IfNotNow’s protest at the ADL ended with 17 arrests — and stronger connections to Judaism

By Chloe Sobel April 22, 2016

IfNotNow’s “Liberation Seder” in New York on Wednesday began with a march from Bryant Park to the lobby of the Anti-Defamation League’s office building, and ended with the arrests of 17 protesters. The New York action was one of five that took place from April 19-21 held by the Jewish anti-occupation group. IfNotNow was founded…

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Stanford student’s apology for anti-Semitism misses the mark

By Chloe Sobel April 11, 2016

Last week, I wrote a news piece about a Stanford student who argued that the old anti-Semitic canard that Jews control the media isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism. Gabriel Knight, a student senator in Stanford’s Undergraduate Senate, was discussing the language of a resolution to support the Stanford Jewish community against anti-Semitism. Knight was referring to a clause that…

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Stanford student: Saying Jews control banks isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism

By Chloe Sobel April 6, 2016

  At a meeting of Stanford University’s Undergraduate Senate last night, a student senator said the idea that Jews control “the media, economy, government and other societal institutions” is “not anti-Semitism.” According to the Stanford Daily, Gabriel Knight was questioning the language of a resolution to support the Stanford Jewish community against anti-Semitism. The bill was…

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Swastika found off-campus at Brandeis — at a party hosted by Jewish frat

By Chloe Sobel April 5, 2016

  Sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning at Brandeis University, someone drew a swastika in condensation on the window of a house where the college’s AEPi chapter was hosting a party. Brandeis’ student population is 47 percent Jewish, according to Hillel International, and it was founded in 1948 as a non-sectarian, Jewish-sponsored university. “That a…

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Anti-Semitic slurs found in University at Buffalo admin building

By Chloe Sobel March 30, 2016

The University at Buffalo has been added to the list of university campuses that have seen anti-Semitic graffiti this year. According to The Spectrum, the anti-Semitic slurs were found on March 23 in a men’s bathroom in Capen Hall, the university’s main administration building. The University Police Department believes it to have been an isolated incident, but…

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Campus anti-Semitism isn’t always about Israel

By Chloe Sobel March 29, 2016

Today, the Forward published six students — five studying at American universities, one in South Africa — who answered a call to write about an experience at college that had shaped their Jewish identity in ways good, bad, or other. It’s an interesting read. The preface states that “every student interpreted the question as being about…

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Was StandWithUs robot surveilling Brown University Israel talk?

By Nicole Zelniker March 18, 2016

In the last few years, robotic technology has made tremendous strides. We can now use the technology to open doors or even move cars. As of this year, we can also use robots to attend campus events. On March 3, pro-Israel advocacy organization StandWithUs partnered with the technology company Tele-Buddy to send a robot to…

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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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Students looking to start new businesses always have TAMID

By Jackson Richman March 4, 2016

To begin the next great enterprise requires certain skills. An aspiring entrepreneur needs to know how to pitch, how to fundraise — and how to find people who can help them get their business off the ground. At George Washington University and two dozen more American campuses, there’s a club for aspiring entrepreneurs to develop…

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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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At Brown, Alpha Epsilon Pi becomes Beta Rho Pi over dissatisfaction with treatment of non-Jews, sexual assault

By Chloe Sobel February 5, 2016

On Nov. 3, 2015, near the end of a year in which rape on college campuses became a national conversation, the members of Brown University’s Alpha Epsilon Pi chapter voted to disaffiliate, in part due to the national fraternity’s handling of sexual assault education. After the disaffiliation vote and expulsion from the international fraternity —…

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Co-opting social justice won’t erase reality in Israel

By Chloe Sobel January 20, 2016

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…

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Ally or aggravator? Recognizing Jewish whiteness in context

By Ilana Diamant December 29, 2015

In 1954, the American Jewish Committee supported the NAACP during the historic Brown v. Board of Education case. In 1965, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched to Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King. And a month ago, I heard a college-aged white Jew equate his family’s historical experience in Europe to the struggle that people of…

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Life in the shadow of two holocausts

By Leah Tribbett December 24, 2015

It’s a strange feeling, growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust. It’s never a topic of conversation; there are never any “hey, so how about that Holocaust?” comments thrown into the air at the bar on a Friday night, but it’s there nonetheless, hiding in the shadows. The quiet “after the war, they moved…

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The left-wing double standard on Israel

By Amram Altzman December 22, 2015

When the documentary “The J Street Challenge” was released in 2014, one of its main arguments was that while certain Israel advocacy groups who claim to be bipartisan are acceptable political advocates, left-wing political groups, like J Street, should be condemned as beyond the pale of acceptable conversation about Israel for disagreeing with the Israeli…

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