Archive
After the service, everyone exits the sanctuary to return to the Hillel House where an oneg awaits. Lawson’s wife Susan presents her homemade vegan challah for the rabbi to bless and the students to nourish themselves with. Despite many requests, neither Susan nor the rabbi will give up the secret recipe.
Judaism On Our Own Terms (JOOOT), a network of college students attempting to build Jewish communities without major donor-fueled organizations like Hillel and the Jewish Federations, has only existed since last April. The weekend of September 16th, they held their second-ever national conference on the campus of Brown University. According to one attendee, a former […]
Returning from a short break, after sitting in a small lawn outside between classes and reading the New York Times’s inside look at the squalid conditions in an American concentration camp in Texas, complete with maps demarcating where children are held in cinderblock cells and auxiliary tents for overcrowding, I stare at the wall of prayerbooks and wonder: How can I learn Torah while the world is burning?
Turkish scholar Nazan Bedirhanoglu traveled to the United States after submitting a dissertation for her Ph.D at Binghamton University. Four days before she was set to return to her native Turkey, Bedirhanoglu received the news that she had been blacklisted by the Turkish government.
Elul always brings transition, new beginnings, and reflections. Through my art, music, and video work I explore my obstacles and ground myself by confronting my fears. I hope these pieces can help guide your own personal process of deep thinking as we enter the new year of 5780!
My decision to not write about leaving the paper had an unexpected consequence, one I hadn’t considered in my months of thought and regret: it left space for reconciliation.
My first encounter with a hyper-masculine Israeli man was on my Birthright trip in the summer of 2017. He was a soldier – stout, muscular, uniformed – paired with my group as a part of mifgash for the whole 10 days we were there, and a few days into the trip he decided he would sit in the empty seat beside me on the bus.
As an Orthodox Jewish feminist, I’ve struggled my whole life with what feels to me to be stubbornly sexist interpretations of halacha and my own loyalty and love for observant Judaism. Mavoi Satum fights to protect the rights of women in the rabbinic courts, but does so from the basis of religious observance.
Growing up, immediately before I attended a bar or bat mitzvah ceremony, I was often filled with dread and embarrassment. I grew up in an interfaith household, and the only time I went to synagogue, other than when my family visited our more religious relatives, was to attend a friend or cousin’s b’nai mitzvah. I […]
Prayer is a form of direct action. Taking time out of our days to bless the act of waking up and eating food interrupts expected behavior.