Ten Years of New Voices

Written by Ilana Polyak

Getting Things Rolling Again
I admit it, the Jewish Student Press Service was more of a way to get to New York than a romantic foray into the tradition of Jewish student journalism. I was living in Los Angeles, in the same room where I spent my brooding adolescence, with the same people (my parents) who presided over that time in my life, when I heard about the opening at JSPS, the publisher of New Voices. Why not, I thought? I knew a thing or two about editing a Jewish student rag. I had, after all, been the editor of the University of California at Santa Cruz Jewish student paper, Leviathan. And I knew a thing or two about New Voices, having written a few pieces for previous editor Sandy Edry when I was still a student.

Logically, my first call about New Voices was to Sandy, who tried to talk me out of it. He described the job as long hours, little pay, and even less recognition--in other words having about the same things going for it as about every other job in Jewish journalism, but with the added benefit of working with students. To me that sounded like just the ticket.

I arrived in New York a few days before my interview with members of the board of the North American Jewish Students Appeal, the umbrella organization that funded JSPS and other Jewish student groups. While Sandy had toiled away at JSPS and New Voices at a full-time pace (and sometimes even more), he was only paid as a part-time employee. Now the Appeal recognized that the job was much bigger than a part-time position. Finally, New Voices would have a full-time editor.

When I first started editing New Voices, the paper hadn't been published in more than a year. After Sandy's successful tenure, a string of editors came and went without putting out a single issue. The challenges were vast. There just hadn't been any money, and the editors had worked as volunteers, holding down other jobs to pay the rent.

On my first day in the office (or rather the cubicle that had been donated by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency for several years), I dug through more than a year of documents and attempts at organizing the paper. Among some of the more memorable things I encountered that day were: a mouse-chewed list of student activists, yellowing campus newspapers from around the country, old mimeographed articles from the 1970s and early 1980s about the student struggle to free Soviet Jewry, polemics on Zionism and feminism, and love letters from one JSPS writer to another.

During the next two months, I had to not only edit the magazine and commission articles, but also find student writers. It was summer, but after calling around to different campus Hillels, I found student journalists. I also found a wealth of student journalism that had been printed in the past year at different schools. The issue was taking shape.

The first issue was a mess. Not only did I misplace an advertisement on Erev Yom Kippur (which only resurfaced some time around Simchat Torah), I also didn't realize that our printer hadn't been paid in almost two years. The directors of the other Appeal organizations like David Adler from Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review and Jonathan Glick from the Progressive Zionist Caucus (not to mention my roommates) pitched in to help edit, though each preferred his own way of dealing with the dangling participle.

The first issue was riddled with typos, photographs that were too bright in some places and too dark in others, and type that seemed to disappear from one page onto another. Regardless, the enthusiasm generated by that first issue was immense. Students started calling and Hillel directors wanted more copies.

Meanwhile, money matters were getting worse for JSPS. The Appeal had promised thousands of dollars from different sources that just weren't materializing. And there were months when I was hardly paid. At one point in those early months, the JTA cut off long distance service to the phone in the JSPS cubicle, causing me to sneak around to other desks to place my long distance calls and then transfer them to my own phone.

Despite those setbacks, we managed to publish six issues that first year and start an editorial board of New York students from Columbia, the Jewish Theological Seminary, NYU and Yeshiva University. Some of the more memorable stories from that year included ones about Jewish hip hop; the favorite Jewish pastime, numerology; and Jews for Jesus recruiting tactics.

The second year was significantly less stressful, though busier. We switched to a monthly publishing schedule and began covering campuses more rigorously. By the end of the first year, JSPS was also a member of Hillel's new Student Initiatives Committee, with more access to funds. We moved out of the JTA office and started paying for our own phone calls.

By the time my two-year stint at JSPS ended, New Voices was a well-established entity on most college campuses with Jewish populations of some size. Looking back on those two years now, I'm amazed that I was able to snooker so many students into writing for the paper or coming down to the offices to proofread.

No doubt, today's New Voices looks a lot different than it did in my time. Many of the changes, I admit, have been for the better. The tone is fun and whimsical and the scope broad. But it's retained enough of the early New Voices to continue the fine tradition of Jewish student journalism. Viva New Voices.

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.