Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
When Oceans Stand Between You and Your Dreams, You Have to Keep Swimming By Rachel Chabin, Stony Brook University Our Exodus begins with water. It begins with crossing when the water is over your head. It begins with a decision, a conviction; it begins with the choice to try to swim. When we fled to…
I screamed no. I screamed no, and he didn’t listen. He listened when I said yes to going to his room, he listened when I said yes to making out, but when I said no to sex, he didn’t listen. That’s rape. He took away my voice, my choice. He overpowered me, rendering me helpless….
The bar for President Trump is now set so low that he can clear it just by admitting that the Holocaust and anti-Semitism are bad. Praising Trump’s April 25 keynote speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual Day of Remembrance, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said, “It deeply matters that President Trump used the power…
We spent the night before Passover in different rooms. Some of us were in kitchens with our families, clearing our drawers of chametz. Some of us were in the library finishing homework before the start of the holiday. And some of us spent hours in the last Tufts University senate session of the year. Yet…
When I was in first grade, my family set high academic standards. From day one, my father told me I was going to Harvard, despite my learning barriers. For years, that belief was instilled in me, and I made sure to fit his dream, skeptical of whose passions drove me. To get the grades, I…
My mom lights the Shabbat candles as she covers her eyes with the palms of her hands. The room is dark except for the light in the kitchen, a lamp in the dining room, and the yellow glow from the flames. “Baruch atah Hashem,” she recites the prayer alone, my sisters and I sitting in…
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…
When I first came to Boston University in the fall of 2014, I split my time about evenly between two places – the Center for Gender, Sexuality, and Activism (CGSA), home to all the LGBT-centric groups on campus, and BU Hillel, the center of Jewish life. But as time went by, I gravitated more and…
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…
There are anti-Semites in the White House. They rank among the president’s closest advisors. Still, when I tell student activists that I feel unsafe in Trump’s America, I’m met with blank stares. I may be Jewish, sure, and everyone knows Jews have been persecuted. But in today’s student activist circles, Jews don’t count as a…
LGBTQ Jews have long been on the front lines, fighting for social justice. We are found on every page of the LGBTQ movement, from Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to office in California, to Avram Finkelstein, who co-founded the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP. We are found on every page…
I saw women and men sitting across from each other at tables and sat on the ground in between to make my presence visible. It was awkward for all of us. Apparently the irony of a heteronormative speed dating event taking place next door to a gay bar was lost on my Hillel. But the…
In an oddball crossbreed between leftist language and retro anti-Semitic tropes, posters that read ‘End Jewish Privilege’ appeared on University of Illinois at Chicago’s campus earlier this month. The posters proclaimed, “Ending white privilege starts with ending Jewish privilege,” followed by an image of a pyramid with Jews at the top and “goyim not drawn to scale” at the bottom. Eva…
The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups deemed anti-Muslim by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Center for American Progress, alleges a new report from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Chicago. In a world where Muslims and Jews alike are threatened by rising hatred, there is no room for…
If you dissent, I don’t mind. But leave your judgment here and see what you find: In New Voices last week, a great friend and classmate of mine, Sarah Asch, wrote a response to the protest of Charles Murray at Middlebury College, in which she blames the college administration for allowing Murray to speak. “This…