Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
The following was crossposted to Jewschool. It was also emailed to New Jersey Jewish Standard Editor Rebecca Boroson, who you can also email at editor@jewishmediagroup.com. For a little background, check out today’s Reading List. To the editor: As a member of both the New Jersey press and the Jewish press, I am deeply disturbed by your…
The New Jersey Jewish Standard claims in its “About Us” that it is “dedicated to giving expression to all phases of Jewish life.” Its actions, however, show that it is not open to the Jewish LGBT community. The Standard did the sensible thing last week by printing a community couple’s same-sex wedding announcement, just as they would for…
My childhood Jewish identity revolved around two main things. One was the synagogue. I was either begrudgingly sitting through services, or devising new ways to get out of them without arousing my Mom’s suspicion. The other was Hebrew school, which I was coerced into attending on Saturday mornings while my non-Jewish friends were sleeping in….
We all know that Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook was, in his time, a passionate advocate of vegetarianism within a traditional Jewish philosophical framework. But Shmuel Hanagid? Seriously? (Shmuel Hanagid, by the way, was (one of) the 10th-11th century Jewish poet laureate(s) of Muslim Spain. He was also a learned Talmudic scholar, in addition to serving…
This morning, Justin Jacobs, a fellow Pittsburgher and an associate editor at The Jewish Chronicle, interviewed me about a neat summer experience I had. Which made me realize that I hadn’t written anything so “official” about it yet. So, what better forum than New Voices? I’ll break it down like this: Who: Me (a creative…
This is a guest post by Moriel Rothman, a senior at Middlebury College and the president of J Street U. The Israeli government did not renew the ten-month settlement freeze that ended on Sunday, so settlement construction restarted. No surprise. Netanyahu would have displayed courage and conviction by renewing the freeze, given his hawkish history…
Does history repeat itself? The strongman prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, told an anti-Semitic joke this week featuring–of all things–the Holocaust. But don’t worry, it’s OK, because it’s not like the Italian government had anything to do with carrying out the Holocaust… right? Right? [NYT Lede] In other hate news, it looks like “Price…
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Park 51, the thing that is going to be neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero. Io9, my favorite scifi blog, reports that designs of Park 51–which may never actually get built because they don’t have any money, but never mind that…–look like Superman’s Fortress of…
Dr. Eli Landau just accomplished the saddest thing I have heard (recently): he wrote Israel’s first pork cookbook. While some might argue that this is horrible because it is an Israeli cookbook about pork. I, on the other had, see this as horrible because it is only Israel’s first. Landau’s precedent shattering work is called,…
I give people all sorts of very sound, very Jewish advice. Find a synagogue you like going to. Check out your local JCC. Check out services. Find your own unique, awesome way to celebrate your Jewishness, your faith, your culture. Get involved with people romantically who understand how important faith is or isn’t important to…
There has been a lot of ruckus lately in the Israeli media about the idea of Jewish state. Well, not the idea of a Jewish state per se, but the debate over whether the PLO, specifically Abas, must recognize that in a two state solution, one state is comprised of a Jewish nation. Netanyahu said…
Why is that every time an Israeli tech firm so much as takes a leak, JTA is there to tell all about it? Today, they wrote: JERUSALEM (JTA) — AOL has purchased an Israeli web video start-up firm. The deal to acquire 5min Media is reported to be at about $65 million, according to the Israeli business…
Sukkah City, an exhibit of 11 artistic and design-oriented sukkahs created by architects and designers from across the world, showed in New York’s Union Square. In a slide show, New Voices editors talk about the exhibit, what is says about Sukkot, and how it relates to Judaism today. Happy holidays! View more presentations from NewVoices.
Last Thursday, UT Austin newspaper Daily Texan columnist Daley Epstein put it best: The holiest day of the Jewish year and the holiest day of the Longhorn calendar don’t usually coincide. However, next year, Yom Kippur and the Red River Rivalry both fall on Oct. 8, leaving Jewish Longhorns, about 10.5 percent of the UT…