BDS has no place in student government

By Erika Streisfield March 17, 2016

This article originally appeared in The Queen’s Journal on March 11, 2016. While it’s essential for institutions to practice freedom of expression, there’s no place for intolerance at a university. This is especially true in student government, where neutrality should be upheld. On Feb. 22, over 900 students gathered for the Students’ Society of McGill University…

Read More...

UChicago dealing with aftermath of AEPi’s racist emails

By Nicole Zelniker March 11, 2016

Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi rocked the University of Chicago’s campus last month when BuzzFeed News obtained emails that referred to Muslim student activists as “terrorists” and mocked Martin Luther King Day, calling it “Marathon Luther King Day” and saying to celebrate by eating fried chicken. AEPi International spokesperson AEPi Jonathan Pierce told New Voices that…

Read More...

Intermarriage isn’t the problem

By Amram Altzman March 9, 2016

Ever since the Pew Report was released in late 2013, intermarriage has been a constant topic of Jewish conversation. It’s been over two years and it hasn’t stopped. Since the report was released, there have been any number of blog posts, op-eds, and long-form pieces on the best ways to counter and combat intermarriage, and…

Read More...

Students looking to start new businesses always have TAMID

By Jackson Richman March 4, 2016

To begin the next great enterprise requires certain skills. An aspiring entrepreneur needs to know how to pitch, how to fundraise — and how to find people who can help them get their business off the ground. At George Washington University and two dozen more American campuses, there’s a club for aspiring entrepreneurs to develop…

Read More...

Dear fellow liberal Zionists: The establishment doesn’t want us

By Abe Silberstein March 1, 2016

Three weeks ago, I attended a small lunch event at Hunter College’s Roosevelt House featuring spokespeople from the New Israel Fund and Breaking the Silence, as well as the Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard. Given the recent tension at my alma mater between student supporters of Israel and members of Students for Justice in…

Read More...

Keeping the faith: Young adults unite at DC Interfaith Leadership Summit

By Michele Amira February 25, 2016

On February 7th, over 150 young adults of religions ranging from Jewish, Muslim, and Catholic to Sikh, Hindu, Baha’i, and humanist, gathered together at the Howard University School of Divinity for the DC Interfaith Leadership Summit. Hosted by the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington as part of World Interfaith Harmony Week, it was a celebration…

Read More...

What Kitty Genovese teaches us about Donald Trump

By Samantha Levinson February 17, 2016

When my Rabbi first told me about Kitty Genovese, it was my sophomore year of high school. After that, he would often invoke the story of how she was murdered while witnesses stood by. He would use Kitty to make a point about personal responsibility, or accent a story about not standing idly by, or…

Read More...

Racism isn’t just for fraternities

By Amram Altzman February 8, 2016

Here at New Voices, we’re no strangers to the questions of Jews and race. And while it seems like we’ve done a good job of beginning a very much needed conversation on the complicated relationship that we American Jews have with race, ethnicity, and privilege — and we’re nowhere near the end of this conversation…

Read More...

At Brown, Alpha Epsilon Pi becomes Beta Rho Pi over dissatisfaction with treatment of non-Jews, sexual assault

By Chloe Sobel February 5, 2016

On Nov. 3, 2015, near the end of a year in which rape on college campuses became a national conversation, the members of Brown University’s Alpha Epsilon Pi chapter voted to disaffiliate, in part due to the national fraternity’s handling of sexual assault education. After the disaffiliation vote and expulsion from the international fraternity —…

Read More...

Co-opting social justice won’t erase reality in Israel

By Chloe Sobel January 20, 2016

I was hoping that in 2016, the Jewish community would find better ways to reach out to millennials. I guess they have, if co-opting social justice, intersectionality, and related ideas counts as outreach. It started with an op by David Bernstein, the current CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, published Jan. 4 in…

Read More...

Ally or aggravator? Recognizing Jewish whiteness in context

By Ilana Diamant December 29, 2015

In 1954, the American Jewish Committee supported the NAACP during the historic Brown v. Board of Education case. In 1965, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched to Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King. And a month ago, I heard a college-aged white Jew equate his family’s historical experience in Europe to the struggle that people of…

Read More...

Zionish challenges readers to find nuance in Zionism

By Nicole Zelniker December 17, 2015

There seem to be two choices in mainstream Jewish life: Either you’re pro-Zionism, or you’re anti-Zionism. A new online publication, Zionish, rejects that binary. “Our stance is to reject the traditional stances,” Zionish editor Aaron Simons told New Voices via email. “People conceive of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one where you have to be either…

Read More...

Is there a Jewish Agenda on campus?

By Zev Hurwitz December 10, 2015

When a UC Santa Cruz student leader is instructed to abstain from a BDS vote due to his allegiance to a “Jewish Agenda,” the proper response from the Jewish community is very simple: Such activities are anti-Semitic, and do not belong on diverse, pluralistic campuses. This is only the latest case of anti-Semitism that has…

Read More...

Happy Hanukkah! No more Drake Christmas memes.

By Chloe Sobel December 4, 2015

I know when those sleigh bells ring, that can only mean one thing: the sound of forced assimilation. If you’re on the internet and move in Canadian or Drake-loving circles, you’ve probably seen the usual “Hotline Bling” memes, now featuring Christmas. You’ve seen the ugly Christmas sweaters with Drake’s likeness on them. They’re harmless, I suppose,…

Read More...

Falling in and out of love with campus Judaism

By Ilana Diamant December 2, 2015

When I came to college, the first thing I did was join Hillel. I participated in a pre-semester welcome weekend designed to introduce incoming freshman to Jewish peers and foster a stronger community. I was swept off my feet. Hillel is generously endowed, or so it seemed, and the endless barbecues and pizza dinners were…

Read More...