On French Anti-Semitism and Conflicting Identities

By Ari Bloom April 8, 2015

My first experience with anti-Semitism was at 6 years old. Someone painted a swastika on the front gate of my school and I remember asking my dad why it upset him so much. I had a limited understanding of Nazism at that age, but I knew enough to understand when he told me simply that…

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N.C. Students Build Bridges After Shooting

By Nicole Zelniker April 1, 2015

Just over a month ago, students Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha were shot outside their home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. “Tragedies touch everyone in a community, especially in a [small] community … like Chapel Hill,” said University of North Carolina Chapel Hill sophomore and North Carolina native Leah Johnson….

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The ‘Two-Station Solution’ for Campus Conflict

By Zev Hurwitz March 3, 2015

If we are to believe that there is truly a growing anti-Semitic presence on all college campuses these days, then what you’re about to read won’t make sense. Last May, I walked in front of the Israel “Apartheid” Wall at my campus during Justice in Palestine Week, wearing my yarmulke, and a member of Students…

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The Dangerous Myth of the ‘Good Muslim’

By Amram Altzman March 2, 2015

We Jews have a problem: we fetishize Muslims. Not just any Muslims, though: we choose to fetishize the “Good Muslims.” The Muslims, or the Arabs, who stand up for our cause, who toe our party lines, and who stand up to protect us. To be sure, many in our Jewish community also often quite hastily…

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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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How I Can Still Hope for the Future, in America and in Israel

By Derek M. Kwait December 4, 2014

This was a bad week for people who believe in human progress. Whether you imagined America was on its way towards becoming a post-racial society or that residents of the Levant could maybe learn to live peacefully side-by-side someday soon, the better dirt of our nature has again graffitied and burned down our delusions. What…

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Together We Can: A Call for Unity in Peacemaking

By Tomer Kornfeld June 27, 2014

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most divisive issues in modern politics. For years, the world—as much as Israeli and Palestinian leadership—has been trying to reconcile their differences, and, though there has been some progress, sadly, a full peace has yet to be achieved. To tell you the truth, there are times when this…

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Jewish Students to AMCHA: Leave Us Alone.

By Zev Hurwitz April 10, 2014

With the release of the University of California’s campus climate survey results, the Anti-Defamation League and the regional pro-Israel watchdog AMCHA Institute pounced on the results, which indicated that life for Jewish students on UC campuses is less than perfect. The results, announced last month, show Jewish students self-describe as some of the most uncomfortable…

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Coming of Age as South Dakota’s Token Jew

By Andy Engelmann March 26, 2014

Two calls, a text, and three Facebook messages, all in less than a week.  That was how I learned about B’rith Shalom, South Dakota’s first Jewish student culture club at South Dakota State University.  You see, for years, I had been known as “The Jew.”  Growing up in the middle the Sioux Empire, we were…

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An Interview with the Jewish Educator Banned from UCSB Hillel

By New Voices January 14, 2014

David Harris-Gershon is a Jewish educator, author, speaker, and regular blogger for Tikkun Magazine.  He was recently asked by the Israel Committee of Santa Barbara to be a keynote speaker at its annual event, which was to be housed in the Santa Barbara Hillel building. He was going to speak about his book, What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist…

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Rabbis, Gin, Christmas—New Vices

By Derek M. Kwait December 26, 2013

If you are reading this, you have almost certainly been affected by the life and philanthropy of Edgar Bronfman, who passed away Saturday. An heir to the Seagram’s beverage fortune, Bronfman used much of his wealth to contribute positively to Jewish students of all stripes, including creating the Bronfman Israel Fellowships, which has sent over…

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A Lesson in Dancing, and Driving, with Palestinians: A Review of the Other Israel Film Festival

By Catie Damon November 26, 2013

The Other Israel Film Festival, featuring films by and about Arab populations living in Israel, just finished running for its seventh season at the Manhattan Jewish Community Center. I was lucky enough to stream a few of the festival’s documentaries and dramas this week from my little corner of the West Coast. Two films impressed…

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MSA meetings not quite so welcoming? [Letter to the Editor]

By Harpo Jaeger February 27, 2012

Our post on the NYPD’s spying on Muslim students elicited a letter to the editor from Marion D.S. Dreyfus: I have attended MSA meetings. They are not ecumenical, they are not inclusive, they are not unharmful. They surrounded me when they saw i was taking notes. Imams came in and began spouting shariah-filled  homilies that put the…

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