Archive
We’ve all heard the joke: A synagogue is trying to get rid of a field mouse that won’t leave the building. So they give it a bar mitzvah.
Aiming to put an end to that punchline, the Union for Reform Judaism launched a new initiative called the Campaign for Youth Engagement at the Reform movement’s biennial convention, held near Washington, D.C. on Dec. 14-18.
“I think it’s going to be fantastic,” Ryan Leszner, a senior at York University, told New Voices. “It doesn’t immediately speak for college campus needs … but you have to start somewhere.”
Matisyahu’s Twitter bomb is making the rounds. He shaved. He announced it with a photo and one of the most vaguely expressed personal statements he has ever issued. The argument now is over whether or not he dropped being a Hasid or being religious all together. The tweet is ambiguous – probably deliberately so. The […]
New Voices (and the YU Beacon) has been included in a “Most Viral Student Media of 2011” list by Dan Reimold, official curator of all things important in the college media world. Any college journalist who isn’t following Reimold is doing it wrong. His blog, College Media Matters covers the most innovative corners of the […]
The editorial that originally appeared in this space has been retracted. It relied on a Dec. 16 article in Tablet Magazine that alleged that Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion had received an offer from Willy Stern to endow a chair for a politically conservative professor.
Tablet issued a correction on the article on Jan. 3:
“This article originally stated that the rumored funder was Willy Stern, an adjunct law professor at Vanderbilt University and occasional contributor to the Weekly Standard. Stern, who originally declined to be interviewed for the story, has since informed us that he did not make this offer.”
It is in light of this that New Voices has retracted this editorial.
The last U.S. troops may have left Iraq on Dec. 18, but this generation’s involvement with that country is far from over — whether they realize it or not.
Thousands of American private security contractors (read: mercenaries) remain on the Pentagon’s payroll — otherwise known as the taxpayers’ payroll. Tax dollars are still flowing, and Iraq’s stability is far from assured. For recent college graduates and those who will graduate in the new year and in coming years, the domestic financial aftermath of the war matters as much as the global security issues. The $1 trillion spent in Iraq means $1 trillion not spent at home — money that could have been used to benefit current and future students by forgiving college debt or providing low-interest student loans.
There is something fundamentally Jewish about Christopher Hitchens’ legacy of debate, intellectualism and moral exploration. It doesn’t take much to see a parallel between his confrontational, often enraged discussion style and the general tone of the Judaism’s prophetic books — especially on questions of ethics and morality. Let’s acknowledge from the outset that Hitchens’ impact was felt by all who crossed his path. He would not have appreciated the imposition of a narrative with spiritual undertones upon his words, choices and platforms. Nevertheless — with all his question marks, conflicts and contradictions — Hitchens embodied a fiery, secular Judaism with totality of spirit.
With the landmark New York marriage equality legislation of 2011 several million Jews now live within a state that allows same-sex marriages – and the Conservative Movement has noticed. Only five years ago the Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards (CJLS) – the central authority on halakhah (Jewish law) for the Rabbinical Assembly – issued […]
Yesterday, I talked about the uncertain future of college Jews in organized Reform Judaism. Now there may be hope, but from Hillel rather than Union for Reform Judaism, whose biennial convention I’m reporting from. About five years ago, Hillel realized there was a dirth of Jewish life on college campuses. When they asked themselves how […]
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 […]