What a Mensch

By akinman November 3, 2010

“True leaders are not those who strive to be first but those who are first to strive and who give their all for the success of the team. True leaders are the first to see the need, envision the plan, and empower the team for action. By the strength of the leader’s commitment, the power…

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The Reading List: Why Students Vote

By Ben Sales November 3, 2010

Despite multiple calls to the National Jewish Democratic Coalition and the Republican Jewish Coalition yesterday and Monday, I couldn’t find stats, or any information, on young Jewish voter enthusiasm this election cycle. Here and above, however, is a cool anecdotal study on why students at the Iowa State University got to the ballot box. [HuffPo]…

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Shalom Sesame Is Back!

By jmerkin November 2, 2010

In the midst of the hullabaloo that is election day — the call upon every US citizen to help advance the future of this country — I took a walk down memory lane: Shalom Sesame is coming out with a DVD for Chanukkah! Much of my childhood was spent planted to the floor between my…

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Depression’s Grip

By jcohen November 2, 2010

I have faced depression. It has come for me in the middle of the night and under cheery classroom lights. I have sat numb and watched the world pass me by. But I have also conquered depression; squashed it with happiness, with music, and friends. I chased it away, and for me, it will never…

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The Reading List: Birthright Participant Dies on Trip

By Ben Sales November 2, 2010

Michael Kellogg, age 24, dies on the final day of his Taglit-Birthright Israel trip. [JPost] Meanwhile, as the Tea Party election commences, Israel starts its own version of the uber-populist, rightist group. [JPost] In more right-wing Israeli foibles, students plan to party on the anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. [YNet] In Jerusalem, student protests continue…

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Friend, You Are Missing

By bspagat November 2, 2010

חבר אתה חסר Bailey Spagat is participating in Career Israel, one of Masa Israel’s 180 programs.

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Racing Together

By bzalcman November 2, 2010

Last Thursday, I participated in Israel’s first ever Susan G. Komen “Race for the Cure.” I didn’t think much of it when I signed up in school; my mom was the one who got excited when she heard, as she lost her mother to breast cancer in 1984. But I guess in an absentminded way,…

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Rabbinic Debate Can Teach Us to Be Responsible Netizens

By mmoncaster November 2, 2010

While I don’t know much about the Talmud, I do know that the timeless wisdom of Talmud scholars has consistently been a source of strength for the Jewish people. Furthermore, Judaism’s tradition of rabbinic debate helped create a culture that places a high priority on education and intelligent argument. I was reminded of this today…

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Reforming the Reformed

By ckessler November 1, 2010

This post comes a bit late tonight, because I’ve been consumed with an article for the fall issue of New Voices on the state of Reform Judaism on college campuses. The article could be a novella, and I had to condense it into an approximately 1,000-word article. Talk about challenging. But what was neat about…

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The Naïveté of ‘Generation O’

By agood November 1, 2010

“Young voters say they feel abandoned” is the title of Sunday’s New York Times article about the disillusionment that followed the Obama campaign.  We couldn’t get enough of Obama back in 2008.  He was new.  He was grassroots.  He was hip and cool, and  he won 66 percent of the 18- to 29-year-old-vote because he…

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Judaism in Chicago: Vandalism and Thwarted Explosives

By admin November 1, 2010

This is a post by Coco Keevan, the student editor of the New Voices-Northwestern blog. Frankly, it’s been a rough weekend for the Jewish community here at Northwestern University and in Chicago. On Friday, word reached Northwestern’s Fiedler Hillel Center that several explosive packages were intercepted by government officials en route to Jewish institutional targets…

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The Reading List: Making the Cut

By Ben Sales November 1, 2010

Schmooze Magazine, Northwestern’s Jewish student magazine, debates the merits of the circumcised penis. [Schmooze] Newsflash: Bernie Madoff did not kill Birthright. [Schmooze] Across the pond, El Al orders a professor to leave her luggage — and her clothes — behind. [Vos Iz Neias] And in the Middle East, an Israeli student gets paid NIS 12,000…

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The Reading List: Gentile (and some Jewish) comedians love AJWS

By Ben Sales October 29, 2010

Everyone from Tracy Morgan to Triumph the Insult Comedy Dog loves the Jewish international aid group. [AJWSTV] Meanwhile, two Pakistani-American Muslim students are going all over their campuses to promote dialogue and understanding between Muslims and Jews. [Forward] The Israeli university students’ protest of the yeshiva stipends bill continues… [JTA] A Jewish college basketball coach…

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What to Do about Maimonides

By yschwartz October 29, 2010

On the first day of the semester, a certain professor of mine unreservedly characterized the great 12th-century Rabbi Moses Maimonides as “the most influential figure in Jewish rabbinic history.” While there certainly might be other contenders for that distinction, the fact that my professor was willing to make that claim is telling. Maimonides’s groundbreaking theological…

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The Reading List: Let me in, pro-Israel community

By Ben Sales October 28, 2010

When you verbally abuse students and shut them out of your community, bad things can happen. [JW] Former New Voices head honcho Mik Moore channels FDR ahead of the election: Do not fear! [HuffPo] Yeshiva students are getting funding from the Israeli government? OK, give it to university students too. [Vos Iz Neias] And don’t…

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