lethal dose of the substance…

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Chemistry Exam Question Invokes Nazi Gas Chambers, Causes Controversy at Middlebury

By Sarah Asch April 11, 2019

This article was originally published in the Middlebury Campus on April 8th, 2019. A question posed on a chemistry midterm last month asked students to calculate “a lethal dose” of the gas “Nazi Germany used to horrific ends in the gas chambers during The Holocaust.” The test question was brought to public attention last Friday…

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J Street’s Israel-Palestine Trip Invites Critique and Hope

By Sarah Asch March 28, 2019

J Street recently announced the launch of a new free trip that will take American Jewish students to Israel-Palestine this upcoming July. The trip will include meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and stops in both Palestinian cities and Israeli settlements in the West Bank. According to J Street U President and Stanford senior Eva…

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The Shtetl Goes Digital: Modern Yentas Turn to Facebook

By Sarah Asch November 27, 2018

Photo credit: athree23 | Pixabay.com. This past summer, Ronit Treatman read a wedding announcement in the New York Times about a successful match made at a bar mitzvah. Treatman, a 50-year-old Philadelphia native, has spent the last decade connecting the Jewish community, largely through several community forums she has built and managed on Facebook. Reading the…

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“This Is What I Was Scared Of”: First Thoughts After a Massacre

By Sarah Asch October 29, 2018

When I saw the news I tried to think if I know anyone who lives in Pittsburgh. If any of my Jewish friends have family there. If any of the first years we’ve welcomed to Hillel over the last few months grew up there. I couldn’t think. I called my friend and cried on the…

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How It Felt to Be Jew-Outed While Studying Abroad

By Sarah Asch August 31, 2018

The first time I got Jew-outed in Spain, I stood in a group of my fellow American exchange students outside our medieval Christian art class. It was the beginning of my semester abroad, back when I could only understand 40% of any given lecture and I spent my days struggling alongside Spaniards who had been…

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Welcome to the Conversation: A Guide to Left-Wing Israel Organizations on Campus

By Sarah Asch January 18, 2018

The first time I encountered a progressive view about Israel was when I went on my first college tour at the age of 16. On UC Berkley’s campus, across the Bay from my house, I noticed small black flags planted in the grass. A sign informed passersby that these flags represented the movement for justice…

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No, Israel, You Can’t Have My Number

By Sarah Asch November 1, 2017

This is how I imagine the Israeli government making the decision to collect the contact information for 350,000 American Jewish college students: I imagine that Naftali Bennett and Bibi met in a dark basement under the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and, in the light of a single candle, recommitted themselves to their a secret plan…

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Dear Teachers, We Have an Israel Education Problem

By Sarah Asch September 15, 2017

Dear Jewish educators, First, I would like to thank you for dedicating your lives to helping students like me understand faith and tradition. Thank you for allowing me to develop life-long friendships, for allowing me to grow my creativity and for patiently fielding my questions. Thank you for encouraging my feminism and my passion for…

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Stanford Professor Explains Why Jewish Students Don’t Fear Campus

By Sarah Asch September 14, 2017

College campuses do not run rampant with anti-Semitic sentiment – at least according to Stanford professor Ari Kelman’s latest study. Kelman, a professor of education and Jewish studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, recently published a study called “Safe and On the Sidelines,” which explores Jewish life on college campuses. Kelman, who is…

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The Jewish Students of Sumud Freedom Camp

By Sarah Asch June 22, 2017

In Sarura, a village in the West Bank, a group of Jewish and Palestinian activists worked together to raise the first tent in the Sumud Freedom Camp on May 19. The group, which included a number of Jewish students, constructed the camp in the same location where Palestinians were evicted in the 1990s. They did…

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An Open Letter to Press Secretary Sean Spicer

By Sarah Asch April 19, 2017

Dear Sean Spicer, You had to do it, didn’t you? You had to play the Holocaust card. With Steve Bannon watching smugly from his perch on the president’s shoulder, you held Hitler up as a model fascist, because at least he didn’t use chemical weapons. You said this on the first day of Passover. And…

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The OSU Incident: The Problem Is Hillel’s Israel Policy

By Sarah Asch April 6, 2017

Ohio State University Hillel cut ties last week with an LGBTQ Jewish student organization, and possible homophobia is just the beginning of why it’s a problem. To recap, the split occurred after the group, B’nai Keshet, hosted an event to help queer refugees. They co-sponsored the event with Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish group…

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Shutting Down Charles Murray Wasn’t a Free Speech Issue

By Sarah Asch March 15, 2017

We’ve made a lot of headlines recently at Middlebury College. Most news coverage of the student protest resisting controversial speaker Charles Murray has been discouraging and demeaning – “Violent Student Mob in Vermont Shuts Down Charles Murray” and “Understanding the Angry Mob at Middlebury that Gave Me a Concussion” and “The Middlebury Protest and Our…

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