Can a Fully Feminist, Fully Traditional Jewish Space Exist? A Dialogue

By Avigayil Halpern May 12, 2015

AVIGAYIL HALPERN: When I was fourteen and just beginning to explore what it would mean to me to be a halakhic, or Jewish-law-abiding, Jewish feminist, I was delighted to stumble across a blog called Star of Davida. The blog’s author, who went by the name “Talia bat Pessi,” explored her own beliefs and experiences as…

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Live Blogging the Open Hillel Conference Day 1

By Derek M. Kwait October 13, 2014

Though If Not Now, When? An Open Hillel Conference began at Harvard Saturday night, I wasn’t able to arrive until Sunday afternoon. When I got there, the swarm of familiar black t-shirts seemed to indicate my worst suspicions would be confirmed: This is basically a student JVP conference in disguise with some Jewish SJP activists…

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The One Wish Project is Coming to a Campus Near You

By Derek M. Kwait August 20, 2014

I think all of my friends are amazing people. But every now and then, some friends do such incredible work that you just want to shout about it from the highest mountaintop. But absent a mountaintop, profiling them in your magazine is the next best thing. Joseph Shamash and Andrew Lustig are two of those…

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Why I Couldn’t Work for Hillel

By Jesse Baum August 4, 2014

Recently while killing time at work, I saw an email regarding a position I had applied for at my university’s Hillel. Expecting a rejection, I clicked, and realized that I was not being consoled- they were offering me a job. I’d applied for the job almost accidentally – working an event for my bike repair…

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A Brave New Hillel or More of the Same?

By Derek M. Kwait May 13, 2014

This has, possibly until now, been the academic year of Hillel shooting itself in the foot. Though its roots go back much further, Hillel’s troubles began in December, when then-new Hillel President and CEO Eric Fingerhut published an op-ed in the Jewish Week with AIPAC’s Jonathan Kessler announcing their intention to work together on college…

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What Does it Mean to Be a Zionist on a College Campus?

By Amram Altzman May 5, 2014

I have alluded before to (what I see as) the somewhat sorry state of Israel education and advocacy today, especially on college campuses. I spoke about the fact that simply greeting people who claim that Israel is an apartheid state with some falafel and a blue-and-white cupcake is not an effective tool for advocacy in…

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The Reform Movement Must Express its Support for a Two-State Solution in Youth Education

By Hannah Silverfine May 2, 2014

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of hearing Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the President of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), speak at the J Street U Student Town Hall in Baltimore. As a J Street U leader at Clark University in Worcester, MA, I was very excited to hear him speak passionately about…

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Anorexia and Shabbat Pt. 2

By Jourdan Stein March 20, 2014

…Continued from Anorexia and Shabbat  My first Friday out of my first intensive treatment session for anorexia.  I’m supposed to be excited to see my friends, relax, and enjoy the free food that Hillel is serving for Shabbat dinner.  I know what’s on the menu for the night, and how now much of each food…

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Modern Orthodoxy’s Identity Crisis

By Amram Altzman March 3, 2014

Modern Orthodoxy has a problem and a blessing: it is the belief that one can be both Modern and Orthodox. The problem is that when one changes, the other must, too, for if we are truly to be both Modern and Orthodox, then as modern world changes, our Orthodoxy must change, too. And that must…

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I Violate Hillel’s Israel Guidelines: A Non-Apology

By Anonymous January 13, 2014

In a rebuttal to last month’s New York Times article profiling college students who question Hillel guidelines on Israel, Hillel International President and CEO Eric Fingerhut wrote that an “unwavering line” existed on cosponsoring events or welcoming students who “delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel; support boycotts, divestment or sanctions against Israel;…

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Four Things You Don’t Know About the Swarthmore Hillel Controversy

By Derek M. Kwait January 9, 2014

  I have some reasonable propositions for how Hillel International should respond to the Swarthmore Hillel debacle based on four important facts missed by most other pundits on this subject. The first fact is that Swarthmore Hillel is uniquely financially independent. Swarthmore University has an endowment for all its religious groups on campus, and as…

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Queering the Liturgy: To Adjust or to Search?

By Jonathan Katz December 12, 2013

It is a problem that I and many other queer Jewish students face: as religious folk, we want to pray. But how do we – gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans*, queer, and other identities across the “rainbow ” – connect with a liturgy that is often seen as heteronormative, cis-normative, and well, “straight”? Some say, “the…

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Meet Steve, Sarah, Eliana, and Jonathan.

Pew Survey Conversation (Part 2)

By Derek M. Kwait October 29, 2013

Part 2 of a 3 part series. Part 1 is here. 4.      Are the survey’s categories of denomination a useful marker of determining true religious affiliation/practice in today’s Jewish world? Dr. Steven M. Cohen, sociologist: Yes. Denominational identities can be meaningful for people as many are strongly attached to Orthodoxy, Conservatism, Reform, and Reconstructionism. But…

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Meet Steve, Sarah, Eliana, and Jonathan.

An Inter-Everything Conversation About the Pew Survey

By Derek M. Kwait October 28, 2013

Part 1 in a 3 part series.   We might just be the last Jewish organization to respond to the big bad Pew Survey and we’re fine with that. It seems like every response so far is other people telling us what how we need to feel about it, whether we should be scared,  take…

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