YU’s Basketball Stardom Can’t Dazzle Away Assault Allegations
Yeshiva University’s win-streak is overshadowing the team’s assault allegations. Jewish Press coverage is complicit.
Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Article Archive
New Feminists Club Fights Sexism at Yeshiva University
In all caps, the posters read, “SEXISM EXISTS,” on the wall outside the Yeshiva University library. Printouts of anonymous sexist social media posts by YU students surrounded the bolded statement. The display, torn down an hour after it went up on Feb. 16, was one of the first acts of the YU Feminists Club, a…
Jewish Schools, Stop the Statements on Policy
Although President Donald Trump’s temporary immigration ban has been halted by a federal court in Washington state, Jewish educational institutions shouldn’t be publicly sitting in judgment on issues that do not pertain to the Jewish community or Israel. At the expense of possibly furthering division in the Jewish community, it is best for such institutions…
“What Are You Going to Do With a History Major?”
Originally published in The Commentator, the official student newspaper of Yeshiva University. As a history major, I’m often asked, “What are you going to do with that?” This question reflects a dismissive attitude toward the study of history. Although such a view is understandable – as scholar Peter Stearns points out, “Historians do not perform…
Modern Orthodoxy: Stop Appeasing Orthodoxy
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…
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…
The Real Scandal of Open Hillel
In the fall of 2011, Yeshiva University demanded that The Beacon, a student-run publication, remove a ‘scandalous’ story about premarital sex from its website. The student editors fought back, but the administrators threatened them with sanctions if they did not comply with the Orthodox university’s perceptions of modesty. Ultimately, the editors decided to sever ties…
Another War: Conflict in the Paintings of David Reeb
After a summer of war in Israel, David Reeb’s series, “Let’s Have Another War” is a powerful greeting as one enters the gallery at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Reeb places the text “Let’s Have Another War” as a constant caption throughout the series, a caption overlaid on top of gruesome images of war….
Reflections of a Day School Graduate, One Year Out
I’ve written before on my day school education and its different aspects, critiquing how it taught me (or perhaps should have taught me) to look at my history and my past; I’ve also offered what can perhaps be best described as a back-handed compliment to my Jewish education. Now, as someone who has been…
Stopping Orthodox Erasure
Dear Jew in the City: I understand what you’re trying to do on BuzzFeed with your articles about trying to normalize Orthodox Judaism. You are trying to show that, no, those of us who were raised in the Orthodox world (or are Orthodox now) do not actually have to be that different from you…
Modern Orthodoxy’s Identity Crisis
Modern Orthodoxy has a problem and a blessing: it is the belief that one can be both Modern and Orthodox. The problem is that when one changes, the other must, too, for if we are truly to be both Modern and Orthodox, then as modern world changes, our Orthodoxy must change, too. And that must…
Let’s Talk About Here!
Publications aimed for a queer Jewish audience, like any niche-aimed work, tend to concentrate on certain themes. There are your coming out to your community publications, there are your famous-queer-Jews publications, there are your “my story” publications. And then there is another trend: a deep, heavy, nearly-overwhelming concentration on Israel. Israel is everywhere in the…
What Modern Orthodox Jews Think of Women of the Wall
It’s clear from recent changes that the mission of the Women of the Wall is gaining traction. The Jerusalem District Court ruled recently that the Law of Holy Places does not require “local customs” to be Orthodox practices, that police had no reason to detain the Women of the Wall earlier this month and that…
Modern vs. Orthodox [Religion]
I’ve reached a point in my personal musings on Modern Orthodoxy that I’ve started to wonder whether such a thing is even possible: the merging of modern life and religious Judaism. Is Modern Orthodoxy a contradiction in terms? The Modern Orthodoxy ideal is living and engaging in the modern world while maintaining a lifestyle committed…
Latest on Rav Bina: Karate rabbi comes to aid of abuse rabbi [Parsing]
Rabbi Ari Fuld wrote to Jewish student press hero Yedidya Gorsetman to say, among other things: ‘I truly believe you are an evil person’ for ‘trying to murder Rav Bina with your pen.’ He also compared Gorsetman to a dead fish and began his missive by saying, “I am not trying to threaten you in any way.” Which…