Archive
After Jewish summer camp, USY, and a Talmud Torah education, my friend told me he was disillusioned with Zionism. “I’ve always found the idea of Diaspora to be super meaningful,” he said. “The majority of Judaism is based on Diasporic tradition and the allegory of Diaspora. Modern Zionism sort of spits at this.” He explained […]
“Oh Allah, liberate the Al Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews… Oh Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one.” In July, Imam Ammar Shahin said these words in a sermon to his congregation at the Islamic Center of Davis. The sermon was delivered shortly after […]
With the fall Jewish holiday season in the rearview mirror, I can’t help but miss the megillah we read annually on Sukkot and the epitome of philosophy, Kohelet, before it completely disappears beyond the horizon. For those of you that haven’t read it, Kohelet addresses big questions like does anything in life really matter? And […]
In Houston, Texas, Laverne Cox looked out on an auditorium of eager listeners at the 2014 National Conference on LGBTQ Equality. In her keynote speech, she made a statement that stood out to me. “The scarcity model is a myth,” she said. Cox was talking specifically about trans women of color working together instead of […]
Originally published in the Columbia Current. At a time when millions of dollars are funneled into hiring Jewish professionals to manage Jewish life on campus with little or no say from the students they claim to serve, the American Union of Jewish Students is attempting to take back the conversation of what it means to […]
Originally published in The Forward. On Monday, December 11th, the Khan Liberal Arts Institute at Smith College will be hosting a panel discussion featuring Valerie Plame Wilson. After her initial invitation, consisting of a talk about her time as a CIA operations officer, was received and accepted, the news broke that Plame had retweeted an […]
Originally published in Ha’am. Paying for school might be a lot tougher for graduate students thanks to the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (TCJA) making its way through Congress. The bill has come under fire by opponents for a plethora of issues, including projected increases in the number of uninsured Americans, nine-digit increases to the […]
Originally published in Ha’am. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No… it’s bubkes. As one of the (evidently) few who flocked to theaters to watch the new “Justice League” movie — shout out if you’re one of us — I couldn’t help but view it as a mildly enjoyable bundle of missed opportunities. If you’re […]
When Jonathan Taubes was in high school, he read a lot of Noam Chomsky – so much so that Taubes and his friends jokingly refer to him as the Rebbe, or teacher. Chomsky, an American historian and social critic, writes about a diverse array of topics: Zionism, anti-Zionism, socialism and every other –ism imaginable. As […]
Over the course of my time at New Voices, I’ve been called a lot of things in comment sections, tweets, and emails from dubious Hotmail accounts. I’ve been called a radical leftist, a right-wing apologist, a snowflake, a “silly little girl who should listen to her mama.” (My mama is a progressive, too – surprise!) […]