Archive
College is an exciting time, but being Jewish on a small college campus can often come with some limitations: cultural concerns, religious practices, specific dietary needs, and misunderstandings to name a few. But in spite of the difficulty, it’s completely worth it. If you’re from a small community like me, a huge college just […]
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most divisive issues in modern politics. For years, the world—as much as Israeli and Palestinian leadership—has been trying to reconcile their differences, and, though there has been some progress, sadly, a full peace has yet to be achieved. To tell you the truth, there are times when this […]
Attention: I am doing something that is heretical across much of the Jewish spectrum. Very heretical – for two-state JStreet-ers, for your right-wing grandma at synagogue Kiddush, and certainly for anyone remotely associated with StandWithUs and other organizations dedicated to apologetics for the Occupation. I am preparing for the potential end of Israel as […]
The #YesAllWomen meme has been one of the most transformative moments in the history of social media, and it’s been exciting to watch the long-overdue conversations it has inspired unfold across all media platforms. Recently, it got me thinking: Are there experiences common to all Jews, or at least all North American Jews? My thoughts […]
In response to the abduction of three teenagers, Eyal Yifrah, Gil-ad Shaar, and Naftali Frankel, over a week ago in the West Bank, a petition to President Obama has been circulating around the Internet asking for the Executive Office to pressure the Palestinian Authority to release the one American citizen of the three kidnapped teenagers. […]
Democracy. So many people seem to love it, including one man named Korach. Yet, reading this week’s Torah portion, we might find that the Torah does not share this love of a government run by the people. When Korach leads a group to protest against Moses and Aaron’s control of the Jewish people, God punishes […]
Kate Jacobson, the former Israel chair at the University of Calgary, recently bowed to pressure from other students and resigned her post due to her highly controversial views on Israel, as reported by the Calgary Jewish News. The most important thing to note here is that she was not told to leave by Hillel— upon […]
Witnessing the first day of the Presbyterian General Assembly has been both empowering and dismaying. I am glad to have been part of an effective coalition of Jews, Presbyterians, and Palestinians, and Muslims coming together to support the Presbyterian Church’s effort to divest from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola. But I’m dismayed by the opposition’s claim […]
The idea of “pinkwashing” is not new. The concept is defined as such: the Israeli government, having to deal with the violation of human rights in the Occupied Territories, uses its record on LGBTQ inclusion (for example, its military has never had a Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell policy, unlike some countries we know) to obscure […]
A storied community in a room. Hand-written notes, wedding documents, and Mezuzahs piled everywhere. When Oren Kosansky discovered these items and more in bags and boxes in a small room in the old synagogue of Rabat, Morocco as a Fulbright Scholar in 2005, they would change his life and the lives of his future students […]