Last week, New Voices (and everyone else on the planet) reported on the tale of the YU Beacon, a Yeshiva University student newspaper that decided to go independent to save itself from censorship.
This week, it’s all about the editorials, including two op-eds — not one, but two! — from Beacon editor and New Voices blogger Simi Lampert. One of our two New Voices editorials is also on the subject this week.
Lampert’s op-ed in The Jewish Week is a moving defense of the decision to publish the article that started the controversy. She writes:
Most importantly, the controversy has fulfilled an important goal of The Beacon: to get the Orthodox community to open up about problems it’s facing. I know of at least one Modern Orthodox pulpit rabbi who used the article that brought on the controversy as an opportunity to speak to his community about premarital sex and how we must start an open and honest discussion about it. Another rabbi has taken the message of the article to impart to his Yeshiva College students the importance of accepting every Jew, and reminding them that there is always the opportunity to do teshuva (seek forgiveness) for a mistake. And in a Facebook message from a former YU student, I was told that the Chabad community of Crown Heights has begun “to have a real conversation about whether not talking about something makes it not exist, and whether free speech is really a Jewish value, and other really important questions.”
If The Beacon and the article in question had this impact, it will have accomplished an enormous amount.
Lampert also makes an appearance on the op-ed page of today’s print edition of The Forward. That piece is an expansion of her blog post for The Forward’s Sisterhood blog from a few days ago. Unlike the Jewish Week piece, this one focuses more on the issues of free speech and freedom of the press. It’ll be online in full over the weekend.
