Archive
“As female counselors, my friends and I have often felt that we have had to work twice as hard to earn the respect that our male co-workers receive from campers and staff alike. While I wish that my campers won’t have to feel that way by the time they become counselors, I know it is very possible that they will. So I realized that the most important thing I could do in that moment was talk to my girls about the importance of unification.”
“You can’t work at camp for all those summers, watch all those campers burst into bloom under a summer sky that feels close enough to reach out and grab hold of with the tips of your outstretched fingers, without learning to believe in something. And those things I believe about camp live at the very center of my heart; to deny they were true for myself rendered them meaningless, entirely.”
“Still, the images—Portland tweens and Seattle teens and Polish and British and American and Israeli and Hungarian and Canadian staff singing their hearts out in languages familiar and foreign, skipping around with friends and strangers turned best friends, busting moves in sync or at random without blinking an eye—remains starkly etched in the crevices of my mind. Finding my place in this global network of people and identities reminds me just how much room there is under the umbrella of Judaism.”
“My kids and my faculty taught me that I am no less of a person because I am disabled. I am not alone in being disabled, and I am able to help others because of my disability not in spite of it.”
Ariel Wexler gives an on-the-ground report on the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality in Washington D.C. throughout the historic summer of 2020.
New Voices Fellow Miriam Saperstein’s poem on the evening before Tu b’Av, the Jewish celebration of love.
Erev¹ Tu b’Av² twilight where flesh and sorrow tumble in fields not sure the end of each or where beginnings tremble moonlight scoops my armpits arches my back hands reach down to lift me from a shallow grave³ then I help another out of theirs we promise to return some night leave the longing earth […]
In this short illustration series, 2020 New Voices Fellow Rebecca Lubow reflects on the moments in-between during the Coronavirus pandemic.
“As an illegitimate child, claims of Israel’s legitimacy have never concerned me. I can identify that both of us exist, whether or not we were born into the world under perceived authority. Even if there was a malicious ideology that caused either of us, Jewish bastards both, it would not be relevant in addressing our current transgressions.”
“As an American in Israel, I can talk to English-speaking immigrants to Israel, and use a shared vocabulary to explain why I believe the annexation would lead to the creation of an apartheid state. And unlike my Israeli friends, I can stand up for Palestinian rights without fear of societal backlash.”