Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
I am queer — and my decision to be queer is a conscious decision. There were times in my life when I wasn’t queer, but it’s been a process through which I have grown into my identity as someone who identifies not as gay, but primarily as queer. And, as I’ve grown into it, that…
Two years ago, I wrote my first blog post for New Voices. I invited young Conservative Jews, unhappy with the current situation within their movement, to enter into conversation with me and the many other young Jews I know who grew up Modern Orthodox. We, too, were discontented with what we perceived as our movement’s…
As a child, my rabbis and Judaic studies teachers cautioned me against straying “off the derekh,” which almost literally translates to off of the Orthodox straight-and-narrow. If we did, though, then the High Holidays were a time when we could return to once again being on the straight, singular path that Orthodoxy provided. As a…
The Shabbat of Parashat Akharei Mot-Kedoshim— the Torah portion that was read in many synagogues this past Saturday morning — is always a painful one for me and many other queer Jews. The verses it contains concerning the prohibition of male homosexuality have long been used as justification for excluding queer people from religious life….
When I was in high school, I stopped wearing my kippah. I felt myself drifting away from the ultra-Orthodox community of my childhood and the Modern Orthodoxy my parents tried to model for me at home. I stopped wearing my kippah because I wanted to disaffiliate from the Orthodox Jews that filled New York City…
I’ve written about the successes and shortcomings of my fourteen years of Modern Orthodox day school education before, from religious, secular, and Zionist perspectives. I’ve also written about the thought processes behind my decisions to leave the Modern Orthodox world and join — at least for now — egalitarian communities that fall more in…
Modern Orthodoxy has a problem and a blessing: it is the belief that one can be both Modern and Orthodox. The problem is that when one changes, the other must, too, for if we are truly to be both Modern and Orthodox, then as modern world changes, our Orthodoxy must change, too. And that must…
Growing up in the early 2000’s means I watched copious amounts of Arthur, Cyberchase, Pokémon, and Yu-Gi-Oh!; I knew the dance to “Soulja Boy,” played on my Gameboy obsessively, and ate Go-gurts (or the kosher equivalents thereof) on the school bus ride home. Growing up in the 2000’s also meant that I saw men…
I wrote last week about how I grew up in the Modern Orthodox world, but now feel that, in terms of practice, I identify as part of the vast, grey area between Modern Orthodoxy and Traditional Conservatism, and how I, along with peers from both my religious right and left, can build upon that vast,…
Israeli security detain Harvard students… wait, what? [The Harvard Crimson] 55 Harvard students were detained Tuesday by Israeli border security during a trip to the West Bank. The students were visiting a Palestinian town. Afterwards, the trip’s guide was apparently arrested. And for what? That’s all a bit unclear. The Harvard Crimson reports: “‘There was…