Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
As former New Voices editor Josh Nathan-Kazis rightly points out, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg oddly implied a common Jew/New Yorker identity in his Rosh Hashanah message: MAYOR BLOOMBERG WISHES NEW YORKERS A SHANAH TOVAH U’METUKAH “When shofars sound in synagogues and community centers across our city on Rosh Hashanah, New Yorkers customarily say ‘Hayom…
So we have this new blog coming out soon called the Global Jewish Voice. And we have this little problem… It doesn’t have an editor. If you or someone you know is a college student with experience editing a blog, especially a college blog, drop me a line at david@newvoices.org for more information. We gonna…
The High Holidays are upon us, and so is a newly updated and expanded edition of the Hillel machzor (High Holidays prayer book), “On Wings of Awe.” The original 1985 edition was ground-breaking in its inclusion of transliterations for many prayers, which was then a rarity even among liberal Jewish prayer books; the new edition’s cover boldly proclaims itself “A Fully Transliterated Machzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.”
While Bernard Scharfstein, vice president of “On Wings of Awe” publisher Ktav, told me, “We sold maybe 1,000 a year; it’s not a bestseller,” it has been a constant presence in many Hillels and in a handful of congregations for many years.
I spoke on the phone recently with the editor of both editions, Rabbi Richard Levy, about what makes “Wings” a Hillel machzor, what has changed in the new edition and how worship has changed over the last quarter-century.
A new Hillel International program (a little explanation from JTA here) called Talk Israel placed tents on 20 campuses yesterday and Tuesday. The tents were open to all for “conversation and not debate,” according to Columbia-Barnard Hillel Assistant Director Carrie Fischbein. “Dialogue is a key component of the day,” she said. Fischbein was also careful…
Following up on our post on Monday, the “Ahmadinedinner” (as friend of New Voices and editor-in-chief of The Current David Fine called tonight’s student dinner with the grand poobah of Iran in an op-ed in the Columbia Spectator) will go forward tonight, albeit with a change in the cast. The student organization originally reported to be…
Today in New Voices, we have American University correspondent Zach C. Cohen’s story about the new Martin Luther King, Jr. monument on the National Mall. Gaze upon the beauty that is the photo above. I’ve been harping on the national correspondents about getting great photos to go with their stories. I’ve told them that I…
It’s tempting to call freshman Penina Yaffa Kessler a rookie reporter. But that would be misleading. We first met her back in May at our Jewish Student Journalism Conference. This was right after we had moved into our new office, inside the offices of the Forward. Penina told us that she was a rising freshman…
When I was looking for 10 reporters to become this semester’s New Voices National Correspondents, the field was full of Cohens, Fines and Silvers; among seven others, we hired Zach C. Cohen, Dafna Fine and Carly Silver. But there was also this Chen in the mix, one Jun Chen. Jun is a graduate student at…
Today in New Voices Magazine, we present “September 11, 2001: Half a Lifetime Ago,” seven essays by people for whom the decade since 9/11 represents one half of their entire life. Today’s college students grew up in the post-9/11 world and can hardly remember the pre-9/11 world. These essays were co-published with The Jewish Daily…
The New York Times says that the Master’s is the new Bachelor’s. Then how do they explain my employment? Huh? Huh? Anyway, Jenna Weissman Joselit points out that not only are MA program proliferating right now, but there are more Jewish Studies programs popping up as well. In the Times article, they cite the appearance…
In case you haven’t been paying attention to the rest of Jewish blogosphere all week, here’s the new Beastie Boys 11-minute action figure adventure music video directed by Spike Jonze: Wait. What? Shabbat Shalom!
An article in the Forward by Naomi Zeveloff bears this headline: “New Push To Link Jewish Boomers To Community.” In the print edition, the headline reads, “A New Initiative To Help Boomers Connect To Communal Life After They Retire.” The article blew my mind because so much of the language used and the motivations ascribed…
Gabe Schivone, a student at the University of Arizona, recently returned from Greece, where he was planning to join the flotilla to Gaza. His boat never left port and he returned to the U.S. After a lot of phone tag, he and I finally did a short Q&A over email. His answers may be predictably…
“So this is where deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon exists: In a vast white space populated by magically appearing and reappearing figments of his imagination.” [+972 Magazine] PunkTorah, of all people, becomes only the second outlet (after us, of course) to do any real reporting on the demise of JDub. [PunkTorah] Herman Cain proves his…
Here’s something interesting: Among my different groups of friends (or should I call them “circles” of friends now?), it’s my Jewish friends that have taken to Google+ most readily. And it’s not just my Jewish friends, but it’s my camp friends, the most far-flung, geographically disparate circle of friends I know. This made me think…