If you come to New Voices regularly, you know that they have been looking for contributors. That is where I come in. And since I will be writing for all of you in the coming months I thought it only fair that I introduce myself, what I plan to do and what I plan not to do. I will also use this first post to gratuitously pimp my other projects.
My name is Judah Ari Gross. I am a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park where I study print journalism, hence the blogging. I was born on June 4, 1989 at 1816 Kendrick St. in Philadelphia. From there I went through the traditional Jewish upbringing. I went to Jewish elementary school, attended Jewish summer camp, belonged to a Jewish youth group and spent a gap year in Israel before college. That’s an abbreviated bio. For more you will have to await my memoir.
Now, in terms of what I plan to do, I will—barring unforeseen catastrophes and work overloads—post every week. I will write about Jewish culture, in as vague a way as I can. I say vague because I do not overly care for Klezmer music or Jewish self-help books. I am, however, a biblio-, audio- and cinephile. Therefore most of my posts will be about writers who happen to be Jewish, bands that happen to have Jewish members or movies that happen to have Jewish characters. Jewish music, Jewish books and Jewish movies, however, I will likely shy away from. That is what I am going to do.
In terms of what I plan not to do, I will try really hard to not talk about anything else besides Jewish culture. I will not talk about Israel, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Obama, Bibi, Abbas, Ahmadinejad, the West Bank, Gaza, Yehuda v’Shamron, global warming or anything else that does not specifically have anything to do with Jewish culture, unless it is completely relevant to the book/song/movie I am writing about. And even then I will do so as objectively as possible. So to recap: Culture, yes. Politics, no.
And now I will tell you about all the other stuff I do so that you can read it and make me feel important. At Maryland I am the editor in chief of the independent Jewish magazine, The Mitzpeh. I also contribute to Heeb Magazine. And I am also on Twitter.
Get ready.
