Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
I begin this piece with a massive thank you and apology to the University of Chicago housing staff. A few weeks ago, shortly after returning to school and before the work for the grading quarter had become intense, while absentmindedly perusing the UChicago Housing policy book , I came across the section concerning bedbugs. I…
I am livid. I am enraged with the Open Hillel campaign and its disagreement with Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership. The audacity of Open Hillel to think that Hillel International will sanction the use of its resources for programming that aims to boycott or delegitimize Israel is outrageous. Such behavior would be contradictory to a…
When I first started to attend a local Orthodox shul, I approached with what could be considered a strong level of trepidation. I grew up mainly Conservative, and considered myself as falling somewhere between the lines of Conservative and Reform. When I thought of Orthodoxy, I thought of my Pop’s narrow-minded uncle who never struck…
In an interview with New Voices last week, Jewish educator David Harris-Gershon expressed his support for Swarthmore’s Hillel brave declaration, and recounted his own experiences of being banned from speaking at the UC Santa Barbara Hillel chapter for his political views. In the interview, Harris-Gershon recognized students’ “right to a space free of anti-Israel activity,”…
David Harris-Gershon is a Jewish educator, author, speaker, and regular blogger for Tikkun Magazine. He was recently asked by the Israel Committee of Santa Barbara to be a keynote speaker at its annual event, which was to be housed in the Santa Barbara Hillel building. He was going to speak about his book, What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist…
In a rebuttal to last month’s New York Times article profiling college students who question Hillel guidelines on Israel, Hillel International President and CEO Eric Fingerhut wrote that an “unwavering line” existed on cosponsoring events or welcoming students who “delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel; support boycotts, divestment or sanctions against Israel;…
I have some reasonable propositions for how Hillel International should respond to the Swarthmore Hillel debacle based on four important facts missed by most other pundits on this subject. The first fact is that Swarthmore Hillel is uniquely financially independent. Swarthmore University has an endowment for all its religious groups on campus, and as…
I have a hard time answering the question, “So how do you identify? Like, Jewish-ly?” On the one hand, I grew up in a Modern Orthodox home and attended Modern Orthodox schools since kindergarten, but, for most of my life so far, was part of a haredi community in southern Brooklyn. On the other hand,…
I am very openly willing to criticize the Israeli government. Two of my recent blog posts for New Voices have been criticisms of Israel’s Housing Ministry for announcing the constructions of new settlements at a crucial point in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and Israel’s Prime Minister in condemning the announcement of negotiations between the United States and…
A good deal of time passed in my life where Judaism was very far back in my mind. Jewish life for me used to just mean meeting up with extended family and friends for the holidays, and here and there Friday night dinners with my family were made a little more special by turning them…
When I walked into the 2010 Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) conference, I was 14, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and a newcomer to the feminist movement. Although I am now 18, slightly jaded, and been an active feminist for a few years, I was still extremely excited to attend the 2013 JOFA conference on December 8….
It is a problem that I and many other queer Jewish students face: as religious folk, we want to pray. But how do we – gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans*, queer, and other identities across the “rainbow ” – connect with a liturgy that is often seen as heteronormative, cis-normative, and well, “straight”? Some say, “the…
by The Swarthmore Hillel Board On November 11, former speaker of the Israeli Knesset Avraham Burg was supposed to give a talk on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the Harvard Hillel house. Instead, Hillel barred him from speaking at the Hillel house, and he ended up giving his talk in an undergraduate dormitory on campus. The…
I wrote last week about how I grew up in the Modern Orthodox world, but now feel that, in terms of practice, I identify as part of the vast, grey area between Modern Orthodoxy and Traditional Conservatism, and how I, along with peers from both my religious right and left, can build upon that vast,…
My high school taught about the Holocaust in English class. It was part of the unit on Elie Weisel’s Night, which is required reading for students entering tenth grade. I remember the Holocaust was nothing more than a picture of Jews in a concentration camp with an explanatory caption in my AP European history textbook….