In Defense of Challaween and Fall Holiday Fusions

By Jillian Gordner November 24, 2016

With Thanksgiving here and Halloween behind us, ‘tis the season to discuss the role of secular holidays in our Jewish lives on campus. Hillels across the country work to keep college students engaged in Jewish programming and within a Jewish community while they are away from home. They are continuously battling increasing secularism, and in the…

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Jews cannot ignore Syrian refugees

By Amram Altzman November 30, 2015

When I was a child, my mother taught me that Thanksgiving was a holiday of immigrants and refugees. It was fitting, then, that Thanksgiving was a holiday my family spent with my maternal grandparents, who were themselves, along with my mother, Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union in 1981. Although my understanding of the holiday…

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A Convert’s Christmas in Southern Oregon

By Megan Dyer January 5, 2015

The span from Thanksgiving through New Year’s is generally a hectic time for me. A week after trying to wrest control over half the Thanksgiving menu from my mother and sister while debating internally if it’s even worth trying to keep kosher on such a day before inevitably stuffing myself to the gills either way,…

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My Thanksgivukkah Dilemmukkah: A Retrospective

By Dani Plung December 5, 2013

  Over the past several weeks, reminders of the occurrence of Thanksgivukah were impossible to avoid. Hanukkah was to coincide with Thanksgiving, for the first time in over 100 years and for what will allegedly be the last time in 70,000 years. Surely, this was an event this dramatic could not be overlooked! On the…

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On Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and the Deal with Iran

By Amram Altzman December 2, 2013

“You and I can change the world”  The refrain from Arik Einstein’s iconic song, “Ani ve-Atah” (literally, “You and I” — no, Lady Gaga, you didn’t have the song first) seems to ring especially true as we enter Hanukkah and Thanksgiving and as news breaks of the United States and Iran agreeing to enter formal…

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The Reading List: TSA Scanners Cause Problems…With Halakha

By Ben Sales November 23, 2010

Moriel Rothman, student president of J Street U, brings it in an op-ed about the group’s pro-two states demonstration. [HuffPo] The Shibboleth Magazine blog uncovers the intriguing and disturbing Men’s Rights movement. [Shibboleth] An Israeli student talks about what it’s like to have to sit in the back of the bus. [Rucheli’s Ramblings] Flying home…

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