Intermarriage isn’t the problem

By Amram Altzman March 9, 2016

Ever since the Pew Report was released in late 2013, intermarriage has been a constant topic of Jewish conversation. It’s been over two years and it hasn’t stopped. Since the report was released, there have been any number of blog posts, op-eds, and long-form pieces on the best ways to counter and combat intermarriage, and…

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Towards a Toolbox for Anti-Semitism

By Jonathan Katz July 22, 2014

A college student’s first encounter with anti-Semitism on campus can be mildly terrifying: after all, anti-Semitism does not announce itself with a big red flag or banner. In some cases, it may even take a while for the student to realize what happened. A comment such as “no wonder you’re irritable, you can’t eat bacon”…

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Meet Steve, Sarah, Eliana, and Jonathan.

An Inter-Everything Conversation About the Pew Survey

By Derek M. Kwait October 28, 2013

Part 1 in a 3 part series.   We might just be the last Jewish organization to respond to the big bad Pew Survey and we’re fine with that. It seems like every response so far is other people telling us what how we need to feel about it, whether we should be scared,  take…

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Bagel-Chasers: On the Problem of Jewish Fetish

By Jonathan Katz October 9, 2013

I don’t generally date non-Jews. I’m not snotty about genealogy, I think the treatment of those who intermarry is barbaric and exclusionary, and I would not be upset if I ended up marrying a non-Jewish man. That said, I do usually end up falling head over heels for young Jewish men who can understand things…

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Self-Loathing “Jewtopia”

By Derek M. Kwait September 30, 2013

Jewtopia features Tom Arnold as a gynecologist. That could be the review right there; any further commentary seems superfluous. Yet I will go on because in truth, I have a lot more to say, or at least vent, about this movie. Its central plot concerns the unlikely friendship between Christian O’Connell (Ivan Sergei) and Adam…

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The Beauty of Intermarriage

By John Propper October 17, 2012

Recently, I attended a wedding. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The ceremony opened with the grooms reciting their intentions to one another. This was followed by scripture readings: first, from the Tanakh; then, from the Christian Bible. After a mutual ring exchange, the Sheva Brachot were recited. Only, instead of recitations from honored…

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Israeli border security detain Harvard students; interfaith marriage; sharing an ex-frum story; and more. [Required Reading]

By John Propper March 16, 2012

Israeli security detain Harvard students… wait, what? [The Harvard Crimson] 55 Harvard students were detained Tuesday by Israeli border security during a trip to the West Bank. The students were visiting a Palestinian town. Afterwards, the trip’s guide was apparently arrested. And for what? That’s all a bit unclear. The Harvard Crimson reports: “‘There was…

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