Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
My father (z”l) died quite suddenly last month. He was young, 57, and had appeared so happy and so healthy. During his final hours, I got the call to come home. I went back to the States for the funeral and shiva. It’s been tough. I was really close with my father – he was…
Last week was New Voices’ #GenderWeek, and many of us (including yours truly) chose to write about the gendering of Jewish ritual, as well as the need to de-gender — or create a new paradigm for— ritual and gender performances. At the same time, however, part of what draws me to rituals seen as traditionally…
As an Orthodox person who attended an all-girls high school, single-sex spaces basically defined my life for four years. Keeping with the general attitude of the right-wing Orthodox community toward gender relations, students at my school were actively discouraged from associating with boys, who were considered temptations that could only lead us down the wrong…
The layout of a room is its first impression. It sets the tone for what goes on there, what the proper decorum is—the general mood. Classrooms are good examples of this—a room with a circle of chairs invites a group conversation; a table and desks sets us up for a lecture. When we build our…
When I was younger I used to tell my dad that I wanted to be a Cantor someday. I learned how to read Torah, lead services, and my singing voice was not too shabby, either. Then, I went off to a Jewish boarding school and my view of what Judaism’s involvement in my life would…
Deuteronomy 24:1 states, “If a man takes a wife and possesses her and she fails to please him because he finds something obnoxious about her, he writes her a Bill of Divorcement, hands it to her and sends her away from his house.” Based on this verse of the Torah, the entire decision to divorce…
Both Avigayil and I (Amram Altzman) have written extensively about the ways in which we have taken on Jewish rituals which, traditionally, fall outside of our traditional gender identities. This is a conversation we’ve been having, more specifically, about what it means to take on Jewish rituals and how that relates to our Jewish identities…
It was certainly one of the stranger Jewish conversations I have had. (Mind you, I have had many.) There I was in Oxford after a hearty Sabbath lunch, walking in the beauty of Christ Church Meadow, chatting with a new friend about food. At a moment, he turned to me and said, “You said…
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…
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…
“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…
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,…
Part live spectacle, part Biblical scholarship, comedian David Tuchman’s OMGWTFBIBLE podcast “reframes the Bible as the world’s oldest weekly comedy serial.” A year-and-a-half after its debut in April 2013 (as seen in New Voices), he’s now heading into Exodus. I caught up with David recently in the food court of Grand Central Station to discuss…
As someone with quite an anti-authority bent, this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Shoftim, has always been one that I have struggled with. Parshat Shoftim lays the foundations for the future government of the Kingdom of Israel, establishing five different leadership roles. These roles include judges, law enforcers, kings, priests and prophets. The former anarchist in…
There is an anachronistic story in the Talmud in which Rav Ashi, a 4th Century Sage from Babylon, engages the infamous Judean King Menashe in a debate. Rav Ashi, shocked by King Menashe’s knowledge of Jewish law, had to ask how such a great Torah scholar could commit one of the gravest sins in Judaism…