Archive
Training to be a Jew [Tablet] Jake Kohlman, a Jewish soldier in the American armed forces, reflects on how his basic training enabled him to connect to his religion. “At that Sunday service, for the first time, I started to understand. The chaplain’s words lifted my spirits. I remembered why I had joined in the […]
Rabbi Mordechai Rackover, the Jewish chaplain of Brown University and the rabbi at Brown-RISD Hillel (which serves both Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design), doesn’t quite fit the popular conception of Orthodox Jews as out of touch with the modern world. He’s rarely found without his iPhone (except on Shabbat, of course), maintains a Kosher food blog, and is an almost alarmingly prolific tweeter. By any measure, he is as deeply involved in both modern American and Orthodox life as anyone can be. So what led him to strongly decry a recent statement by a group of Orthodox rabbis that condemned gay marriage, though he agrees with them that it is “halachically impossible”?
There is a God, after 30 years and 17 nominations, Meryl Streep has won another Oscar. I say this because she is by far the finest actress of our time and yet every Oscar season it is a debate whether she will win the Oscar she easily deserves. This was a surprise considering her competition, […]
Israeli Apartheid Week began on Sunday. But some pro-Israel protesters at the University of California, Berkeley got started a day early, pepper spraying some folks on Saturday. Not to be outdone, a group of anti-Israel students mic-checked a speaker at the University of New Mexico on Thursday (see above video). On Thursday, protesters interrupted a […]
On Friday, we published an editorial about the NYPD’s practice of spying on Muslim college students. Apparently someone at Al Jazeera read it. Last night, I spoke on the phone with someone at Al Jazeera about talking on Al Jazeera about it. Kind of. Al Jazeera — yes, the English language version — has a […]
Our post on the NYPD’s spying on Muslim students elicited a letter to the editor from Marion D.S. Dreyfus: I have attended MSA meetings. They are not ecumenical, they are not inclusive, they are not unharmful. They surrounded me when they saw i was taking notes. Imams came in and began spouting shariah-filled homilies that put the […]
It doesn’t look like the controversy over news that the New York Police Department monitored the activities of Muslim students will be dying down anytime soon. Here at New Voices, we tracked the responses of various student presses to this disturbing report, and there have been many takes on the exact kind of prejudice this […]
While most Americans push marriage further and further off into adulthood, marriage is alive and thriving among some Jewish college students in Manhattan.
Only 51% of American adults (individuals 18 and older) were married in 2010, compared to 72% in 1960, says a recent report from the Pew Research Center. But many Jewish college couples have found that now is the right time for them to make a life commitment. Some are shomer negiah — meaning that they follow a strict interpretation of Jewish law that only allows them to be in intimate physical contact within the confines of marriage. Other Jewish pairs simply find that tying the knot is the next stage in their relationships. Maybe it’s a mixture of both.
Israel has more non-orthodox Jews than Haredim, study finds [Jewish Journal] A recent study demonstrates that Israel’s Conservative and Reform populations appear greater in number than that of its Haredim (ultra-orthodox), though not by much. Could this knowledge spell a shift in representation for an Israeli population that doesn’t seem to make as much political […]