Archive
“There seems to be a lot of talk that non-Orthodox Judaism is Chillul Hashem. Is Hashem angry?” –D.B., London, U.K. That’s a great question—and one with a messy answer. First off, let’s come to an understanding about what Chillul Hashem actually means. In Vayikra (Leviticus) 22:31-33, following an extensive legal document that dictates the terms […]
I grew up in Baltimore, MD, where the one non-Jewish family within a 5-block radius was famous simply because they had Christmas decorations when the rest of us were lighting candles in our windows for Chanuka. I always felt bad for the kids in that house around Halloween–in the 15 years that I lived in […]
This summer, I received an opportunity to travel to Poland, to study Jewish-Polish relations before, during and after the Holocaust, with nine other graduate students. The trip was three weeks. When I was asked what my plans were for the summer and I replied, “Three weeks in Poland,” the response was generally the same. “Three […]
Following up on our post on Monday, the “Ahmadinedinner” (as friend of New Voices and editor-in-chief of The Current David Fine called tonight’s student dinner with the grand poobah of Iran in an op-ed in the Columbia Spectator) will go forward tonight, albeit with a change in the cast. The student organization originally reported to be […]
When it comes to Jewish rappers, there aren’t that many names–MC Serch, the Beastie Boyz, Shyne. The biggest one out right now is Kosha Dillz, an Israeli-American from New Jersey who raps everything from grimy battle raps to hasbara (staunchly pro-Israel messages). He plays festivals from Summer Jam in his home state of New Jersey to South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.
He’s a hustler. Before I even heard his music, I saw him on twitter, hitting up Israeli celebrities to promote his music. When I saw him at the Middle East nightclub in Cambidge, Mass. Back in June, he was in the crowd a half hour before his set, passing out bumper stickers and pins.
I called him up a few days ago to talk hip-hop, business and politics. A lot of politics.
Anyone accepting Columbia International Relations Council and Association’s invitation to sit down for an intimate dinner with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad next week should take a look at a photo taken at a public square in Iran, and distributed by the Associated Press on July 23, 2005. The image depicts two blindfolded boys, around 16 years of age, with nooses being affixed to their necks moments before they were publicly hanged by Ahmadinejad’s regime because they were accused of “raping boys,” or, as we call it, being gay.
I recall this photo not because it shocks–though it does–or because it will tell you anything new about the man who approved those hangings–it won’t. I bring it up because the moral burden of our Columbia University education and human dignity require us to examine whether it is right for us to sit down to dinner with a man who facilitates, even encourages, such executions.
After a controversial speech at Columbia University in 2007, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have linked up with the New York school again to discuss his policies. And every news outlet from the Upper West Side to Israel has put their two cents in. According to a Sept. 10 article in the Columbia Daily Spectator, […]
The back cover of Joshua Cohen’s novel Witz is enticing, but misleading. It depicts an alternate history where all the Jews in the world die at the start of the 21st century, resulting in a Judaism pop-culture craze as the goyim try to preserve, imitate and commercialize Jewish culture. I read this synopsis and thought “either this […]
Today in New Voices, we have American University correspondent Zach C. Cohen’s story about the new Martin Luther King, Jr. monument on the National Mall. Gaze upon the beauty that is the photo above. I’ve been harping on the national correspondents about getting great photos to go with their stories. I’ve told them that I […]
To their friends and neighbors, they’re a standard Orthodox Jewish couple, a man and a woman married for five years, two children in tow. Their marriage is a product of convenience rather than love, but that’s not unusual. Yet the particular reason for their union is unique: the man is gay, and the woman is […]