Archive
At the University of Chicago Hillel the students aren’t the rebellious ones. The Jewish federation of Chicago fired the professional head of the U. Chicago Hillel along with its entire board on March 30, the Forward reports (written by former New Voices editor Josh Nathan-Kazis). There’s a whole lot of weird in this story: What […]
I was in stats class when Twitter and Facebook exploded with rumors that Rick Santorum was bowing out of the presidential race. So of course I stopped paying attention to standard deviations and confidence intervals. Indeed, despite mass confusion when Washington Post denied rumors that they reported Santorum’s forfeit, other media outlets, including CBS, FOX […]
Carly Silver explores her family’s ancestral haunts in Brooklyn.
Meet a Jew for Jesus… err, the first Jew for Jesus [Forward] Ever wanted to meet the founder of Jews for Jesus? (Hey, where’d everybody go?) Moishe Rosen is a curious personality whose life and theology are being explored in a new biography. This article from The Jewish Daily Forward explores highlights of Rosen’s life […]
Jews have a long and healthy relationship with the West’s pop culture forms. In particular, there’s a laundry list of famous Jews making great music. And let’s face it: Bob Dylan is a tough act to follow. So how do we one-up ourselves? Frum Jews riffing on pop music: rock, R&B, even rap. Matisyahu is probably most famous […]
I have spent, or rather squandered, countless hours pouring over Facebook. And every few months, usually in the midst of a particularly stressful work week in which I solemnly vow to stay focused, I consider removing myself from its vacuum and just going offline. However, in today’s age, deactivating your Facebook is like dropping off […]
Focusing on Community College [USA Today] Community College is no longer the subject of the hilarious NBC sitcom above. New government funding and a dearth of skills in several expanding areas has led to increased enrollment in community colleges offering technical and vocational skills that some view as crucial in today’s job market. However, focusing […]
There’s a lot of talk about personal modesty as it applies to the religious life. Religions around the world often encourage a codified form of dress to distinguish their practitioners from “the rest of us.” Fights over the Muslim hijab are excellent examples of the firestorms sparked by the modesty question. For Jews, recent events […]
“We need to talk about Beit Shemesh” [Sh’ma] In this article from Sh’ma, Laura Frank explores the connections between true modesty (an ambiguous idea) and the misogyny of many ultra-Orthodox Jews. Can a balance between inner and outer appearance, and the implications of “legislating” dress as a form of social control, be reached? “As a […]