Finals Week News Round-Up: Texas A&M Rabbi Confronts White Supremacist

By New Voices Staff December 9, 2016

Are finals interfering with your catch up on campus news? New Voices has you covered. Stay in the loop with this week’s news round-up, featuring three of the latest stories from campuses across the nation. Click the links to read more. See something here that you want to report on – or kvetch or kvell about? Get in touch at editor@newvoices.org. At…

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Jewish Institutions, Oppose Bannon – or Millennials Will Leave You Behind

By Marc Daalder December 8, 2016

Over the past three weeks, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Steve Bannon for chief strategist has drawn a lot of attention. Bannon has been accused of turning conservative website Breitbart News into a home for neo-Nazis and the alt-right movement, of being a racist, a white supremacist, and even an anti-Semite. At the same time,…

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Students Protest Steve Bannon at the ZOA Gala

By Sara Weissman November 21, 2016

“Racist, fascist, anti-gay! Stephen Bannon, go away!” Jewish protesters shouted last night as they marched toward the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City – where Stephen Bannon, Donald Trump’s appointed chief strategist, was invited to attend this year’s Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) Gala. When police told protesters to disperse outside the hotel or risk…

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When Posters Target Pro-Palestinian Students, Campus Jews Speak Out

By Mari Cohen November 17, 2016

Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian posters appeared on college campuses across the country throughout the month of October, provoking condemnation from a variety of campus groups and administrators. These posters were a product of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an organization spearheaded by anti-Muslim extremist David Horowitz, and are part of the organization’s campaign called “Stop the…

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Steve Bannon: Sympathy for White Supremacists in the White House

By Jackson Richman November 16, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump has started to select members for his upcoming cabinet. Two positions have already been filled: Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus as chief of staff and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Steve Bannon as chief strategist. The former is a sane and solid choice, based on his experience in the GOP establishment, while…

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Students React to Trump’s Victory

By New Voices Staff November 10, 2016

On Tuesday, Nov. 8, New Voices asked students across America and Canada for their first reactions to Donald Trump’s poll-defying win in the 2016 presidential election. Students share their experiences of the election on campus and their initial thoughts on the outcome: Adam Jacobs, George Washington University, Freshman “Last night I witnessed panic, fear, happiness, stress, relief, anger, denial….

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Hillel, Reject Naftali Bennett’s Exclusionary Grant

By Lara Haft November 7, 2016

One of my favorite professors recently told me a story about her second-grade son. Asher* and his classmate were carpooling to school when the other eight-year-old began to lecture him about “correct” religious observance. My professor, who has raised Asher in a deeply Jewish, mixed-denomination home, was proud to hear her son reply with the…

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U of M Students React to Campus Apartheid Wall on Rosh Hashana

By Nicole Zelniker November 1, 2016

At the University of Michigan, many Jewish students spent the morning of Oct. 4 attending Rosh Hashanah services. That same morning, students in Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) were getting ready to protest. “I just saw these two huge walls,” said first-year student Juliet Wishner. She also saw signs supporting BDS. SAFE, a…

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Why I Say Shema as a Secular Jew

By Josh Daniels October 31, 2016

Throughout my university experience, I sat in the middle of a seesaw – spirituality on one end and skeptical materialism on the other. As I took my classes, the weight of skepticism seemed to get lighter and lighter, and the seesaw slowly shifted closer towards spirituality. But no matter how much I read, I could…

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To Go to Class or Not to Go to Class?

By Daniel Levine October 21, 2016

Originally published in Ha’Am. There is perhaps no decision more representative of the difficulties of being a practicing Jewish college student than the quintessential question of whether or not to attend class during Chag. To me, this is not a question of grades or even the inconvenience of having to spend long, sleepless nights catching…

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High Holidays and Midterm Season Survival

By Sara Weissman October 20, 2016

Original version published in The Daily Californian.  When I was preparing to come to UC Berkeley, my biggest fear wasn’t the academic rigor of college, making friends, or getting used to the sometimes-unidentifiable food at Crossroads dining hall – though those were definitely all high up on my list. It was observing Jewish holidays, including Shabbat, and…

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Locker Room Banter is Rape Culture

By Sheila Katz October 16, 2016

Originally published via Medium by Sheila Katz, the Vice President of Social Entrepreneurship at Hillel International and a board member of the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse: The most recent Presidential debate was a missed opportunity. The opening question about sexual assault elicited Donald Trump’s excuse that his recent remarks about groping women without consent were just “locker…

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Reclaiming Alienated Liberals: Israel’s Imperative for Diaspora Jews

By Benjamin Davidoff October 11, 2016

Originally published in the Spring 2016 edition of The Current. It has been over seventy years since the end of World War II and the Holocaust. As remaining survivors become fewer and fewer, the Holocaust moves from being a living memory to one that is more historical in nature. Inevitably, as we are further removed…

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How to travel Europe with your ghosts

By Leah Tribbett June 3, 2016

To grow up Jewish is to grow up haunted. I’ve never lived on a Civil War battleground, and I’ve never shared my closet with a ghost (two brothers who tried to scare me to death, yes — but never a ghost), and yet the feeling of being haunted is as well known to me as…

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UC Irvine students protest IDF presence on campus

By Nicole Zelniker June 1, 2016

On May 18, students at the University of California, Irvine, protested a screening of the documentary “Beneath the Helmet,” an Israeli film about the Israeli Defense Forces. “They were screaming. They tried to push open the door, but we were holding the door from the inside,” said President of Students Supporting Israel Katrin Gendova in…

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