Archive
I like to reflect on endings a lot. More accurately, I hate when, in books and movies, the scene ends with a character driving away and immediately having this crystalizing moment of reflection in which everything that had been so murky becomes clear. That’s not how life works. So when it comes to addressing graduates, those […]
What they don’t tell you at graduation [Wall Street Journal] Is it May already? Blogger Charles Wheelan offers well meaning, touching advise to graduating seniors. Note: it may not always be what you want to hear. “1. Your time in fraternity basements was well spent The same goes for the time you spent playing intramural sports, […]
Not to get too overwrought, but here’s my blog post in response to a Zionist Organization of America press release in response to my JTA op-ed in response to their JTA op-ed. Throughout the press release, notice how many of my points are avoided by going on an ad hominem rampage against me. NEW YORK, […]
Two weeks ago on Yom Hashoah, the Jewish day of Holocaust remembrance, I remembered how lucky I was to be sitting in a balmy lecture hall listening to a boring lecture about Native American history. On an April afternoon 70 years ago my grandma Ethel was in Siberia, where she and her mother landed after fleeing Poland, peddling trinkets after school. Grandpa Sam might have been hopping a train to the Russian-Chinese border or waking up from a nap on top of a gravestone.
Recent articles about hazing at Dartmouth, as well as the embattled chapters of Jewish Fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi, left me wondering: why do we give fraternities, as institutions of our peers with little, if any, distinguishable qualities from the rest of the student body, positions of power in our colleges and universities? What makes otherwise respectable […]
Bye Bye AEPi [JewSchool] The Gamma chapter of international Jewish fraternity AEPi is being shut down, amidst reports of repeated hazing. The chapter, located at the University of Pennsylvania, is not the only chapter of AEPi whose bad behavior has been making ripples lately. The virtues of the fraternity with the highest national GPA are […]
Listening to a classmate yell at another student about Queer Studies was the most boisterous experience of my academic career. Looking back, I’m a little surprised it remains the single most emotional exchange of my Ivory Tower. As I made my way through classes titled, “The Literature of Palestine,” “The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Film” and […]
You may not have heard, but there’s this new thing all the hip kids are using now, called the Internet. It’s the only place you can find bigfoot porn and chinchillas playing piano seconds apart from each other. And there are useful, sane things too. For instance, we can do all our banking online, learn a new […]
Off the path, on the prowl [Slate] This might be the most fascinating article about former Orthodox Jews learning to navigate the complicated waters of love, lust, and being around… “the rest of us.” (Plus, the title is a winner; just click and see what we mean.) Meet Israel Irenstein, coach to the socially awkward, no-longer-frum. […]