Waters Of Heaven, Waters Of Earth

By Sophie Hurwitz September 14, 2021

Shira had been texting her best friend for a long time. Maybe this will be forever, she thought. This imperfect, one-sided conversation. The world is built on longing, she remembered as she pulled one end of the gum out of her mouth, stretched it out, and stuck the end back in and pulled to make a loop.

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Judea Thought: Lag B’Omer 5781

By Alyssa Coffey April 30, 2021

Something behind a // Maybe-belief

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The Medicine In My Jewish Self, The Torah In My Lakota Practice

By Samuel Elijah Rose April 21, 2021

“When you pray the Lakota way, do you feel like you’re praying to the same God?” 

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The Torah of OCD

By Anonymous April 14, 2021

“The Torah of OCD is simple: it is an important and very serious mitzvah to manage my OCD as skillfully as I am able on any given day, seeking out the support and resources I need to live well and in good health. And it is deeply complicated: I am no longer comfortable theologizing pain.”

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On This Very Day, One Pesach Later: A Passover Reader

By Sofia Freudenstein March 25, 2021

After a year of pandemic, one Pesach later, four Jewish students and thinkers have assembled a Passover Seder companion, filled with reflections on a year of plague and visions of redemption.

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I Found God When I Learned to Love Myself

By Carolyn Brodie December 5, 2019

The next day, atop Masada, I chose my Hebrew name and began my Jewish life. I was Rivkah, Matriarch; I was done taking shit from any human, institution, or supreme being. The Judaism I found gave me space to be newly brazen, and radically myself.

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Can I Study God in Graduate School?

By Josh Daniels January 5, 2017

As the New Year passes, I am increasingly aware of the fact that I’ve graduated, and I don’t have a job just yet. Like many recent graduates, my biggest question is what path to take, as I consider a couple major choices on the horizon – in my case, graduate school vs. rabbinical ordination. I want…

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Why Religion Matters – With or Without God

By Daniel Levine December 21, 2016

Original version published on whoknowsoneblog.wordpress.com. Is there something that faith brings to our society that we would lack if we lived in a world without religion? To the person who has perfect belief in God or a specific religion, this question seems silly. In their minds, of course the presence of their specific religion is of…

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Losing My Monarchism: A Jew in the Motherland

By Jonathan Katz May 28, 2015

Some people go to the United Kingdom and develop a love for the royal family. I went to the U.K. and became strongly anti-monarchist. Don’t get me wrong: the current Queen is fantastic, and the British monarchy is one of the most fascinating traditions alive today. But there’s something I find utterly ridiculous about a…

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The Prophetic Problem With ‘Privilege’

By Evan Goldstein May 7, 2015

  These days, it seems I can’t scroll down my Facebook news feed without seeing something about privilege. At Boston College and within American Jewry more broadly, conversations about privilege of various kinds have been vigorous and ongoing. While much of it has focused on racial privilege, especially here at New Voices, there has been…

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What Would Jesus Do?: A Jewish Perspective

By Evan Goldstein April 30, 2015

Can a Jew ask “what would Jesus do?” I have two answers: Yes and no. Yes. Of course. How could we not? Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish, full stop. I am perplexed by the almost total lack of Jewish theological engagement with Jesus. To be sure, Jesus’ Jewishness has been emphasized by historical and biblical…

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Kendrick Lamar and Revelation: A Challenge for Jewish Theology

By Evan Goldstein March 19, 2015

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….

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‘Disabled’ Does Not Mean ‘Not Able’

By Miriam Roochvarg February 25, 2015

My older brother has autism, a disorder that mainly affects social interaction and communication skills. He is one of the proudest Jews you will ever meet: He attends services every Saturday morning, reads Torah once a month, and has all the prayers and their page numbers memorized. At our shul, one of the congregation’s favorite…

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Why Not God? The Dangers of God-Talk

By Evan Goldstein February 19, 2015

Words are strangely versatile; put them on a page and they glow with intellectual distinction. Put them over music and they transcend themselves to become vehicles of beauty (or they don’t). Put them on a website for Jewish students…and who knows? Maybe words are subject to a quota system; write too many about Emil Fackenheim…

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Wrestling with Faith and God – 6 Poems

By Hannah Ehlers January 15, 2015

  Full there is a deep breath resonating through the walls and I am coming closer to catching it   not concerned with lasting concerned with now   not before but because of   arriving not leaving   made-up not fantasy   there is a deep breath resonating through these paper walls not calm but…

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