At what point does exploitation become inappropriate?

By Josh Weiss May 19, 2016

I love over-the-top, grindhouse, Tarantino-esque exploitation B-movies as much as the next Nice Jewish Boy™ — but sometimes I wonder if there’s a cut-off for when the blatant mocking of reality goes a little too far. I’m not talking about the explicit use of sex, drugs, violence and cursing; these elements are the essential cornerstones…

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Tevye the Dairyman’s Seventh Daughter

By Chloe Sobel May 16, 2016

i. Tevye Comes to Brooklyn My dad and I read Sholem Aleichem when I’m young. He has a copy of Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories, but we stick to Tevye. We sit on the couch and he reads out loud to me. I grow up on Aleichem, not Fiddler on the Roof; my…

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Why progressive Jews should be outraged about Hasidic schools

By Amram Altzman April 12, 2016

When news broke back in September of the systematic and egregious lack of regulation of secular studies curricula in Hasidic and Haredi schools, there was little outcry from the rest of the Jewish community over the fact that a large segment of our population — already growing up cut off from the rest of the world…

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“Child of the Sun” shines as retelling of Samson story

By Josh Weiss March 2, 2016

  The first time I read the graphic novel “Watchmen,” I was profoundly shocked by what writer Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons had done with the superhero genre. A gritty amalgam of nudity, profanity, sex, and political subtext, it caused me to feel overwhelmed and a little embarrassed at what I was reading. To…

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Keeping the faith: Young adults unite at DC Interfaith Leadership Summit

By Michele Amira February 25, 2016

On February 7th, over 150 young adults of religions ranging from Jewish, Muslim, and Catholic to Sikh, Hindu, Baha’i, and humanist, gathered together at the Howard University School of Divinity for the DC Interfaith Leadership Summit. Hosted by the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington as part of World Interfaith Harmony Week, it was a celebration…

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What Kitty Genovese teaches us about Donald Trump

By Samantha Levinson February 17, 2016

When my Rabbi first told me about Kitty Genovese, it was my sophomore year of high school. After that, he would often invoke the story of how she was murdered while witnesses stood by. He would use Kitty to make a point about personal responsibility, or accent a story about not standing idly by, or…

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Talking about not talking about Israel: Or, addressing the Israel problem

By Amram Altzman February 1, 2016

  We, the American Jewish community, have an Israel problem, and we need to talk about it. It’s not the fact that Israel exists. It’s not the fact that it’s a politically fraught topic to discuss — although that’s certainly part of it. It’s the mere fact that Israel and Zionism as abstract concepts are…

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LGBTQ Jews: Let’s stop talking about Israel

By Amram Altzman January 26, 2016

When I first heard about the National LGBTQ Task Force’s decision to cancel A Wider Bridge’s event at the Creating Change conference this past weekend, I was sad. I know what it’s like as a religious person to feel alienated from queer spaces because of my decision to remain religious despite coming out of the…

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Happy Hanukkah! No more Drake Christmas memes.

By Chloe Sobel December 4, 2015

I know when those sleigh bells ring, that can only mean one thing: the sound of forced assimilation. If you’re on the internet and move in Canadian or Drake-loving circles, you’ve probably seen the usual “Hotline Bling” memes, now featuring Christmas. You’ve seen the ugly Christmas sweaters with Drake’s likeness on them. They’re harmless, I suppose,…

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Falling in and out of love with campus Judaism

By Ilana Diamant December 2, 2015

When I came to college, the first thing I did was join Hillel. I participated in a pre-semester welcome weekend designed to introduce incoming freshman to Jewish peers and foster a stronger community. I was swept off my feet. Hillel is generously endowed, or so it seemed, and the endless barbecues and pizza dinners were…

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Why I’m scared for Israel

By Robin Radomski November 24, 2015

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…

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What we can learn from the RCA and the URJ

By Amram Altzman November 15, 2015

On Oct. 30, mainstream Orthodox leaders in the Rabbinical Council of America confirmed once again that women who receive the same training and jobs as men still are not — and never will be — equal to men. Six days later, the Union for Reform Judaism passed a landmark resolution on the inclusion of transgender individuals…

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Yes, Orthodoxy is still to blame

By Amram Altzman July 31, 2015

Yesterday, I was reminded that the world in which I grew up — the Orthodox world — is one toward which I feel a sense of affinity, but also fear. The stabbing at Jerusalem Pride, carried out by a man who committed a similar crime a decade ago, confirmed this for me. I can love…

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Life as a Jew at Catholic U

By Sherilyn James June 3, 2015

Choosing a college was the first big choice I had ever made. I knew Seton Hall University gave away good scholarships, was close, and I figured I had nothing to lose. Two months later, I was accepted to their six year B.S.E. Elementary/Special Education/M.S. Speech Pathology program. The first time I set foot on campus,…

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Modern Orthodoxy: Stop Appeasing Orthodoxy

By Amram Altzman June 1, 2015

 In January 2014, Rabbi Avi Weiss’s conversions were called into question by the Israeli Rabbinate. At the time, this was the most prominent example of the differences between the Orthodoxy’s left and right wings, as well as the growing gulf between American and Israeli Jewries. This gulf widened last week when news broke of the…

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