Why I’m Tired of Hearing About Chickenshitgate (And Can We Please Not Make That a Thing?)

By Amram Altzman November 3, 2014

I’ll be the first in line to comment on the policies of the Israeli government, and the first in line to criticize those policies, be they negotiations or the stronghold that the religious right holds on social policies in Israel. I’ve openly stated that I believe that the Netanyahu government’s policies are working against the…

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Collapsing Towers: Liveblogging my Quarrel with Haaretz

By Derek M. Kwait October 30, 2014

Though I don’t agree with them on everything (no one should agree with anything on everything), I ordinarily like Haaretz. I also normally find writing in to complain a bit gauche. Whether it’s about food, internet service, or editorial positions, I usually either don’t think it’s worth the bother (“My internet’s being slow? Good, I…

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We Are All Images of God: How I Will Beat Anorexia

By Jourdan Stein October 29, 2014

I grew up knowing that one of the most important values is to honor one’s body. I learned that I was made in the image of God and that made my body holy. I have never felt that way, though. I have always felt that my body is disgusting, something to be ashamed of, not…

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Take Back the Mikveh: The Need to Democratize Orthodox Judaism

By Amram Altzman October 28, 2014

This summer, I had the opportunity to do something that few other men my age do: immerse in the mikveh. Normally, my Jewish  rituals are public: I don my kippah wherever I go, I generally pray every morning with my tallit and tefillin in the presence of at least ten other people, and I light…

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Learning to Undo Ashke-normativity – A Jew in the Motherland

By Jonathan Katz October 22, 2014

Like most Jews with ties to South Africa, my heritage is extremely Ashkenazi. In fact, both sides of my family largely originate from the same region of what is now northeastern Lithuania and northern Belarus. Growing up in New York, most of what I was exposed to as “Jewish culture” was really “Ashkenazi, specifically Lithuanian…

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Live Blogging the Open Hillel Conference Day 2

By Derek M. Kwait October 15, 2014

On Monday, the final day of what Previous New Voices Rebbe David A.M. Wilensky calls “Liberal Jewish Comicon,” my first interaction was with Ali Kreigsman, who was attending in support of her and Jana Kozlowski’s upcoming documentary, Between the Lines, about Jewish day school students who come to university and discover that in spite of…

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Live Blogging the Open Hillel Conference Day 1

By Derek M. Kwait October 13, 2014

Though If Not Now, When? An Open Hillel Conference began at Harvard Saturday night, I wasn’t able to arrive until Sunday afternoon. When I got there, the swarm of familiar black t-shirts seemed to indicate my worst suspicions would be confirmed: This is basically a student JVP conference in disguise with some Jewish SJP activists…

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Let’s Talk About How We Talk About Orthodoxy

By Amram Altzman October 6, 2014

“Orthodoxy’s greatest innovation was its decision to stop innovating.” These were the words of a friend of mine in high school, a non-Orthodox student at my Modern Orthodox high school, voicing his frustration at Orthodoxy’s seeming inability to develop and adapt to (post-)modern values. When I published my last article, one of the largest criticisms…

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Continuing a Tradition of Activism at The People’s Climate March

By Jesse Baum September 30, 2014

Last weekend, I drove down from Burlington, Vermont with nine other activists from school to participate in the People’s Climate March. It’s hard to really explain how inspiring the march was. Maybe because it was the march finally showed a side of the environmental movement that we haven’t seen much of yet—a diverse group of…

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Consulting the List: Discreet Judaism and British Kashrut – A Jew in the Motherland

By Jonathan Katz September 29, 2014

In the US, those of us who keep kosher in any form (and yes, that means many things) are used to kashrut wars. Is Does said person keep to that seal? Is this food OK, or is it Star-K? Will a thousand demons eat me if I have a block of Triangle-K cheddar? In short,…

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When Will Orthodoxy be Ready for Me?

By Amram Altzman September 16, 2014

  I’ve written about the successes and shortcomings of my fourteen years of Modern Orthodox day school education before, from religious, secular, and Zionist perspectives. I’ve also written about the thought processes behind my decisions to leave the Modern Orthodox world and join — at least for now — egalitarian communities that fall more in…

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First Results of the Jewish Student Survey are In!

By Derek M. Kwait September 15, 2014

  Preliminary results of the Demographic Survey of American Jewish College Students 2014 are out. Started last spring by Drs. Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar at the Trinity College Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, this is the first comprehensive scientific survey ever of an underrepresented and under studied demographic: American…

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Why We Should and Shouldn’t Be Mourning Joan Rivers

By Amram Altzman September 8, 2014

I had an opportunity to meet Joan Rivers at the tail end of my senior year of high school. She told me I was a nice Jewish boy. She then moved along and continued to make some joke which was probably far too inappropriate to quote, then proceeded to flip off the photographer. What I…

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Why the Search for Aaron Sofer Matters

By David G. August 27, 2014

On Friday, August 22, Aaron Sofer was taking a shortcut through the Jerusalem Forest with his friend. The two became separated when his friend wanted to try hiking up a hill, and later that evening when the friend returned home, he discovered that Aaron was missing. When I came online Saturday night, I learned about…

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Meeting New People: A Five-Step Guide for Non-Jews Meeting Jews for the First Time

By Ed Mighell August 19, 2014

  College means opening your mind and seeing a lot of new faces. You may even find yourself learning more from those around you than from of all the information in your textbooks. Of course, meeting people who think differently than you can be nerve-racking. If you’re meeting a Jewish person for the first time,…

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