Archive
Like most Jews with ties to South Africa, my heritage is extremely Ashkenazi. In fact, both sides of my family largely originate from the same region of what is now northeastern Lithuania and northern Belarus. Growing up in New York, most of what I was exposed to as “Jewish culture” was really “Ashkenazi, specifically Lithuanian […]
Folks at Hillel International seem worried about the future of Judaism. They seemed worried about it long before Open Hillel existed. There have been many prescriptions doled out to address this perceived problem of our generation’s apathetic and disaffected nature. Send the kids on a free trip to Israel, that’ll solve it. Make sure […]
I’ve been the token Jew for much of my life. People have referred to me as “my Jewish friend, Amber” and some have told me that I’m the only Jew they’ve ever met, especially out here in Wyoming. Since I went to Israel for the first time 7 years ago, I have successfully lived up […]
On Monday, the final day of what Previous New Voices Rebbe David A.M. Wilensky calls “Liberal Jewish Comicon,” my first interaction was with Ali Kreigsman, who was attending in support of her and Jana Kozlowski’s upcoming documentary, Between the Lines, about Jewish day school students who come to university and discover that in spite of […]
Though If Not Now, When? An Open Hillel Conference began at Harvard Saturday night, I wasn’t able to arrive until Sunday afternoon. When I got there, the swarm of familiar black t-shirts seemed to indicate my worst suspicions would be confirmed: This is basically a student JVP conference in disguise with some Jewish SJP activists […]
In recent/days weeks the hashtag #JSIL has been trending on Twitter. It has become popular amongst anti-Israel activists to the use the hashtag to promote the idea that the actions of Israel are similar to those of the so called “Islamic State” (ISIL). Users of the hashtag did not have anything particularly interesting or intelligent […]
“Orthodoxy’s greatest innovation was its decision to stop innovating.” These were the words of a friend of mine in high school, a non-Orthodox student at my Modern Orthodox high school, voicing his frustration at Orthodoxy’s seeming inability to develop and adapt to (post-)modern values. When I published my last article, one of the largest criticisms […]
By now, the controversy over the Ohio University “Blood Bucket Challenge” video is relatively old news: About a month ago, Megan Marzec, president of the OU student senate, was challenged by the university president to dump a bucket of ice water over her head in support of ALS research. She responded by making a video […]
My name is Sofia, I’m 26 years old, and I live in Italy. Like any young woman, I have many interests: I love traveling, reading, listening to music, eating, and living new experiences. I have been to the Unites States several times, and also to France and Spain, and I also lived in London for […]
Last weekend, I drove down from Burlington, Vermont with nine other activists from school to participate in the People’s Climate March. It’s hard to really explain how inspiring the march was. Maybe because it was the march finally showed a side of the environmental movement that we haven’t seen much of yet—a diverse group of […]