When The Women Sang Shema
One of the oldest Jewish prayers takes on a new unified meaning early in the morning, with Women Of The Wall
Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Article Archive
Dear Jewish Queeries: I’m Religiously Observant & My Partner’s An Atheist. Can We Make It Work?
How do I balance a romantic relationship where it’s hard to find common ground in any discussion about religion?
I’m A Jew & I Couldn’t Celebrate Rosh Hashanah This Year
For young working-class Jews stuck in abusive living situations, ritual observance can become difficult or impossible – a struggle often erased in American Jewish communities, where classism and assumptions of wealth pervade.
Not All Time Is For Sale: Keeping Shabbat Under Capitalism
“There are still 25 hours of the week where time holds still, makes room for something quiet and eternal. It is, by its very nature, a world designed to exist outside of capital.”
Why I’m scared for Israel
I haven’t always been scared for Israel. When the news of soldiers going into Gaza flooded our TV airwaves last year, I shrugged and then went on with my routine life, largely unaffected and unfazed. This year, when the horrific attacks and stabbings began to happen, I was immediately enraged and consumed with dread. These…
Messy Jewish identities: A High Holidays meditation, part II
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…
Passover in College: A Journey Worth Taking
Keeping kosher in college is not easy; keeping kosher for Passover is even harder. Pizza, bread, eggs, fruits, veggies, and desserts are my go-to dorm foods. While mentally preparing for Passover, I realized many of the main staples of my already restricted diet were no longer options, and that was daunting. No more opening the…
‘Hillel 2.0’ at Amherst College
It was my first college Shabbat and I was beginning to doubt that I was in the right place. Where was everyone? I glanced back down at my watch. It was definitely 6:30. Surely I could not have been the only mildly observant Jew on campus. I had just returned from a three-day orientation hike….
Why This Religious Jew Wants a Non-Jewish Roommate
Around winter break, during the peak of Israel’s “Birthright season,” I received an invitation from the Columbia/Barnard Hillel to attend a meet-up in Jerusalem for gap-year students in Israel. It was the first time the thought of college had even crossed my mind – I had been doing a pretty good job of focusing on…
Dear World: Celiac is More Than Just ‘Gluten-Free’
As far back as I can remember, I have been excited for college. Even as a young child, it was always somewhere in the back of my mind: after middle school, then after high school, I would get a chance to study away from home, learning something I loved, and practicing for something I’d do…
Undoing the Non-Orthodox Inferiority Complex
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…
My Jewish Masculinity is not Disposable
My egalitarianism started out as a compromise: it gave me most of the traditional liturgy and observance I’d grown up around, while also giving me the modernity and progressive attitudes I’d been surrounded by for most of my life. It allowed me to cling to the tradition of my childhood and the feminism and liberalism…
How to Become Successful in Playwriting (While Really Trying)
At 19, NYU freshman Jake Rosenberg is already one of the most accomplished young playwrights in the country, getting his plays put on around the country and winning multiple awards. After seeing his latest play, Muse of Fire, a comedy about Auschwitz inmates putting on a farce about the Dreyfus affair, New Voices editor Derek…
Take Back the Mikveh: The Need to Democratize Orthodox Judaism
This summer, I had the opportunity to do something that few other men my age do: immerse in the mikveh. Normally, my Jewish rituals are public: I don my kippah wherever I go, I generally pray every morning with my tallit and tefillin in the presence of at least ten other people, and I light…
Meeting New People: A Five-Step Guide for Non-Jews Meeting Jews for the First Time
College means opening your mind and seeing a lot of new faces. You may even find yourself learning more from those around you than from of all the information in your textbooks. Of course, meeting people who think differently than you can be nerve-racking. If you’re meeting a Jewish person for the first time,…