What’s the Real Gift of Chanukah?

By Joshua Reynolds December 29, 2016

What are you getting for Chanukah this year? I don’t mean the gifts you’re anxiously awaiting in your mailbox, though gift giving on Chanukah is actually an ancient tradition. I mean, what really is the gift of Chanukah? Is it freedom? Is it independence? Is it survival? Is it the ability to wrap a drone…

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A Convert’s Christmas in Southern Oregon

By Megan Dyer January 5, 2015

The span from Thanksgiving through New Year’s is generally a hectic time for me. A week after trying to wrest control over half the Thanksgiving menu from my mother and sister while debating internally if it’s even worth trying to keep kosher on such a day before inevitably stuffing myself to the gills either way,…

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Be the Light

By Miriam Roochvarg December 25, 2014

As I got ready to light the menorah for the last time this year, I could not help but think about the meaning of the shemash, or head candle, amid all the other candles. Each night a new candle is added to the menorah and the light spreads. Come the end of Chanukah, you have…

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Menorah Tears from a Teenage Mother

By Michele Amira December 23, 2014

סְבִיבוֹן סוֹב סוֹב סוֹב Sevivon Sov Sov Sov… This is what my Safta used to sing to me, safe on a kibbutz somewhere in Israel, breathing in the desert air, the palm trees and the smell of olive oil illuminated my hair. It was my Mecca when I met a very handsome IDF soldier then…

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In Defense of Hanukkah

By Amram Altzman December 22, 2014

Hanukkah gets a bad rap. It is seen as the most Americanized of the Jewish holidays and as the Jewish pinnacle of consumerism and indulgence. On top of that, when looking closer at the Hanukkah story, we see a radical, anti-assimilationist militant group that, in reality, ended up embracing the Hellenism they had worked so…

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Naughty Jewish Boys – Yes, Bubbe, They do Exist

By Adam Kroopnick March 18, 2014

In a studio in New York’s theater district, Duncan Pflaster, a playwright and part-time photographer, was unpacking props for his photoshoot: yarmulkes, a menorah, and a book called The Jewish Pleasure Principle. Mr. Pflaster isn’t doing a swimsuit calendar — he’s creating the Naughty Jewish Boys calendar, which will feature a Jewish man in various…

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Costa Rica Defends its Jewish Record Against…?

By Zach C. Cohen January 29, 2014

I am blessed to have had the opportunity to travel extensively in the last six months. Following a four-and-a-half month stint in Costa Rica studying at la Universidad Nacional in Heredia, I traveled in Israel on Birthright provider Kesher. After leaving those travels, I had a lot of thoughts on what it means to be…

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My Thanksgivukkah Dilemmukkah: A Retrospective

By Dani Plung December 5, 2013

  Over the past several weeks, reminders of the occurrence of Thanksgivukah were impossible to avoid. Hanukkah was to coincide with Thanksgiving, for the first time in over 100 years and for what will allegedly be the last time in 70,000 years. Surely, this was an event this dramatic could not be overlooked! On the…

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Reaction to the UF Hillel Menorah Vandalization

By akinman December 8, 2010

As some may have read recently on the New Voices blog, UF Hillel’s menorah was uprooted from the ground and vandalized on site this past Saturday morning. The menorah that acted as a reminder to the Jewish student population that we stood as a strong community, lay broken and shattered in Hillel’s front courtyard. Deeply…

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Menorah at UF Vandalized

By Ben Sales December 6, 2010

A group of about ten vandals damaged the University of Florida Hillel’s menorah early Saturday morning, according to Hillel Executive Director Keith Dvorchik. Dvorchik told New Voices that at around 11 p.m. on Friday night, Hillel staff saw about ten men walking through Hillel’s property shouting, “F-ck you, Jews! Happy Hanukkah!” Police came and told the men…

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