Jews and Modern Music

By Carly Silver February 11, 2011

Rapper Drake is a melting pot of cultures. He is African-American, Canadian, and Jewish, a wonderful cultural package all rolled into one. When asked by a reporter if he was a better Jew than Harvey Levin, who runs gossip website TMZ, Drake replied, “I don’t know. I’m one of the best Jews ever to do…

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FailedMessiah says: Support New Voices!

By Ben Sales February 10, 2011

Shmarya Rosenberg, the writer of FailedMessiah–a blog covering the Orthodox world–reposted a column by Gary Rosenblatt, editor of the Jewish Week, calling for support of New Voices. Rosenberg, who was involved in the North American Jewish Students’ Network decades ago, then wrote his own account of how the Jewish Establishment has not paid enough attention…

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The Reading List: Proof that Vatican II Is Working

By Ben Sales February 10, 2011

Maybe we’re not so different after all. Apparently it’s just as hard to be a friendly, amiable and polite person at church as it is at synagogue. [Cartoon Church] Here’s a moving series of short biographies about the Jewish servicemen and servicewomen who have given their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. One of…

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Shabbat Under the Stars

By akinman February 10, 2011

Tent? Check. Warm coat? Check. Sleeping bag? Check. Shabbat candles? After looking over UF Hillel’s weekly e-newsletter, I read about an event that I think has potential to change up modern day Shabbat services. Sure, there’s the typical get dressed up, sit for two hours staring at a siddur, and schmooze during dinner, but one…

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Tzfat Klezmer Festival (part one)

By mekeisler February 10, 2011

It’s really striking just seeing Tzfat– there’s nowhere else like it. It’s so old looking, city walls and stone arches, but then you see the bullet scars in a wall and you remember the whole city was evacuated just five years ago. Despite that, it’s peaceful. For all the talk about the divisions in Israel…

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The Return of the Reading List: A Jewish Student in Cuba

By Ben Sales February 9, 2011

A Northwestern student visits the Jewish community in our socialist neighbor. [Schmooze] While a student at Maryland works for social change during an Alternative Spring Break. [JewMD] And a student in Israel finds out what it’s like on the other side of the Jordan River. [Pink Pangea] Kids at a Hebrew charter school in New…

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On the Kibbutz

By jcohen February 8, 2011

Despite the area’s controversial standing, a kibbutz in the Golan Heights was my favorite part of Israel. On the kibbutz, the air was damp and sweet with the scent of clay. Sun-baked mountains surrounded us and a few were even dusted with powdery-white snow. Each morning we would rise from our beds and walk through…

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When it rains, it pours

By mmoncaster February 7, 2011

It’s been a fairly slow start to 2011 for Vancouver Hillel, at least from my perspective. No George Galloway or UBC student groups to stir things up. Perhaps the weather is to blame. Winter in the PNW is infamously drab, and the overcast skies have a tendency to dampen even the brightest spirits. But as…

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Steven Cohen: Birthright should include J Street (and other news…)

By Ben Sales February 4, 2011

In the above video, posted yesterday by the Berman Jewish Policy Archive, BJPA Director Seven M. Cohen says that “Birthright is making a mistake” by not allowing a J Street trip. Cohen recommends, in brief, that Birthright provide “value-oriented trips to Israel”–a range of trips that provide space for students with diverse values or beliefs. Birthright,…

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Percents and People

By Carly Silver February 4, 2011

How do you measure a Jewish population? By faith? By numbers? By synagogue? The New Haven Independent, a paper discussing the affairs of New Haven, CT, says that, in that area, numbers of Jews are statistically rising. However, the study was “supplemented by contacts with 536 households with Jewish-sounding names.” Is this the right way…

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Protect Professor Kristofer Petersen-Overton’s Job

By eweiss February 4, 2011

This article has been edited to reflect a correction: Student leaders of the procession protesting Professor Petersen-Overton’s curriculum have met with Brooklyn College’s administration to discuss their concerns. Previously, this article implied that those meetings had not yet taken place. I take great pride in calling myself a Zionist, but I take greater pride in…

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Forget convergence…. Your new meme for the day is divergence!

By David A.M. Wilensky February 4, 2011

It is the miSinai, conventional wisdom in media that the future is in convergence. Convergence is the idea that you produce content that can be repackaged in a variety of media. For instance, let’s imagine that we at New Voices still have our print edition, but we also have a podcast and regular video pieces. Then,…

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Pray and Paint

By akinman February 2, 2011

Some pray, some preach and others paint. Organized by UF Hillel, Rosh Chodesh was given an artistic touch. Do Art, an interactive art and pottery shop in Gainesville, Fla., held the first Rosh Chodesh event of the semester by bringing together amateur and professional artists alike. The two hour, girls-only event was paid for up-front…

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A college snow day

By jcohen February 1, 2011

I never had a genuine snow day before I came to college. My school district prided itself on never delaying the power of education because of wind or weather. My childhood found me schlepping to school in spite of the whirling white flakes. So, you can imagine my girlish delight when it was declared that…

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Update: What Birthright has to say for itself

By jmerkin February 1, 2011

J Street U issued a statement yesterday that its Birthright trip had been cancelled, but today Birthright issued a statement of its own saying that it never approved the J Street U trip in the first place, and that J Street U cannot facilitate a Birthright trip because J Street has an overt political stance…

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