Is the Other Side as Stupid as You Think?

By Daniel Levine November 23, 2016

Original version published on whoknowsoneblog.wordpress.com. With our country divided, and the finger pointing showing no sign of decreasing, we need to step back and wonder, what led to this national split? The answer goes beyond this election and ultimately lies deeply rooted in social psychology. It is antithetical to any sort of intellectual or constructive conversation to…

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Locker Room Banter is Rape Culture

By Sheila Katz October 16, 2016

Originally published via Medium by Sheila Katz, the Vice President of Social Entrepreneurship at Hillel International and a board member of the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse: The most recent Presidential debate was a missed opportunity. The opening question about sexual assault elicited Donald Trump’s excuse that his recent remarks about groping women without consent were just “locker…

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Modern Orthodoxy must act on inclusion

By Amram Altzman May 23, 2016

Unlike many other people I know who grew up in but have since left the Modern Orthodox community, I don’t look back on my childhood religious experiences with sadness. Instead, many of the decisions that I have since made in my religious life have been because of — not despite — having been raised in the…

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Falling in and out of love with campus Judaism

By Ilana Diamant December 2, 2015

When I came to college, the first thing I did was join Hillel. I participated in a pre-semester welcome weekend designed to introduce incoming freshman to Jewish peers and foster a stronger community. I was swept off my feet. Hillel is generously endowed, or so it seemed, and the endless barbecues and pizza dinners were…

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Building the Great Student Constituency for Peace

By Joanna Kramer April 3, 2014

“Failure will kill the political constituency of the two-state solution,” warned American Task Force on Palestine Director Ghaith Al-Omari at an event co-sponsored by J Street U Brown and Brown RISD Hillel last week. These chilling words reminded me of why it is so essential to demonstrate support for Secretary of State John Kerry’s current…

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Yes to Debate on Israel, No to Open Hillel

By Sam Hantverk January 22, 2014

I am livid. I am enraged with the Open Hillel campaign and its disagreement with Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership. The audacity of Open Hillel to think that Hillel International will sanction the use of its resources for programming that aims to boycott or delegitimize Israel is outrageous. Such behavior would be contradictory to a…

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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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Shots Shots Shots Shots… Everybody!

By H. B. Rubin October 16, 2012

Who could have predicted that LMFAO’s 2009 Top Forty Hit would actually later double as the soundtrack for our 2012 presidential debate season? Such keen cultural insight, such profound political understanding. Debate drinking games are all the rage right now. Facebook statuses and Twitter references are aflood. To give a brief historical overview of the…

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Thanks for watching ‘Wipeout’ on ABC. Stay tuned for the debate!

By Zach C. Cohen January 9, 2012

Republican contenders for the White House faced off not once, but twice, in New Hampshire this weekend in an effort to sway voters, a last ditch plea before tomorrow’s primary. Ssounds like a reality series gone awry. Don’t worry, it was definitely not nearly as exciting as ABC’s “Wipeout,” which preceded Saturday night’s debate. Six remaining candidates…

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