Judea Thought: Lag B’Omer 5781
Something behind a // Maybe-belief
Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
A romance from the New York Mycological Society blossoms into a trek through the world of Jewish urban foraging
“Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Phillistines, although it was nearer; for God said, “The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.” (Exodus 13:17) In this verse, it seems like God did not trust…
San Diego Comic-Con ended last week, and it did not disappoint. There were previews of the movies and TV shows being added to pop culture in the coming months, including a behind-the-scenes featurette of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, and a number of longer-than-usual trailers for DC and Marvel superhero properties such as…
As a child who had made the decision—to my parents’ chagrin, at least in part because for the better part of my childhood I ate little other than various combinations of dough, tomato sauce, and cheese — to become a vegetarian, Shavuot was one of my highlights of the Jewish calendar. It was the one…
Keeping kosher in college is not easy; keeping kosher for Passover is even harder. Pizza, bread, eggs, fruits, veggies, and desserts are my go-to dorm foods. While mentally preparing for Passover, I realized many of the main staples of my already restricted diet were no longer options, and that was daunting. No more opening the…
I’ve wanted to write about Kendrick Lamar for a while. Mostly because listening to Kendrick seems to be what I turn to when I’m supposed to be writing, so integrating the two activities felt ideal. But what angle could possibly be found to write about hip-hop for a Jewish student website? Well, I’m not sure….
There’s a point in academic research where one becomes somewhat monomaniacal. I wouldn’t know what that word means unless it had been on an episode of The West Wing, but here I mean to say that I’ve sort of lost the ability to think about things that aren’t Jewish identity and theology (to the eternal…
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…
After a summer of war in Israel, David Reeb’s series, “Let’s Have Another War” is a powerful greeting as one enters the gallery at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Reeb places the text “Let’s Have Another War” as a constant caption throughout the series, a caption overlaid on top of gruesome images of war….
Part live spectacle, part Biblical scholarship, comedian David Tuchman’s OMGWTFBIBLE podcast “reframes the Bible as the world’s oldest weekly comedy serial.” A year-and-a-half after its debut in April 2013 (as seen in New Voices), he’s now heading into Exodus. I caught up with David recently in the food court of Grand Central Station to discuss…
Together, we have reached the last leg of our journey through the text of the Torah, coming to the fifth and final book, Devarim, or Deuteronomy. In Parshat Devarim, from which the entire book gets its name, the Jewish people stand at the foot of a mountain, on the last leg of their own journey…
It happens frequently when I go to a new synagogue now. Someone gives a dvar Torah or a talk on the Torah portion, and uses a verse to talk about how different Jews were from all their surrounding peoples. Or there is a discussion of an Israel trip, in which the (justice-obstructing) magic of…