Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Originally published in the Spring 2016 edition of The Current. It has been over seventy years since the end of World War II and the Holocaust. As remaining survivors become fewer and fewer, the Holocaust moves from being a living memory to one that is more historical in nature. Inevitably, as we are further removed…
The Jewish community has always been in the project of negotiating itself — what people are part of the Jewish community, what opinions are acceptable, and what are not. We also have a tradition of ideological pluralism which dates back centuries — indeed, to some of the earliest rabbinic literature. Throughout all that tradition, some…
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Bernie Sanders makes the decision to talk about his Jewishness, specifically how it contrasts starkly with the ways in which Donald Trump talks about Jewishness. Since then, Bernie Sanders has gone on to nearly tie the Iowa caucus with Hillary Clinton and, last week, defeat her in…
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…
It’s no secret that the war for Israel currently has two fronts: the Middle East and American university campuses. Jewish students feel increasingly threatened and intimidated by anti-Israel activity on campus that too often crosses the line into anti-Semitism, as seen recently in incidents at UC Davis and UCLA. All people concerned with the…
I grew up in the New York area: capital of the world, city of no rival, the Fourth Rome (defeating the Third, and there shall be no Fifth). True, I could note that this place – city and suburbs thereof – is overconfident, maddeningly arrogant, and rude to a horrifying degree. Yet it was a…
You may have noticed a lack of coverage of Israeli Apartheid Week in New Voices this year. This was, in part, intentional. For those who don’t know, I.A.W. is a international campaign, sponsored in part by Students for Justice in Palestine, to hold rallies, speakers, and performances on campuses worldwide to spread awareness of the…
Last week it was discovered that New York’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, held an off-the-record meeting with AIPAC. This caused the Jewish political left in New York to draft a letter to Mayor de Blasio expressing their disappointment over his decision to ally himself with AIPAC, as opposed to taking a harder look at…
David Harris-Gershon is a Jewish educator, author, speaker, and regular blogger for Tikkun Magazine. He was recently asked by the Israel Committee of Santa Barbara to be a keynote speaker at its annual event, which was to be housed in the Santa Barbara Hillel building. He was going to speak about his book, What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist…
The Midwest does not get enough credit for its foundational role in the American Jewish community. However, the first campus Hillel was established in 1923 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In an atmosphere where Jewish campus life was largely non-existent, the first Hillel marked a new age for American Jewish students who endured…
It used to be, said a speaker at J Street U’s plenary session during the national J Street Conference, that students were expected to listen to learn from others. Now, he said, with the success of the fights for civil rights, marriage equality, unionizing, and women’s rights—all of which were led by student movements—the world…
Yesterday, Jenny Merkin posted Max Blumenthal’s recent video of mostly young Jewish internationals in Jerusalem swearing allegiance to the State of Israel via a loyalty oath crafted by Blumenthal in the spirit of the Führereid, you know that oath the Nazi Wehrmacht swore to ze Führer. Astonishingly, most of Blumenthal’s subjects proudly swore the oath…
Maybe, says Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC). Citing their activities in South America, She has called for a US task force on the issue–to no avail. [Charlotte Observer] That’s not the only problem in Washington. Obama has long faced criticism from the Jewish right on his stance toward Israel, but a James Besser says that his…