Archive
Here at New Voices, we’re very excited about Purim, as we’re sure you must be as well (take that as an order). After all, what’s not to like? Baked goods + costumes + alcohol + heartwarming story of good vs. evil = one hell of a good time. So pretty much everyone on our masthead […]
“Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it,” says Cady in that memorable scene from Mean Girls (admittedly, pretty much every scene from Mean Girls is memorable). What follows is a parade of high school girls, each clad in […]
Jon Stewart has occasionally joked about the inferiority of Jewish holidays when compared with our Christian counterparts. He’s lamented the cardboard taste of matzah, expressed his jealousy at the yummy chocolates given out on Easter, and generally represented the sentiments of many Jewish Americans that our calendar of holidays is not quite so fun. Well, […]
Some four years ago, when I left my home in the humid Georgia foothills for college in the snowy Midwest, a member of my family gave me two pieces of advice: “Number one: If someone hits you, or hurts you, you get ‘em back,” they said. “Stand up and don’t let ‘em win. “Number two: […]
The times that I’ve made Hamantaschen in the past have always been in an affectionate haste around my kitchen table, with my grandmother’s well-worn cookbook pinned down by two generations of elbows and floury fingers. My mother and I flutter around the kitchen in hazy swirls, looking for circle-cutting cylinders, inventive ingredients to ad lib as creative […]
There’s a bit of a dilemma brewing in my brain. Let me unpack it for you. I’m an avid reader: a non-fiction guy. Philosophy, pragmatic thought and ethics. Religion, mysticism, law and queer Torah studies. Politics and liberal theory. History (the American Civil War). Economics, finance and banking. On average, I read anywhere from 25 […]
The day-end sea of black-and-white flooding out of Jerusalem’s yeshivas is a lesson in the pleasure of monochrome. At what seems like the same time every afternoon, thousands of frocked and bearded men turn Strauss Street into a conveyor belt of bobbing Borsalino hats. It’s amazing to watch during any day of the year. The […]
In the religious world, non-Jewish schools (all considered “public” in casual conversation) are regarded with such a level of contempt and repugnance one would think that they exist exclusively in the lowest depths of hell. They are reserved for kids who are off the derech, from fucked up families, or got kicked out of yeshiva. […]
This articles deals with the topic of eating disorders and may be triggering to some people The Beacon, an online publication for the Orthodox Jewish community (and, incidentally, the paper I helped start two years ago), is tackling an important issue this month, with first-person narratives and various other articles related to eating disorders. The […]
Hillel is advertised as “the foundation for Jewish campus life.” Yet, even before I joined the programming board of my Hillel at Tufts University, I could tell it was missing an important part of the Jewish campus community: those who support Palestine through international non-violent movements that currently fall outside the Jewish institutional mainstream. In order to […]