Article Archive

In the midst of the U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood, which has sparked debate everywhere, college students across the country gathered on Sep. 21 and 22 as part of Hillel’s Talk Israel initiative to engage in dialogue about the Middle East. With large tents set up in the center of 20 universities, equipped with large blue banners reading “Talk Israel,” Israeli cuisine and videos featuring talks from several prominent pro-Israel figures, the goal of the event was to provide a forum for students to ask questions and discuss Israel “at a time when civility is in rare supply in the public sphere,” according to a Hillel International press release. Students at universities spanning the map from the University of Florida to McGill University in Montreal stopped by between classes to grab a falafel and talk Israel.

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.

It’s an idea so simple you may wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself: Grab a few friends and bake some deliciously eggy challah, then sell it and donate the proceeds to help feed the hungry around the world.
That idea was the inspiration behind Challah for Hunger, an organization with chapters at 44 colleges and universities across America–and two in Australia–dedicated to making and selling the much-loved traditional Shabbat bread to raise money for hunger and disaster relief organizations. CfH was founded in 2004 by students at the Claremont Colleges, a consortium of seven liberal arts colleges in Southern California. So far, the have raised over $250,000.

When you first walk through the Mountain of Despair that marks the entrance of the new memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. on the National Mall, the vision of two massive walls of water about to collapse is inescapable. As visitors pass through and see King’s likeness etched into the part of the monument known as the Stone of Hope, it is almost as if King is getting ready to part the Tidal Basin for his people’s long-awaited escape to freedom.
“It’s gorgeous,” Rachel Silvert, a senior at American University, said. “It’s a beautiful monument.”

When Hurricane Irene blew through the Eastern Seaboard last month, the coordinators of Wesleyan University’s annual pre-orientation Jewish camping trip were faced with dropping enrollment. They scrambled to find a new location after the campsite they planned to hold the program at closed ahead of the storm.
The camping trip, a Wesleyan tradition over the past five years that is entirely organized by students involved with the Jewish community–though not all of them are Jewish–has established itself as an integral part of the Jewish community’s outreach to incoming freshmen and a way of strengthening existing ties. So when Irene threatened its continuation, its leaders fought for its survival.

Judah Cohen felt like he was living in a different world when he heard the news Sept. 11, 2001. Then teaching at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City, he said his scare began the moment he turned on the TV, and continued throughout the next couple of weeks as he saw missing persons’ pictures plastered everywhere on the streets of Manhattan.

If you’re in college today, you were as young as 8, as old as 12. The events of September 11, 2001 hover just at the edge of your memory, though growing up in post-9/11 America is an inescapable fact of life. Here, we present seven brief essays, the personal memories of New Voices contributors about that day.
–David A.M. Wilensky, New Voices Editor

Sometimes, it’s for free. Other times, it’s for college credit. On rare occasions, for pay. Some call it slave labor, while others call it a lucky break.
It’s no question that internships are becoming an easier catch for college graduates than entry-level positions. On occasion, the smooth transition from internship to entry’level job becomes a reality. For others, each internship is a stepping-stone to hopefully landing a job. But since employers have seen the rising trend of people wanting to work even for free to gain experience, a new question has been raised: Are businesses taking advantage of their interns?

When the opinion editor of Israel’s Maariv newspaper, Ben-Dror Yemini, visited the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this year, he gave a lecture tour stretching from the campus of Stanford University to the network of Bay Area JCCs. He talked about the things he knows: Israel, the media and multiculturalism.
“The main problem that I recognize here is ignorance,” Yemini said from across a coffee table in his hotel in downtown San Francisco. He wore a crisp black suit and round, wire-framed glasses. “They don’t hate Israel or love Israel. They just don’t know.”

In this installment, Carly Silver returns to Hinduism, visiting a Hindu temple under construction in Flushing.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and president of J Street–the self-proclaimed “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” lobby–has faced a lot of flak since his organization arrived on the scene three years ago. Facing controversies from the left and right, on and off of Capitol Hill, J Street–and Ben-Ami–have at times struggled to get their message across.
“A New Voice for Israel,” Ben-Ami’s first book hits the shelves tomorrow. The book describes Ben-Ami’s personal and professional journey to the helm of J Street, the issues Israel faces and why he thinks the American Jewish conversation on Israel needs to change. Ben Sales spoke with Ben-Ami about the book. Here are some of the lobbyist’s thoughts on students’ place in J Street, Jewish organizational dynamics and that other Israel lobby–AIPAC.

This story may sound familiar: On a free summer trip to Israel, a group of college students visited the Western Wall, drank in Tel Aviv, met with Israeli soldiers and had an encounter with a group of Bedouin in the Negev. But this story has a twist: This trip was not funded or organized by Birthright–this trip was provided by J Street U, the college arm of J Street, a lobby that describes itself as, “The political home of pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans.”
J Street U’s first summer Israel trip ran from June 13-23, taking its 14 participants to many of the standard stops for a Birthright trip, but also gave participants a look at a side of Israel that Birthright trips are barred from seeing.

Summer means less for you to read at New Voices. But it also means more for you to write. Or edit. Or take pictures of. Or blog about. Or…

Jaclyn Skurie spent her spring break in Cuba with a group from the Northwestern University Hillel. The Jews she met there lead a hard but fulfilling life–living in dilapidated houses but praying in an ornate synagogue. Welcome to Havana.

Brian Lasman’s problems had only begun when he lost vision in his right eye during a year of study in Israel. What followed was a two-week stay at a hospital, where he got treated, got confidence and learned how Israel really works.