The Goylem, Angels, and Ghosts of “Shmutz”: Zine Review
From EveLilith and shtetl stories to Claude Cahun, Jess Goldman’s “Shmutz” zine dreams up modern Ashkenazi midrashic fiction for today’s Jewish Left.
Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Article Archive
Women Should Be
“They say I was grieving my loss as the only righteous woman; that sizzles my bones, as if I bought into that scathing myth we force feed our girls, that womanhood is scarce and to be monopolized.”
Waters Of Heaven, Waters Of Earth
Shira had been texting her best friend for a long time. Maybe this will be forever, she thought. This imperfect, one-sided conversation. The world is built on longing, she remembered as she pulled one end of the gum out of her mouth, stretched it out, and stuck the end back in and pulled to make a loop.
Baruch Dayan ha-Emet: A D’var Torah For a Shabbat Seeking Shalom
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….
OMGWTFEXODUS: A Dialogue With the Man Who’s Bringing the Bible to the 21st Century
Part live spectacle, part Biblical scholarship, comedian David Tuchman’s OMGWTFBIBLE podcast “reframes the Bible as the world’s oldest weekly comedy serial.” A year-and-a-half after its debut in April 2013 (as seen in New Voices), he’s now heading into Exodus. I caught up with David recently in the food court of Grand Central Station to discuss…
Holy Moldy
Last week, the Torah introduced us to the plague of tzarat, a skin disease commonly believed to be punishment for the sin of speaking ill of someone. After introducing it, the Torah continues its discussion of tzarat and its cure in this week’s portion, Parashat Metzora. After discussing the sacrifices necessary, and the process of…
White Guilt and Evil Tongues
As with much of Leviticus, the material found in this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Tazria, can make us, with our modern sensibilities, squirm a bit. With the description of tzarat, a specific skin disease, the text seems to be stating that any who have strange marks on their skin are sinners who must be isolated…
Why Not to Drink Around Fire – or – Dying for Balance
Throughout the last few weekly readings, things have been going quite well for the Hebrew tribes—nothing bad has really happened and everyone is excited to have the Tabernacle up and running. This week in Parashat Shmini, still on the high of the last few weeks, we move to the last day of sacrifices, with the…
People are Like Eclairs – it’s What’s Inside that Matters
In last week’s Torah portion we were introduced to the future Tabernacle builders: Bezalel, Ohaliab and the wise men . Unfortunately, the construction of the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant was postponed when the Jewish people decided to move drastically off the path, constructing a Golden Calf for worship instead. Moses and the…