No Love for the Film “Hate Spaces”

By Berakha Guggenheim May 30, 2017

“Hate Spaces,” a documentary film released in 2016 and written and directed by Avi Goldwasser, aims to shine a light on campus anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. But, alas, “Hate Spaces” didn’t earn my love. Ultimately, while it starts out strong, it soon devolves into a conspiracy-laden diatribe about Muslims, social justice warriors, and Palestinians. “Hate Spaces”…

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Do We Need to “Defund Islamophobia”?

By Marc Daalder March 23, 2017

The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups deemed anti-Muslim by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Center for American Progress, alleges a new report from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Chicago. In a world where Muslims and Jews alike are threatened by rising hatred, there is no room for…

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Is the Other Side as Stupid as You Think?

By Daniel Levine November 23, 2016

Original version published on whoknowsoneblog.wordpress.com. With our country divided, and the finger pointing showing no sign of decreasing, we need to step back and wonder, what led to this national split? The answer goes beyond this election and ultimately lies deeply rooted in social psychology. It is antithetical to any sort of intellectual or constructive conversation to…

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When Posters Target Pro-Palestinian Students, Campus Jews Speak Out

By Mari Cohen November 17, 2016

Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian posters appeared on college campuses across the country throughout the month of October, provoking condemnation from a variety of campus groups and administrators. These posters were a product of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an organization spearheaded by anti-Muslim extremist David Horowitz, and are part of the organization’s campaign called “Stop the…

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UChicago dealing with aftermath of AEPi’s racist emails

By Nicole Zelniker March 11, 2016

Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi rocked the University of Chicago’s campus last month when BuzzFeed News obtained emails that referred to Muslim student activists as “terrorists” and mocked Martin Luther King Day, calling it “Marathon Luther King Day” and saying to celebrate by eating fried chicken. AEPi International spokesperson AEPi Jonathan Pierce told New Voices that…

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Perspectives on Syrian refugees: Is the Holocaust comparison inappropriate?

By Jackson Richman February 26, 2016

Read the first part in our series of Jewish perspectives on Syrian refugees, “Finding commonality in Jewish history.“ For the last few months, I’ve seen the comparison of today’s Syrian refugees to the plight of European Jews during the Holocaust trending on social media. This is an ignorant comparison with no real critical analysis behind it….

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What Kitty Genovese teaches us about Donald Trump

By Samantha Levinson February 17, 2016

When my Rabbi first told me about Kitty Genovese, it was my sophomore year of high school. After that, he would often invoke the story of how she was murdered while witnesses stood by. He would use Kitty to make a point about personal responsibility, or accent a story about not standing idly by, or…

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Racism isn’t just for fraternities

By Amram Altzman February 8, 2016

Here at New Voices, we’re no strangers to the questions of Jews and race. And while it seems like we’ve done a good job of beginning a very much needed conversation on the complicated relationship that we American Jews have with race, ethnicity, and privilege — and we’re nowhere near the end of this conversation…

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Trump, Sanders, and the rhetoric of Jewishness

By Amram Altzman December 8, 2015

There seems to be many ways for presidential candidates to pander to Jews. One might look to the 2012 election, during which Republican candidate Michele Bachmann said she loved Israel so much that she put aside her fiscally conservative values to join a utopian socialist kibbutz when she was eighteen. Donald Trump, however, seems to…

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N.C. Students Build Bridges After Shooting

By Nicole Zelniker April 1, 2015

Just over a month ago, students Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha were shot outside their home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. “Tragedies touch everyone in a community, especially in a [small] community … like Chapel Hill,” said University of North Carolina Chapel Hill sophomore and North Carolina native Leah Johnson….

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Dealing with Anti-Semitism, and It’s Not About Israel

By Jonathan Katz March 16, 2015

Introduction  Anti-Semitism is everywhere, and it is nowhere. It is claimed to be behind every critique of Israel voiced by progressive youth, yet is said to have been vanquished as American Jews have found themselves increasingly present among the fringes of the establishment. Of course, anti-Semitism still exists. The attacks on Jews in Paris and…

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Baruch Dayan ha-Emet: A D’var Torah For a Shabbat Seeking Shalom

By Evan Goldstein January 9, 2015

As I write this Friday night, several things are true. A prolonged manhunt continues in France, pursuing suspects involved with an attack on a kosher supermarket. The Grand Synagogue of Paris is closed on Shabbat for the first time since World War II, a harrowing start to 2015 following a year of resurgent, ugly anti-Semitism….

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Mourning the American-Jewish Political Middle

By Amram Altzman August 18, 2014

  If nothing else, the over-discussed Pew Report from almost a year ago (almost a year ago — and here we are, still quoting it like it’s the Bible itself!) heralded the death of the American-Jewish religious middle. This summer’s Operation Protective Edge seems to have heralded the death of the American-Jewish political middle, as…

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Jewish Students to AMCHA: Leave Us Alone.

By Zev Hurwitz April 10, 2014

With the release of the University of California’s campus climate survey results, the Anti-Defamation League and the regional pro-Israel watchdog AMCHA Institute pounced on the results, which indicated that life for Jewish students on UC campuses is less than perfect. The results, announced last month, show Jewish students self-describe as some of the most uncomfortable…

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‘Being Muslim is the new probable cause:’ The student press reports on NYPD’s spying spree [Parsing]

By David A.M. Wilensky February 22, 2012

“Being Muslim is apparently the new probable cause,” begins today’s editorial in the Washington Square News, NYU’s student newspaper. Two Muslim students at Yale began a Feb. 17 op-ed in the Yale Daily News with this: Since the end of the Jim Crow era, politicians have dressed racism in the rhetoric of food stamps and illegal aliens. But…

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