Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Two years ago, I wrote my first blog post for New Voices. I invited young Conservative Jews, unhappy with the current situation within their movement, to enter into conversation with me and the many other young Jews I know who grew up Modern Orthodox. We, too, were discontented with what we perceived as our movement’s…
As a child, my rabbis and Judaic studies teachers cautioned me against straying “off the derekh,” which almost literally translates to off of the Orthodox straight-and-narrow. If we did, though, then the High Holidays were a time when we could return to once again being on the straight, singular path that Orthodoxy provided. As a…
Yesterday, I was reminded that the world in which I grew up — the Orthodox world — is one toward which I feel a sense of affinity, but also fear. The stabbing at Jerusalem Pride, carried out by a man who committed a similar crime a decade ago, confirmed this for me. I can love…
On October 11, 2009, I woke up in my best friend’s apartment at 5 a.m. We had a bus to catch to D.C. We were going to the National Equality March. Before that, though, we had something to do. Together we’d decided we would come out on Facebook, in honor of the march and National…
In May, BirthWrong gave students the opportunity to travel to Spain to learn about communism, the Spanish Civil War, and Jewish culture outside of Israel. BirthWrong was founded by the left-wing British organization Jewdas as a response to Taglit-Birthright Israel, an organization that takes Jews aged 18 to 26 on a free trip to Israel….
Two Jewish nonprofit employees walk into a Christmas store. Then what? This isn’t the set-up for a joke. There’s no punchline here. If you’re me, you walk around feeling divided between a sense of familiarity and a feeling of foreignness. If you’re my predecessor Derek, maybe it all just feels foreign. But it doesn’t matter…
Treason has been on my mind a lot the past few weeks. In the Jewish world, the website Canary Mission – which seeks to create a “blacklist” of pro-Palestinian activists – has caused a controversy. Many of those profiled on the site are Jewish – including New Voices contributor Tom Pessah; those of our brethren…
Choosing a college was the first big choice I had ever made. I knew Seton Hall University gave away good scholarships, was close, and I figured I had nothing to lose. Two months later, I was accepted to their six year B.S.E. Elementary/Special Education/M.S. Speech Pathology program. The first time I set foot on campus,…
American students are more likely to die from gun violence than car accidents. It seems as if we serve as potential targets wherever we go. The horror that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School is still remembered around the world, but perhaps the most tragic thing about it is that almost 100 school shootings have…
In January 2014, Rabbi Avi Weiss’s conversions were called into question by the Israeli Rabbinate. At the time, this was the most prominent example of the differences between the Orthodoxy’s left and right wings, as well as the growing gulf between American and Israeli Jewries. This gulf widened last week when news broke of the…
Some people go to the United Kingdom and develop a love for the royal family. I went to the U.K. and became strongly anti-monarchist. Don’t get me wrong: the current Queen is fantastic, and the British monarchy is one of the most fascinating traditions alive today. But there’s something I find utterly ridiculous about a…
As a child who had made the decision—to my parents’ chagrin, at least in part because for the better part of my childhood I ate little other than various combinations of dough, tomato sauce, and cheese — to become a vegetarian, Shavuot was one of my highlights of the Jewish calendar. It was the one…
It started over a cup of coffee. I had just gone to Israel and was eager to continue learning about that illusive country I had just been exposed to. Courtney Strauss had just started her new job as Director of Engagement of the Hillel Jewish University Center at the University of Pittsburgh and was eager…
“American [Jew]s are fleeing organized religion.” This was the big takeaway from the Pew Report in 2013 (I feel a not insignificant embarrassment that we are still quoting it) and another report released last week on the state of American religion in general, both of which found that many Americans are affiliating less and…
At 8:17 a.m. on a rainy Thursday morning, a group of nine Jewish students at Guilford College decided to make a change. Rather than continuing to label themselves as a Hillel, the students decided to dub themselves Guilford Chavurah, meaning “group of friends” in Hebrew. “I want it to be a very flexible club,” said…