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On January 9th, 2018, Blaze Bernstein’s corpse was discovered in a shallow grave in Lake Forest, California. Bernstein’s murder came in the wake of the year that had, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the largest single-year increase of anti-Semitic incidents on record. Bernstein was a 19-year-old gay, Jewish man. His alleged killer is 21-year-old […]
H. meets me in the Menarah at around 4:30; I am late, and she, in the tradition of everyone I have met here, is beyond gracious. We walk down Rukab Street towards Rukab Ice Cream. It’s the oldest ice cream shop in Ramallah and so notoriously good that the street is named after the shop […]
This past spring, Sheldon Adelson—noted Republican donor and Birthright funder—was awarded the “Guardian of the Jewish Future” award at the annual Birthright Israel gala in New York City. Without Birthright, he said, only 42% of Jewish kids between the ages of 18 and 26 marry other Jews or bring up their children Jewish. “In another […]
A few weeks ago I met my boyfriend, who is an identical twin, at the movies to watch the critically acclaimed CNN documentary, “Three Identical Strangers.” Both being film buffs, we were excited to experience a film that was talked about nonstop at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It was talked about for good reason. […]
Content warning: discussion of sexual violence. The below is an edited version of a d’var Torah that was delivered at Yale University’s student egalitarian minyan on Friday night, August 24th. Parshat Ki Teitzei begins with a particularly haunting section: י) כִּֽי־תֵצֵ֥א לַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה עַל־אֹיְבֶ֑יךָ וּנְתָנ֞וֹ ה’ אֱלֹקֶ֛יךָ בְּיָדֶ֖ךָ וְשָׁבִ֥יתָ שִׁבְיֽוֹ׃ (יא) וְרָאִיתָ֙ בַּשִּׁבְיָ֔ה אֵ֖שֶׁת יְפַת־תֹּ֑אַר וְחָשַׁקְתָּ֣ […]
The first time I got Jew-outed in Spain, I stood in a group of my fellow American exchange students outside our medieval Christian art class. It was the beginning of my semester abroad, back when I could only understand 40% of any given lecture and I spent my days struggling alongside Spaniards who had been […]
It was a warm Wednesday in the fall of my first year at Brown University. As I meandered through the main green, a child with with tzitzit poking out of the bottom of his shirt walked up to me and asked, “Are you Jewish? Would you like to say a prayer or come to dinner?” […]
Being a Jewish student at Western Kentucky University (WKU) feels like attending college in a ghost town. There are no hallmarks of Jewish collegiate life here. No Hillel, no Jewish student group, not even a synagogue in Bowling Green, the town surrounding campus. It’s an experience of alienation, but ironically also the basis for connection. […]
Last month, my Senator, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, reintroduced an updated version of a 2016 bill known as the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (ASAA). On its face, this legislation purports to protect Jewish college students like me. In fact, the ASAA establishes an official definition of anti-Semitism that includes criticism of Israel. If passed, this bill will […]
Content warning: This article mentions sexual violence. The evening I interviewed to be the editor in chief of New Voices, I was nervous. I checked my hair in the webcam, set a water glass nearby, and waited for my internet to connect. When it did, several faces appeared. We all introduced ourselves, smiling, and as […]