Messy Jewish identities: A High Holidays meditation, part II

By Amram Altzman September 30, 2015

Two years ago, I wrote my first blog post for New Voices. I invited young Conservative Jews, unhappy with the current situation within their movement, to enter into conversation with me and the many other young Jews I know who grew up Modern Orthodox. We, too, were discontented with what we perceived as our movement’s…

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Do Jews need to worry about the RFRA?

By Jackson Richman June 24, 2015

Does a kosher bakery have the right to refuse to bake a wedding cake for an intermarried couple? If the bakery is in Indiana, the answer might be yes. Indiana’s passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in March caused an uproar, especially among LGBTQ rights activists, who argued that it could encourage discrimination…

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Why This Religious Jew Wants a Non-Jewish Roommate

By Avidan Halivni March 4, 2015

Around winter break, during the peak of Israel’s “Birthright season,” I received an invitation from the Columbia/Barnard Hillel to attend a meet-up in Jerusalem for gap-year students in Israel. It was the first time the thought of college had even crossed my mind – I had been doing a pretty good job of focusing on…

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Is College Compatible With Orthodox Gender Laws?

By Talia Weisberg November 19, 2014

As an Orthodox person who attended an all-girls high school, single-sex spaces basically defined my life for four years. Keeping with the general attitude of the right-wing Orthodox community toward gender relations, students at my school were actively discouraged from associating with boys, who were considered temptations that could only lead us down the wrong…

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I Am Dedicated: What Should Orthodox Feminism Look Like?

By Talia Weisberg June 9, 2014

Although it has been several months since the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) Conference, the Orthodox blogosphere is still buzzing about Leah Sarna’s speech at the opening plenary. In her address, Sarna stated her belief that Orthodox women must begin to demonstrate increased dedication to Judaism by participating in activities traditionally earmarked as male, like…

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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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Waffle Cone + Pizza = A Glimpse of the Kosher Future

By Derek M. Kwait November 1, 2013

For a kosher-keeper like me, Kosherfest 2013 was almost too good to be real. A huge room full of free food I can actually eat coming at me from every direction, the longer I stayed, the further my train of thought devolved to the level of a dog in a sausage factory: I see they’re…

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Pew Survey Conversation (Part 3)

By Derek M. Kwait October 30, 2013

Part 3 in a 3 part series. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. 7.      What are your reactions to survey respondents’ answers to “What does it mean to be Jewish”? What creates Jewish meaning for you? Dr. Steven M. Cohen, sociologist: These questions pertain to areas of great ambiguity. I wouldn’t…

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Dual Loyalties: Balancing College Football and Jewish Tradition

By Eric Steitz October 2, 2013

A cool breeze rolls through campus and students everywhere know what that means. It’s that time of year again. No, it’s not the High Holy Day season that comes to mind, but football season. For Jewish college students, it’s the start of another potentially conflicted semester. As Jews celebrate Shabbat each weekend, campuses around the…

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