Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
As the camp season begins, New Voices investigates the experiences of former LGBTQ+ campers who have for decades faced exclusion, emotional conflict, pressure, and trauma in the summer’s aftermath.
On this weekend, five years ago, a community member of the synagogue in which I’d grown up stood up at the podium of my teen minyan, and talked about the verse in this week’s Torah portion — one that’s served as the basis for discrimination against queer Jews for decades. I had just come out…
On the night of March 17, the Brown University undergrad residence that houses Jewish fraternity Beta Rho Pi and co-ed fraternity Zeta Delta Xi was defaced with anti-Semitic and homophobic graffiti. According to an email provided to New Voices, written by the interim assistant vice presidents of Brown Campus Life & Student Services, Mary Grace Almandrez and…
I am queer — and my decision to be queer is a conscious decision. There were times in my life when I wasn’t queer, but it’s been a process through which I have grown into my identity as someone who identifies not as gay, but primarily as queer. And, as I’ve grown into it, that…
We, the American Jewish community, have an Israel problem, and we need to talk about it. It’s not the fact that Israel exists. It’s not the fact that it’s a politically fraught topic to discuss — although that’s certainly part of it. It’s the mere fact that Israel and Zionism as abstract concepts are…
I was hoping that in 2016, the Jewish community would find better ways to reach out to millennials. I guess they have, if co-opting social justice, intersectionality, and related ideas counts as outreach. It started with an op by David Bernstein, the current CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, published Jan. 4 in…
A few years ago, while I was working as a staff member at Brandeis High School Programs, someone asked me what could be done for LGBTQ people who were still in the closet. At first, I had no response. The only real way to give someone the direct help that they need is for them…
Yesterday, I was reminded that the world in which I grew up — the Orthodox world — is one toward which I feel a sense of affinity, but also fear. The stabbing at Jerusalem Pride, carried out by a man who committed a similar crime a decade ago, confirmed this for me. I can love…
In the 16th century, Protestant theologian John Calvin fled France amidst violence against Protestant reformers. Now, in 2015, the life of his gay Christian Palestinian namesake is in danger. Born under a different name into a West Bank pro-Hamas family, John Calvin is the grandson of former Muslim Brotherhood leader Said Bilal, who oversaw Hamas…
The idea of “pinkwashing” is not new. The concept is defined as such: the Israeli government, having to deal with the violation of human rights in the Occupied Territories, uses its record on LGBTQ inclusion (for example, its military has never had a Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell policy, unlike some countries we know) to obscure…
San José is an ugly city. The streets are lined with storefronts due for a paint job. Trash and dog droppings line the sidewalks. Every afternoon, like clockwork, the tropical weather brings in a rainstorm that puts most Sunday showers stateside to shame. At night, drug dealers and (legal) prostitutes roam the streets. In this…
Publications aimed for a queer Jewish audience, like any niche-aimed work, tend to concentrate on certain themes. There are your coming out to your community publications, there are your famous-queer-Jews publications, there are your “my story” publications. And then there is another trend: a deep, heavy, nearly-overwhelming concentration on Israel. Israel is everywhere in the…