Archive
From Dec. 27 to Dec. 31, the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) met at Kibbutz Tzuba outside Jerusalem for its 43rd international congress of Jewish student leaders. This year, the WUJS Congress hosted 27 American students, the largest delegation of American Jews in over 20 years, through NETWORK: The American Union of Jewish Students, a national, independent […]
In The Wall Street Journal a couple weeks ago, former Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse wrote about how we need to fight anti-Semitism through the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which requires the Department of Education to take the broad State Department definition of anti-Semitism into account when determining if an act can be deemed anti-Semitic in accordance with Title […]
We all know the joke: The first life on Mars will be… a Chabad House. While Chabad, a juggernaut Jewish presence on nearly 200 campuses nation-wide, isn’t quite intergalactic yet, it recently took one step closer. Chabad is finally in all 50 states with its recent addition of a Chabad House in South Dakota. South […]
Originally published in Ha’am. In our era, different societies and communities worldwide advocate pluralism heavily. Pluralism is a uniquely modern idea, in which a society allows – or even encourages – the coexistence of more than one system of thought and values. Unsurprisingly, pluralistic ideals have been heavily championed in our own UCLA Jewish community […]
As the New Year passes, I am increasingly aware of the fact that I’ve graduated, and I don’t have a job just yet. Like many recent graduates, my biggest question is what path to take, as I consider a couple major choices on the horizon – in my case, graduate school vs. rabbinical ordination. I want […]
People who disagree with me are not worthy of my attention or my respect. At least that’s the message my fellow progressives are sending conservative students on campus. Here’s how the argument goes: Because of my superior morals and politics, I made the correct choice at the ballot box this year. I have earned admission […]
When trying to make sense of the suffering and violence taking place in Aleppo and Syria at large, I have recently turned to Jewish prayers to provide me with the necessary structure to process the tragedy and aid those who are suffering. I grew up unable to conceptualize how prayer could be a source of […]
For the last two years, Israeli author and journalist Ari Shavit spoke at dozens of college campuses around the country and for Hillel International. This was before American journalist Danielle Berrin accused Shavit of sexual misconduct, igniting ongoing discussions about sexual harassment in Jewish campus communities. To recap, soon after the accusation, J Street disinvited Shavit from […]
Gift-giving on Chanukah is so popular a custom that we rarely stop to think about it. Why do we do it? Are we just copying Christmas, or is there some Jewish tradition present in the act of gift-giving? (No pun intended.) To find out how gift-giving became such a prominent aspect of Chanukah, we have […]
What are you getting for Chanukah this year? I don’t mean the gifts you’re anxiously awaiting in your mailbox, though gift giving on Chanukah is actually an ancient tradition. I mean, what really is the gift of Chanukah? Is it freedom? Is it independence? Is it survival? Is it the ability to wrap a drone […]