Ghosts of Passovers Past

By Dani Plung April 17, 2014

Yom Tovs aren’t days we traditionally think about death. They’ve always been, at least in my understanding, about life, and the preservation of life, celebrations of survival despite all the odds being against us to live or to live well. In the case of Pesach, we celebrate our overcoming persecution to live autonomously—in short to…

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Stopping Orthodox Erasure

By Amram Altzman April 14, 2014

Dear Jew in the City:   I understand what you’re trying to do on BuzzFeed with your articles about trying to normalize Orthodox Judaism. You are trying to show that, no, those of us who were raised in the Orthodox world (or are Orthodox now) do not actually have to be that different from you…

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Time is Chopped Liver

By Dani Plung April 10, 2014

Passovers during my high school years were games of “What-will-Dani-bring-to-school-for-lunch-today”?  Hosting Seders at my house almost every year meant that we always had an insurmountable amount of leftover Peschadike food in our fridge. This, combined with the fact that the only Kosher for Pesach thing my school cafeteria served was plain matzah with butter, meant…

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Heresy! (?)

By Amram Altzman April 7, 2014

Heresy warning: I’m not sure I believe in God. Or, at the very least, if I believe in God, I do not believe in God as He Who Dwells on a Throne and Smites You When You Sin, as I was taught as a child. When I pray, I do so not necessarily out of…

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My Shabbat Dinner with Muslims

By Audra Gamble April 3, 2014

My grandmother tells this story about how a relative of hers who lived in Israel asked her, quite intensely, whether she was an American or a Jew. She didn’t know what to say; why couldn’t she be both? For many American Jews, including me, this question is ridiculous. I have no problems with the intersecting…

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A Jewish Daughter Reads ‘The Jewish Daughter Diaries’

By Dani Plung April 2, 2014

I must have told my mother one too many times that she embodies the Jewish Mother stereotype. (She really does, by the way.  Ask, as one example, the ten cast and crew members of a show I worked on in high school for whom my mother provided enough food for forty people, lest anyone starve…

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The Black and White Necessity for Grey Zone Judaism

By Deborah Pollack April 1, 2014

This academic year I am a part of the Peoplehood Project: a UJA sponsored program that brings together students from Columbia/Barnard Hillel, Oranim College in northern Israel, and ZWST, a German Jewish organization. Each cohort spends time learning in their respective home countries, then, over winter break, all three groups spend time traveling and learning…

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Toward a Queerer, Jewier Tomorrow

By Amram Altzman March 31, 2014

When I was in high school, I had this fantasy where I told myself that I would come out of the closet as soon as I got that one text from a friend asking if they could tell me something, and then they would tell me that they are gay. That fantasy was never realized….

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Coming of Age as South Dakota’s Token Jew

By Andy Engelmann March 26, 2014

Two calls, a text, and three Facebook messages, all in less than a week.  That was how I learned about B’rith Shalom, South Dakota’s first Jewish student culture club at South Dakota State University.  You see, for years, I had been known as “The Jew.”  Growing up in the middle the Sioux Empire, we were…

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Questioning the Role of Zionism in Jewish Identity

By Dani Plung March 26, 2014

I don’t remember much about my brief stint on the high school crew team, probably because it only lasted one spring season when I was fourteen. Most of what I do remember is meaningless—and not exceedingly positive—like not being able to carry my share of the boat and thereby forcing a coach to take over…

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Why the Jewish College Student Survey Matters to You

By Derek M. Kwait March 25, 2014

For all its hype, the Pew report missed a lot of college-aged Jews, and therefore might have missed a lot about us. Two professors from Trinity College in Connecticut, Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, hope to get the true picture of who we are and what we want by creating an online survey accessible here…

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Dear Jay Michaelson: We Can’t Afford To Leave Hillel

By Amram Altzman March 24, 2014

In his recent article in the Forward, Jay Michaelson argues that students who feel marginalized by the increasing tendency of right-leaning major Jewish organizations to air only those views which toe their institutional lines should vote with their feet and leave. This works well in theory for institutions like the Jewish Museum, which recanted its…

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Anorexia and Shabbat Pt. 2

By Jourdan Stein March 20, 2014

…Continued from Anorexia and Shabbat  My first Friday out of my first intensive treatment session for anorexia.  I’m supposed to be excited to see my friends, relax, and enjoy the free food that Hillel is serving for Shabbat dinner.  I know what’s on the menu for the night, and how now much of each food…

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Challenging “The J Street Challenge” (or, Why I Didn’t Go To AIPAC This Year)

By Amram Altzman March 17, 2014

I am an American. I am neither an Israeli, nor am I a Palestinian. However, I am a Jew, and a pro-Israel American, who lives in a country which has strong, positive relations with Israel. As a Zionist, I see it as my job to defend Israel as a Jewish State, and that means protecting…

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Anorexia and Shabbat

By Jourdan Stein March 14, 2014

Third grade lunch at Solomon Schechter Jewish Day School. All my friends are sitting around eating Cheetos and sharing sandwiches. Me, I’m staring at the clock waiting for the little and the big hand to both land on the twelve so that I can throw the untouched lunch my mother packed me into the trash…

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