Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Unlike many other people I know who grew up in but have since left the Modern Orthodox community, I don’t look back on my childhood religious experiences with sadness. Instead, many of the decisions that I have since made in my religious life have been because of — not despite — having been raised in the…
I love over-the-top, grindhouse, Tarantino-esque exploitation B-movies as much as the next Nice Jewish Boy™ — but sometimes I wonder if there’s a cut-off for when the blatant mocking of reality goes a little too far. I’m not talking about the explicit use of sex, drugs, violence and cursing; these elements are the essential cornerstones…
i. Tevye Comes to Brooklyn My dad and I read Sholem Aleichem when I’m young. He has a copy of Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories, but we stick to Tevye. We sit on the couch and he reads out loud to me. I grow up on Aleichem, not Fiddler on the Roof; my…
On this weekend, five years ago, a community member of the synagogue in which I’d grown up stood up at the podium of my teen minyan, and talked about the verse in this week’s Torah portion — one that’s served as the basis for discrimination against queer Jews for decades. I had just come out…
There was an announcement back in March that was great news for some and dreadful news for others — that is, of course, the announcement of a fifth installment in the “Indiana Jones” franchise. It’s currently scheduled for the summer of 2019, with Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford set to return to directing and acting…
At first glance, you might think Meir Kalmanson is just another 25-year-old hipster filmmaker from Brooklyn. But if you take a closer look, you’ll find that he’s far from typical. Kalmanson was born into the Chabad Lubavitch movement, which is a sect of ultra-Orthodox Hasidism — and the largest and fastest-growing Jewish organization in…
Max Kessler looks exactly like Adam Sandler. The name of Adam Sandler’s character in his new movie is Max Kessler. This is wild. And it’s already gone viral on Reddit. Meet the one, the only, The Real Max Kessler. Samara Abramson is a graduate student at Columbia University.
J.J. Abrams seems to have his hands in every proverbial cookie jar these days. Whether he’s producing a show for Hulu such as “11.22.63,” rebooting “Star Trek,” or directing box office blockbusters like “The Force Awakens,” his name is everywhere in the entertainment world, in just about every medium. And while he’s a marketing genius…
Today is International Women’s Day, a global simcha that began as International Working Women’s Day in 1909, spawning from the Socialist Party as a way of acknowledging the world-changing contributions women have made to society. Eishet chayil, or “woman of valor,” is my kavanah for International Women’s Day. While we rejoice in the women who have…
The first time I read the graphic novel “Watchmen,” I was profoundly shocked by what writer Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons had done with the superhero genre. A gritty amalgam of nudity, profanity, sex, and political subtext, it caused me to feel overwhelmed and a little embarrassed at what I was reading. To…
I am queer — and my decision to be queer is a conscious decision. There were times in my life when I wasn’t queer, but it’s been a process through which I have grown into my identity as someone who identifies not as gay, but primarily as queer. And, as I’ve grown into it, that…
In the Pacific Northwest, Radio Jewce has turned its looking glass from a goat farm to a young artist. The second episode of Radio Jewce, a podcast focused on Jewish life in the Pacific Northwest, was released three weeks ago and is the first in a “Student Short Series.” It focuses on Elizabeth Goldsmith,…
On January 14th, I woke up to a slew of notifications on my phone. Two friends had re-shared on Facebook an old picture a few of us had taken with Alan Rickman at the stage door after seeing him perform in Seminar in January 2012. Another couple of friends had messaged me condolences, saying they…
From a young age, Serena Dykman, a young European filmmaker, has known about the Holocaust. As the granddaughter of three survivors, she not only received a school education on the Holocaust, but a very personal one as well. She has witnessed the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe with the attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium…
Haredi Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi is a renowned worldwide Torah lecturer, claiming to be devoted to bringing Jews closer to Judaism. But it’s clear in light of recent remarks that his devotion to kiruv — Orthodox outreach — is anything but unificatory. It’s time that the Jewish community, regardless of affiliation, takes a stand against the…