Top 10 New Voices Articles of 2017

By New Voices Staff January 3, 2018

Happy 2018, y’all! Needless to say, it’s been a crazy year. New Voices published over 100 articles by more than 45 writers from 39 universities across the U.S. To celebrate, check out our 10 most-liked articles of the year, and keep sharing your campus Jews’ news and views in the year ahead.   Top 10…

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Student journalism is no joke

By Chloe Sobel June 11, 2015

Two Jewish nonprofit employees walk into a Christmas store. Then what? This isn’t the set-up for a joke. There’s no punchline here. If you’re me, you walk around feeling divided between a sense of familiarity and a feeling of foreignness. If you’re my predecessor Derek, maybe it all just feels foreign. But it doesn’t matter…

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Let’s All Be Traitors

By Jonathan Katz June 4, 2015

Treason has been on my mind a lot the past few weeks. In the Jewish world, the website Canary Mission – which seeks to create a “blacklist” of pro-Palestinian activists – has caused a controversy. Many of those profiled on the site are Jewish – including New Voices contributor Tom Pessah; those of our brethren…

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Why I Love Yom HaAtzmaut Anyway

By Derek M. Kwait April 23, 2015

We’re usually pretty hard on Israel here at New Voices, and though more forgiving than some, I’m no exception. Yet, I find that in the midst of all my anxiety over the results of the last election or railing against the settlements, Yom HaAtzmaut provides the ideal opportunity to step back and remember why I…

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New Voices and the ZOA: Working Together to Command Support for Israel on Campus

By Derek M. Kwait March 5, 2015

  It’s no secret that the war for Israel currently has two fronts: the Middle East and American university campuses. Jewish students feel increasingly threatened and intimidated by anti-Israel activity on campus that too often crosses the line into anti-Semitism, as seen recently in incidents at UC Davis and UCLA. All people concerned with the…

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Fallacies and Follies of Open Hillel

By Holly Bicerano January 14, 2015

John Adams famously remarked that “facts are stubborn things.” Maybe that is why Open Hillel leaders have closed their eyes to them. Open Hillel is an organization committed to abolishing Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership. These standards preclude Hillel branches from partnering with groups supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Besides…

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Does Open Hillel Have an ‘Anti-Normalization Committee’?

By Derek M. Kwait January 7, 2015

In Palestinian activist circles,“Anti-normalization” broadly refers to the idea that pro-Palestinian activists should not partner in any way with Zionists or Zionist groups lest they be seen as making the occupation seem like an acceptable, or “normal” state of affairs. Normalization has been a controversial topic within Open Hillel since at least their conference at…

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What Does Mechitza Have to Do With Racism? On Patriarchy and the Outsourcing of Blame in Jewish Communities

By Jonathan Katz November 20, 2014

“The African newscaster asked the Jewish rabbi why there were no female rabbis, and the rabbi was very clever – he asked why there were no female chiefs!” I am not sure if it was the self-congratulatory racism, rehash and ignorance of colonial dynamics, or the justification of sexism that irritated me more. There I…

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OMGWTFEXODUS: A Dialogue With the Man Who’s Bringing the Bible to the 21st Century

By Derek M. Kwait September 5, 2014

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…

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Stuff White People Like: Savior Complexes and Palestine

By Jonathan Katz August 15, 2014

    Some people study whales. Some people study epistemological analysis. I study white people. More specifically, I am interested in diaspora networking and migrant housing stock, but I am also interested in the way whiteness as a concept affects these in host countries. A lot of the time, that idea means things like deeply…

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We Need Arguments, Not Echos

By Derek M. Kwait July 3, 2014

I don’t know how so many pundits had reactions polished and published within hours of the announcement of the news of the murders of Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach, and Naftali Fraenkel. I wanted to take time to let the shock dull a little, then write something about it. My thoughts are still a little disjointed,…

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#YesAllJews / #NotAllJews

By Derek M. Kwait June 24, 2014

The #YesAllWomen meme has been one of the most transformative moments in the history of social media, and it’s been exciting to watch the long-overdue conversations it has inspired unfold across all media platforms. Recently, it got me thinking: Are there experiences common to all Jews, or at least all North American Jews? My thoughts…

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A Failure of Sense and Torah Study: On the “Indigenous” Argument

By Jonathan Katz May 21, 2014

So my last article– discussing the historical parallels between Israel today and White South Africa pre-1994 – went mildly viral. It was something I was not prepared for: I had expected the typical (warm, exciting, and fairly big, but nevertheless decidedly niche) response a New Voices article garners: a few dozen Facebook “likes,” no more…

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A Brave New Hillel or More of the Same?

By Derek M. Kwait May 13, 2014

This has, possibly until now, been the academic year of Hillel shooting itself in the foot. Though its roots go back much further, Hillel’s troubles began in December, when then-new Hillel President and CEO Eric Fingerhut published an op-ed in the Jewish Week with AIPAC’s Jonathan Kessler announcing their intention to work together on college…

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Israel Now is What White South Africa Was

By Jonathan Katz May 7, 2014

 Activists often term Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and sometimes Israel itself, as constituting an “apartheid state.” So too do political figures concerned with ending the awful situation – be they Omar Barghouti, John Kerry, or Tzipi Livni. Indeed, it is a convenient, short, and powerful way to term the brutality of…

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