Review: “These and Those” Tests The Limits of Jewish Safety
A new play by Ruth Geye paints a critical, intimate portrait of a modern orthodox student Shabbat lunch, asking, “how much are we willing to mutilate our souls in the pursuit of safety?”
Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Sophie Hurwitz
Waters Of Heaven, Waters Of Earth
Shira had been texting her best friend for a long time. Maybe this will be forever, she thought. This imperfect, one-sided conversation. The world is built on longing, she remembered as she pulled one end of the gum out of her mouth, stretched it out, and stuck the end back in and pulled to make a loop.
“Youth to Power” Offers Activism 101 for Students
Would reading “Youth to Power” have changed many of my decisions for the good or bad? I’m not sure. But I do know it would’ve made me feel less alone.
Do Jews Believe in Ghosts?: A Jewish Women’s Archive Fellowship Reflection
As I sit around the shabbos table with my friends, my family, I imagine there are others there with us, pulled there out of the past.
Liz Alpern Builds Queer and Jewish Community Through Food
“I love soup, I always have…and, crucially, it’s the kind of food you can make in large quantities without it being too expensive. It’s also a humble kind of food – even if it’s really high-quality. It’s friendly, it’s welcoming. It’s a comfort food, and no matter what culture you’re from, soup is often the thing you eat when you’re sick, or the thing you eat on cold nights.”
Second Judaism On Our Own Terms Conference Wrestles with Sustainability
Judaism On Our Own Terms (JOOOT), a network of college students attempting to build Jewish communities without major donor-fueled organizations like Hillel and the Jewish Federations, has only existed since last April. The weekend of September 16th, they held their second-ever national conference on the campus of Brown University. According to one attendee, a former…
Semantics Don’t Matter. Shutting Down ICE Does.
In Elizabeth, New Jersey, when I shouted “Close the camps!” and sang “Which Side Are You On,” a song I remembered from the Ferguson rebellion in my hometown of St. Louis when I was young, I meant it.
At USC, Controversy Over a Drag Show Alienates LGBT Jews
On April 17th, the brand-new student organization Nice Jewish Queers at the University of Southern California was getting ready to host one of their biggest events of the year: the Passover drag show, which intended to celebrate the queer Jewish community on campus. Within a day, however, student leader Ariella Amit was sending in her…
I Was Targeted by Canary Mission. The St. Louis JCRC Had My Back.
Three weeks ago, a journalist named Aisha Sultan published a column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch detailing the experience that I and a student named Shaadie Ali each had with the website Canary Mission. Canary Mission places people who speak out about Palestinian rights – mainly undergraduates like me – on a blacklist, listing us…
JSwipe, Parental Pressure, and Lapsed Catholic Girlfriends: How Young Jews are Dating Today
We’ve come a long way since the days when a matchmaker was the main way for a young Jewish person to find romantic connection. Now, in the middle of a milieu of anxieties about assimilation, continuity, and online dating, young Jews no longer have such a clear guide to finding love. For many millennial Jews,…
My Interfaith Family is Your Jewish Future
This past spring, Sheldon Adelson—noted Republican donor and Birthright funder—was awarded the “Guardian of the Jewish Future” award at the annual Birthright Israel gala in New York City. Without Birthright, he said, only 42% of Jewish kids between the ages of 18 and 26 marry other Jews or bring up their children Jewish. “In another…