Archive
A local Jewish college student on the front lines of BDS recently boiled eggs on his AIPAC-sticker-laden laptop using the raw energy of online Israel-Palestine-related hot takes. Jake Zucker, of rural New York City, New York, said he wasn’t sure what to do when his stovetop stopped working. “Man, I need a high-protein breakfast if […]
In the spring semester of my junior year, Jose* started hanging out with my friend group. The problem was he also hung out out with local gang members. Jose was from south of Worcester, Massachusetts. As a fellow Puerto Rican, he came to me for assistance when he was kicked out of his home, hoping […]
If your family is anything like mine, you were raised on mandel bread and ridiculous family stories that felt like a “Seinfeld” reboot in the making. Growing up, I was a proud member of the Metro Detroit Jewish community. I went to shul regularly, sang in the congregational choir, taught at Sunday school, and attended […]
This is the true story of a nice Jewish girl’s adventure at the National Cannabis Festival in Washington DC. I went on a quest to find intersections between Judaism and the healing aspects of cannabis. Although Cannabis Fest DC is a Mecca of marijuana education, culture, and music, my journey with marijuana’s medicinal qualities began […]
According to a survey recently reported in the New York Times, 41 percent of millennials wrongly believe two million or fewer Jews died in the Holocaust and that 66 percent of millennials could not say what Auschwitz was. American Jews understandably reacted with extreme concern, shocked that so many of their fellow Americans – particularly […]
Eva Watler, age 41, has been dealing with Nazis in Tennessee since she was 13 years old when she was jumped by a pack of skinheads in Dragon Park in Nashville. “They were looking for Jews to beat up,” she said. “I was 13 and I didn’t know how to fight. It was shocking.” As […]
There’s an old Jewish joke about a righteous man who kept all the mitzvot. Every day, he prayed to God to win the lottery, and every day, he did not win. After the man died, he entered heaven and found himself at the foot of the Lord. In anger, he asked: “Why did you never […]
“Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Phillistines, although it was nearer; for God said, “The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.” (Exodus 13:17) In this verse, it seems like God did not trust […]
Young Jews are increasingly disaffiliated from mainstream Jewish institutions and those institutions are panicking. But many young Jews aren’t lost at all. They’re just expressing their Jewishness elsewhere – Facebook. In fact, they’ve built their own institution of sorts: Jewbook, a term referring to a community of Jewish Facebook groups. “I think there are several […]
Originally published in J. Weekly. My experiences in Israel have been some of the most formative of my life. I was bat mitzvahed on Masada, worked in the winery of a kibbutz and made lifelong friends in the country. And yet, my relationship with Israel is complicated, like that of many progressive American Jews. I […]