Jewish Institutions, Oppose Bannon – or Millennials Will Leave You Behind

By Marc Daalder December 8, 2016

Over the past three weeks, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Steve Bannon for chief strategist has drawn a lot of attention. Bannon has been accused of turning conservative website Breitbart News into a home for neo-Nazis and the alt-right movement, of being a racist, a white supremacist, and even an anti-Semite. At the same time,…

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Dear fellow liberal Zionists: The establishment doesn’t want us

By Abe Silberstein March 1, 2016

Three weeks ago, I attended a small lunch event at Hunter College’s Roosevelt House featuring spokespeople from the New Israel Fund and Breaking the Silence, as well as the Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard. Given the recent tension at my alma mater between student supporters of Israel and members of Students for Justice in…

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Reanalyzing That Damn Survey Again…Again

By Amram Altzman May 18, 2015

  “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…

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J Street Unchained: Inside #JSt2015

By Derek M. Kwait March 26, 2015

I came to the J Street Conference earlier this week with a question in mind for students: How do you advocate for Israel and for peace on campus after last week’s elections? In true Jewish fashion, their answers went beyond the question to address other important points about Israel advocacy and Jewish life on campus….

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Netanyahu’s ‘Jewish’ State Is an Affront to Judaism

By Hannah Ehlers March 26, 2015

It is no great surprise that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu was reelected last week. He is a skillful politician and an astute campaigner. What did surprise some, however, including many American Jews and American Jewish communal institutions, were the various statements Netanyahu made during the last days and hours of his campaign. The day…

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New Voices and the ZOA: Working Together to Command Support for Israel on Campus

By Derek M. Kwait March 5, 2015

  It’s no secret that the war for Israel currently has two fronts: the Middle East and American university campuses. Jewish students feel increasingly threatened and intimidated by anti-Israel activity on campus that too often crosses the line into anti-Semitism, as seen recently in incidents at UC Davis and UCLA. All people concerned with the…

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Who Speaks for America’s Jews?

By Amram Altzman February 16, 2015

The question of who should speak for the Jews is not a new one, nor is the question of whether or not Israeli political or religious leaders can or should speak on behalf of American (or other Diaspora) Jews. It dates back to a series letters between Jacob Blaustein, then the head of the American…

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Why Should we Care About Bibi’s Speech to Congress?

By Amram Altzman February 2, 2015

I’ve written before about my how my hesitance to involve myself in the Israeli political process stems from a larger phenomenon I’ve noticed of the increasing separation between Israeli Judaism (and Israeli-Jewish culture) and American Judaism. Yet, the controversy over Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned congressional speech and the upcoming Israeli elections are extremely important to…

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Improving Israel Comes at a Cost: $5

By Derek M. Kwait January 29, 2015

Are you a Jewish student? Are you fed up with the state of American Zionism? Have $5? Good. Click here before April 30, pay the $5, then vote to change things. I can’t explain the process, the necessity, or the candidates better than J.J.Goldberg did in two articles in the Forward, so I won’t try….

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Brunch With Progressive MK Merav Michaeli and the American Jewish Left

By Derek M. Kwait December 16, 2014

Merav Michaeli, the Israeli journalist and women’s rights activist-turned-Knesset member for the Labor Party, is a sign of hope for a progressive future in Israel. Last Tuesday, she tried to convince an exclusive crowd of worried Jewish leftists gathered in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that there was hope for the upcoming elections…

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5 Ways to Make Jewish Life Less ‘Clichéd’ from an Actual Millennial

By Amram Altzman December 15, 2014

  I am a Millennial. I say this proudly. I dance around Jewish tradition, modernity, and practice in a way that Millennials do. I whole-heartedly enjoy my status as a Generation Y’er. At the same time, however, I really don’t like how much of the conversation about how to engage my peers is fundamentally had…

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First Results of the Jewish Student Survey are In!

By Derek M. Kwait September 15, 2014

  Preliminary results of the Demographic Survey of American Jewish College Students 2014 are out. Started last spring by Drs. Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar at the Trinity College Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, this is the first comprehensive scientific survey ever of an underrepresented and under studied demographic: American…

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Defining ‘Pro-Israel’

By Solomon Tarlin May 20, 2014

“It is the epitome of intellectual dishonesty to use a well-established term to define a group (pro-Israel) when that group and its members such as yourself admit that the meaning of the well-established term does not in fact apply.” This was one of the many responses I received after my op-ed last month, “Hillel Student…

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If Jewish Organizations Want to Secure the Jewish Future, They Need to Stop Alienating It

By Derek M. Kwait May 6, 2014

Hannah Silverfine’s experience with a Jewish education that taught only a very narrow definition of “pro Israel” is not only a problem in the Reform Movement.  I agree that a good argument can be made for teaching children why support of Israel is important first, then leave the messy stuff for when they’re old enough…

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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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