The Antisemite’s Ashtray

By Chaya Holch November 27, 2020

Should we bury our shame or laugh at it?

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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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Stop analyzing Bernie Sanders’ Jewishness

By Amram Altzman February 16, 2016

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…

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The one thing “Fantastic Four” did absolutely right

By Josh Weiss December 30, 2015

There are few things in this world about which we can be absolutely certain. However, despite the year’s many disagreements and altercations, there is one thing on which we can all agree: The “Fantastic Four” movie this past summer was absolutely, unequivocally dreadful. One could go so far as to call it fantastically awful, pun…

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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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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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Happy Hanukkah! No more Drake Christmas memes.

By Chloe Sobel December 4, 2015

I know when those sleigh bells ring, that can only mean one thing: the sound of forced assimilation. If you’re on the internet and move in Canadian or Drake-loving circles, you’ve probably seen the usual “Hotline Bling” memes, now featuring Christmas. You’ve seen the ugly Christmas sweaters with Drake’s likeness on them. They’re harmless, I suppose,…

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Student journalism is no joke

By Chloe Sobel June 11, 2015

Two Jewish nonprofit employees walk into a Christmas store. Then what? This isn’t the set-up for a joke. There’s no punchline here. If you’re me, you walk around feeling divided between a sense of familiarity and a feeling of foreignness. If you’re my predecessor Derek, maybe it all just feels foreign. But it doesn’t matter…

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A Scavenger Hunt for Jewish Community

By Dani Plung May 8, 2014

This is a busy week at the University of Chicago. For one thing, we students are consumed with the mid-quarter rush of exams and paper due dates. This week in particular, though, we are also exceedingly busy non-academically—if you can imagine anything but academics ever occurring at the University of Chicago. Two major events are…

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Uniting Against the Rabbinate: A Call for Pluralism in American Jewry

By Amram Altzman January 20, 2014

  Just a few days after my blog post from last week ran, the Israeli rabbinate decided that it would, indeed, accept Rabbi Avi Weiss’ testimony as legitimate for people he vouched for as Jewish. This is a step in the right direction for the Israeli rabbinate, which had previously called Rabbi Weiss’ validity into…

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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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Pew Survey Conversation (Part 3)

By Derek M. Kwait October 30, 2013

Part 3 in a 3 part series. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. 7.      What are your reactions to survey respondents’ answers to “What does it mean to be Jewish”? What creates Jewish meaning for you? Dr. Steven M. Cohen, sociologist: These questions pertain to areas of great ambiguity. I wouldn’t…

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