Dispatches from the Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice

By Mx. Je'Jae Cleo Daniels May 22, 2022

Hundreds of Jews gathered in Washington DC for the Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice. In their own words, here’s why they came.

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Tzedekah As Solidarity: 6 Indigenous Organizations To Support This Thanksgiving

By New Voices Editorial Board November 25, 2021

Much like the land that American Jews live on, the money we give as tzedekah is not ours; rather, we are obligated to give it back to whom it truly belongs.

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What’s New With The Workers Circle College Network

By Noa Baron and Brit Zak June 16, 2021

Two student activists on the politics and vision behind a new Jewish socialist youth collective.

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In These Times: A Letter to the New Voices Community

By New Voices Editorial Board May 13, 2021

A statement from the New Voices Editor on the current moment in Israel and Palestine.

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Jewish Students Buckle Down for Lingering Election

By Rena Yehuda Newman November 4, 2020

Though litigation, demonstrations, and civil unrest seem likely, many Jewish students are focused on the pursuit of democracy. “The most important thing to remember is that everything we do is political.”

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Hope at the End of the World

By Rebecca Lubow October 21, 2020

“The arch of history bends like a twisty straw. Nothing is inevitable, and the future may be hard, and sometimes rage and grief are necessary. The hope I’m describing is a leap-of-faith conviction that a better future is possible, and worth fighting for.”

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Photo by Arighna Gupta

A Strike Against Despair

By Miriam Saperstein September 21, 2020

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, a University of Michigan undergraduate reflects on the sense of possibility unleashed by the grad student strike.

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An American Jew in Israel: Standing Against Annexation

By Alina Kulman July 9, 2020

“As an American in Israel, I can talk to English-speaking immigrants to Israel, and use a shared vocabulary to explain why I believe the annexation would lead to the creation of an apartheid state. And unlike my Israeli friends, I can stand up for Palestinian rights without fear of societal backlash.”

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“Denial” Describes a Case of Fact vs. Fiction

By Jackson Richman October 23, 2016

The movie “Denial” is about a court case between Fact and Fiction. Through the case David Irving v. Penguin Books Limited, Deborah E. Lipstadt, “Denial” shows how injustices like the Holocaust cannot be denied. One of the most controversial cases of the 1990s, this case distinguished scholarship from bigotry. Emory University Professor Deborah Lipstadt (played…

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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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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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The Prophetic Problem With ‘Privilege’

By Evan Goldstein May 7, 2015

  These days, it seems I can’t scroll down my Facebook news feed without seeing something about privilege. At Boston College and within American Jewry more broadly, conversations about privilege of various kinds have been vigorous and ongoing. While much of it has focused on racial privilege, especially here at New Voices, there has been…

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White Whine and South African Jews – A Jew in the Motherland

By Jonathan Katz February 17, 2015

One familiar thing about the United Kingdom for me is that I frequently hear South African accents. Here in the colonial heartland, I have met a lot of folks like me: born to South African [Ashkenazi] Jewish parents abroad, raised abroad, and with varied ties to South Africa. Some, like me, maintain citizenship in South…

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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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5 Layers of Soul

By David G. August 29, 2014

As someone with quite an anti-authority bent, this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Shoftim, has always been one that I have struggled with. Parshat Shoftim lays the foundations for the future government of the Kingdom of Israel, establishing five different leadership roles. These roles include judges, law enforcers, kings, priests and prophets.  The former anarchist in…

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