Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
As I write this Friday night, several things are true. A prolonged manhunt continues in France, pursuing suspects involved with an attack on a kosher supermarket. The Grand Synagogue of Paris is closed on Shabbat for the first time since World War II, a harrowing start to 2015 following a year of resurgent, ugly anti-Semitism….
This poem was inspired by this article in Tablet Magazine about the anti-Semitic poet Amiri Baraka (born LeRoi Jones) and his Jewish ex-wife Hettie Jones (née Cohen). I was born to be swept off my feet by a hip brotha, poetic justice and a tight beat. I was bred Ashekenzi on borscht, vodka…
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…
I came to the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly (JFNAGA) for two reasons: I love the Jewish community, and I am a Zionist who firmly believes in a Jewish and democratic state of Israel with internationally recognized borders living alongside a Palestinian state. I was excited to attend this conference featuring some of…
At 19, NYU freshman Jake Rosenberg is already one of the most accomplished young playwrights in the country, getting his plays put on around the country and winning multiple awards. After seeing his latest play, Muse of Fire, a comedy about Auschwitz inmates putting on a farce about the Dreyfus affair, New Voices editor Derek…
It was already maybe the smallest stage I’ve ever seen, and much of it was taken up by black spray painted stepladders with boards between them and black theater blocks; the wall behind it painted to look like a brick wall with shadows of barracks on the sides. The woman seated next to me remarked…
Though I don’t agree with them on everything (no one should agree with anything on everything), I ordinarily like Haaretz. I also normally find writing in to complain a bit gauche. Whether it’s about food, internet service, or editorial positions, I usually either don’t think it’s worth the bother (“My internet’s being slow? Good, I…
In recent/days weeks the hashtag #JSIL has been trending on Twitter. It has become popular amongst anti-Israel activists to the use the hashtag to promote the idea that the actions of Israel are similar to those of the so called “Islamic State” (ISIL). Users of the hashtag did not have anything particularly interesting or intelligent…
In the US, those of us who keep kosher in any form (and yes, that means many things) are used to kashrut wars. Is Does said person keep to that seal? Is this food OK, or is it Star-K? Will a thousand demons eat me if I have a block of Triangle-K cheddar? In short,…
Yesterday, I reviewed Hoaxocaust!, a new play performed and written by Barry Levey that satirizes Holocaust denial simply by putting the arguments of some of its biggest proponents, Arthur Butz, David Irving, Robert Faurisson, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in context. I saw the show the night of September 11 (coincidentally), then on September 12, I caught…
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…
A section of this article was featured in the Daily Northwestern on September 1st, 2013. She fell into the ditch thinking she was dead. All around her she breathed and touched dying human flesh. The bullet had apparently missed her. She desperately raised her arms to push through the masses of bodies that were…
If nothing else, the over-discussed Pew Report from almost a year ago (almost a year ago — and here we are, still quoting it like it’s the Bible itself!) heralded the death of the American-Jewish religious middle. This summer’s Operation Protective Edge seems to have heralded the death of the American-Jewish political middle, as…
Staring across a room filled with tiny chairs and colorful books, I felt a great fear. The other people there were all strangers, the person across from me had bright red spiked hair, and only about 8 teeth. He looked sort of like my glue-sniffing boss from my days as a janitor. This was way…
During the Nine Days preceding Tisha B’Av, the 25-hour fast commemorating the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem,we reflect on baseless hatred (sinat chinam). The Talmud teaches us that it was the baseless hatred among the people Israel that partially brought about the destruction of the Second Temple. (Along with, you know, high-level political drama…