Sara Weissman

Full Circle for a New Voices Editor

By Sara Weissman July 10, 2018

My first day at New Voices, I remember scanning my desk. It had all the randomness and quirk of the magazine I’d been hired to run: a picture of the original 1970s staff sporting impressive Jew-fros, an old student comic about Israeli politics, and a golem figurine seeming to guard the office stapler. Later that…

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Do Intersectionality and Anti-Normalization Clash?

By Sara Weissman March 7, 2018

A green text bubble flashed across my phone. “You should write about the Farrakhan, Women’s March, anti-Semitism, intersectionality thing.” I turned my screen dark. I’d been avoiding this. I know. I’m a Jewish feminist writer. I drink my morning coffee out of an Emma Goldman mug and my phone auto-predicts the term “intersectional feminism.” I…

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A USF Student Senate Bill on Israel Results in Rare Collaboration

By Sara Weissman February 27, 2018

The University of Southern Florida student government passed a resolution last month entitled “New Hope,” critiquing President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But what makes this bill different from all other controversial student government bills? Drafters and campus Jews worked on it together. The resolution came out…

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My Pluralistic Agenda

By Sara Weissman November 16, 2017

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!)…

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Did Jews For Jesus Get Jewish Millennials Right?

By Sara Weissman November 6, 2017

I know, I didn’t think I’d be writing that headline today either. But a Jews for Jesus study may have actually made an interesting insight about Jewish millennials. What am I talking about? Jews for Jesus recently commissioned a study surveying 599 Jews born from 1984 to 1999, using a legit, often religion-focused polling firm…

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Dear Mayim Bialik – From an Orthodox Feminist

By Sara Weissman October 18, 2017

NOTE: Mayim Bialik apologized publicly for her remarks after this letter was written. Click here to see her apology.  Dear Mayim, Let’s talk – Orthodox feminist to Orthodox feminist. You represent me. You might not mean to but you do. With the exception of Ivanka Trump (oy), you’re probably the most visible Orthodox woman in…

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Jewish Students Join the March For Racial Justice

By Sara Weissman October 9, 2017

What do you do the day after a fast? (Sleep? Reflect? Make up for a day of missed meals by eating like a hobbit?) For hundreds of Jewish activists, the answer was march across the Brooklyn Bridge. When the Washington D.C. March for Racial Justice was organized on Yom Kippur, Jews gathered for solidarity marches…

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What Do Jewish Millennials Want to Read?

By Sara Weissman August 24, 2017

Originally published in New Jersey Jewish News. “What do Jewish millennials want to read?” “What’s going on in the minds of future Jewry?” As the editor of New Voices, I field these questions constantly — at conferences, Shabbat tables, blind dates, and board meetings. Thankfully, New Voices has always had a simple answer. And per…

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Can We Stop Calling Campus a War Zone?

By Sara Weissman July 25, 2017

“Where do you go to school?” “UC Berkeley.” “UC Berkeley? Wow, the front line. You students are fighting an important battle over there. Keep it up!” I can’t tell you how many times I had this conversation – at shuls, Shabbat tables, even half a world away in Jewish communities abroad. The language always struck…

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We’re Not Talking About BDS, So Why Are You?

By Sara Weissman July 13, 2017

Dear Jewish community, So, you wanna understand Israel/Palestine debates on campus. The first thing you have to do is stop talking about BDS. Shocking, right? We try. But really, BDS doesn’t summarize what Israel conversations on campus are all about these days. BDS measures on major campuses are actually going down, and yet, somehow, they…

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‘End Jewish Privilege’ – Left or Alt-Right Rhetoric?

By Sara Weissman March 27, 2017

In an oddball crossbreed between leftist language and retro anti-Semitic tropes, posters that read ‘End Jewish Privilege’ appeared on University of Illinois at Chicago’s campus earlier this month. The posters proclaimed, “Ending white privilege starts with ending Jewish privilege,” followed by an image of a pyramid with Jews at the top and “goyim not drawn to scale” at the bottom. Eva…

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Are You an #AppallingYoungJew?

By Sara Weissman February 23, 2017

This week, social media users witnessed a beautiful onslaught of snark and defiance from the Jewish millennial corner of the Twitterverse. Young Jews took to Twitter appalled by a swiftly deleted tweet suggesting that Israeli Knesset member Michael Oren had called their views on Israel appalling. “The opinions of young #american #jews are appalling. They need the…

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UC Berkeley Students React to Violence at Milo Yiannopoulos Protest

By Sara Weissman February 3, 2017

On the night of Feb. 1, violence erupted at a UC Berkeley protest in opposition to controversial conservative speaker and Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos. Yiannopoulos, who had been invited to speak by the Berkeley College Republicans, evacuated the premises and his speaking engagement was cancelled at 5:45 p.m. According to The Daily Californian, what started as a…

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Media Misrepresents Jewish Students

By Sara Weissman January 25, 2017

Everyone has their morning rituals. I roll over, sleepily grab my phone, and look at my Google Alerts for “Jewish students,” which supplies me with all the day’s news featuring campus Jews. As the editor of New Voices and a nerdy recent grad, this is what one does before coffee. Here’s what this week’s list…

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7 Best Tweets by Jewish Women Hitting the Streets

By Sara Weissman January 23, 2017

In the wise words of Beyonce, girls run the world – and, this past weekend, they proved it, marching in the hundreds of thousands toward the White House on Saturday as a response to Trump’s inauguration the day prior. Crowds of fierce, pink-hat-wearing ladies gathered in cities across the U.S. and even in countries around the world with…

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