Q&A: Author Michael Croland on Jews and Punk Rock

By Sara Weissman October 10, 2016

“Punk rock?” your bubbe might say. “Funny, it doesn’t look Jewish.” But according to author Michael Croland, Jews and the punk movement go way back. In April 2016, Croland published Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk, a book detailing Jews’ historic role in the punk movement and the ways in which Jewish artists use…

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5 Ways to Make Jewish Life Less ‘Clichéd’ from an Actual Millennial

By Amram Altzman December 15, 2014

  I am a Millennial. I say this proudly. I dance around Jewish tradition, modernity, and practice in a way that Millennials do. I whole-heartedly enjoy my status as a Generation Y’er. At the same time, however, I really don’t like how much of the conversation about how to engage my peers is fundamentally had…

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SermonSlam Rocks Brooklyn with Torah

By Derek M. Kwait January 30, 2014

“Sanctuary.” That was the theme the roughly 135 energetic young Jews of all backgrounds and beliefs huddled together  in a wallpapered synagogue ballroom on a below-freezing late January night in Brooklyn to hear sermons about. Better, to hear sermons slammed about. SermonSlam is as it sounds: Slam poetry, but for sermons. Each participant gets exactly…

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New Years 2013 Was a Lifetime Ago

By Dani Plung January 8, 2014

Well, by the Gregorian calendar, we have officially lived in the year 2014 for a week. For one thing, this means I will spend about three more weeks dating assignments “2013,” only to see autocorrect bluntly demonstrate the error of my ways.  For another, this means that both the Jewish and secular seasonal winter holidays…

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Queer activism vs. queer safe spaces [Mailbag]

By Harpo Jaeger March 13, 2012

We recently posted an op-ed by Carolyn Klaasen, a member of Young, Jewish & Proud.  Carolyn argued that a queer safe space is one where queers can “strategize, energize, and organize to fight for our safety outside of that space.”  She applies this understanding to a dispute over whether queer Palestinian solidarity activists should be…

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