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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I Swipe, You Swipe, We All Swipe For JSwipe

By New Voices Staff August 30, 2017

At New Voices, we cover the crucial elements of your college experience. Like your awkward JSwipe dates. Don’t lie, you’ve been on some sort of Jewish dating app or site. You’re embarrassed – but you made an account, you deleted it, and then you downloaded it again after your fill-in-the-blank Jewish family member nagged you about…

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Teaching Disability Inclusion One Shabbat at a Time

By Lily Coltoff August 23, 2017

My initial reaction after the fact was relief. After months of planning, weeks of searching for the perfect readings, and a few crazy days of racing around like a chicken with its head cut off, I had finally crafted my first Friday night Shabbat service. And thankfully, it was a success. Earlier this year, as…

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Cobbling Together a Jewish Life in China, Just Like My Grandparents

By Izzy Ullmann August 21, 2017

Originally published in J. Weekly. Being isolated from community tests one’s commitment to the values and practices that normally bring that community together. This is what the experience of being a Jew in China has taught me. I grew up in the warm embraces of Judaism, spending many hours at Yavneh, a Jewish day school in…

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The Cost of Privatizing Jewish Campus Life

By Misha Vilenchuk July 26, 2017

Throughout the 20th century, American Jews – particularly young Jews – were agents of social change. The pre-war generation stood for worker’s rights, while the generation after the Holocaust marched at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. Why then are there so few Jews active in the contemporary resurgence of progressive student activism? Some…

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Students Start Cooking Club to Help Chabad Make Shabbat Dinner

By Hannah Bernstein July 25, 2017

Every Friday at 7:30 p.m., University of Minnesota students pile into the Steiner family’s Chabad House for dinner. As usual, there is homemade challah and matzo ball soup, but there’s also something special – the dinner was made by the students themselves.  That’s because of the Kosher Cooking Club, or KCC. Every Thursday, students get…

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Your Favorite Childhood Reads and Their Surprising Holocaust Histories

By Jackson Richman July 10, 2017

My favorite childhood books, “Curious George” and “Where the Wild Things Are,” always gave me a smile. They’re both fun light reads with lovable, mischievous main characters. Their creators, however, share a dark, trying past. The authors and their ancestors, H.A. and Margaret Rey and Maurice Sendak, respectively, survived the Shoah before creating some of…

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5 Jewish Facebook Spaces For All Your Procrastinating Needs

By New Voices Staff June 26, 2017

Sure, it may be summer now, but fall semester is coming quicker than you know it. And when it does come, you’re going to need ways to procrastinate your midterms, projects, and more. Thankfully, New Voices has you covered with five Jewish Facebook spaces to enhance your procrastinating experience. Whether you’re into arguing with fellow…

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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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10 Jewish LGBT Leaders You Need to Know This Pride

By Peter Fox June 12, 2017

As double minorities, LGBT Jews are small in number but have left a profound mark on the course of history. It’s not surprising that Jews have played a monumental role in erasing bigotry in all shapes and forms. Inherent in Jewish identity is a drive for social justice, or tikkun olam, the belief in repairing…

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No Love for the Film “Hate Spaces”

By Berakha Guggenheim May 30, 2017

“Hate Spaces,” a documentary film released in 2016 and written and directed by Avi Goldwasser, aims to shine a light on campus anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. But, alas, “Hate Spaces” didn’t earn my love. Ultimately, while it starts out strong, it soon devolves into a conspiracy-laden diatribe about Muslims, social justice warriors, and Palestinians. “Hate Spaces”…

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‘Hogwarts Haggadah’ Author (and Rabbi) Reveals the Magic Behind His Book

By Josh Weiss April 10, 2017

Other than the mention of holidays like Christmas and Easter in the Wizarding World, J.K. Rowling avoided the topic of religion in her “Harry Potter” books. After all, the complexities and controversies surrounding faith would have felt a little out of place in a young adult series and would have bogged down the momentum of…

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‘Neo-Klezmer’ Rock Band Adds a Twist to Tradition

By David Klein April 5, 2017

Dozens donned tacky pink yarmulkes, danced the hora, and had a l’chaim at Drom in Lower Manhattan on Thursday, March 23 to celebrate the nuptials of the band Golem – and, well, it’s not really clear what that means. The event, titled Golem Gets Married was an irreverent, gender-bending riff on an old Catskills tradition,…

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Republicans React to Jewish Campus Life Under Trump

By Jackson Richman March 6, 2017

The media has shown us months of outraged reactions over Donald Trump’s election, particularly among students. Campus protests frequently appear on our TV screens and in our newspapers. But, few are talking about students who walk past the rallies that protest the result of their vote – or their presumed vote as Republicans. Few are…

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New Feminists Club Fights Sexism at Yeshiva University

By New Voices Staff February 27, 2017

In all caps, the posters read, “SEXISM EXISTS,” on the wall outside the Yeshiva University library. Printouts of anonymous sexist social media posts by YU students surrounded the bolded statement. The display, torn down an hour after it went up on Feb. 16, was one of the first acts of the YU Feminists Club, a…

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