Labels Are for Food, Not Jews

By Yosef Nemanpour January 10, 2018

Originally published in Ha’am. There are a surprising number of labels that a Jewish person can use to describe their Jewish identity. It can range anywhere from the typical “Orthodox,” “Conservative,” and “Reform” denominations, to “Jewish Science” observances. The practice of affixing labels to Jews has become so pervasive that the concept of separating those…

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Liberal Jews Need a New Attitude Toward Orthodoxy

By Lev Gringauz January 9, 2018

On Dec. 3, 2017, an unspeakable act occurred in Jerusalem. Yonatan Razel, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish musician, saw that women at his concert wanted to dance. Faced with the conflict between these women’s wants and the laws of modesty (which state that men shouldn’t look at dancing women), he took extreme action against his female audience….

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Today’s Campus Culture Deepens Political Divides

By Josh Daniels December 21, 2017

As my cursor hovers over the “submit” button at the bottom of my graduate school applications, I stop to consider the environment I am going to inhabit at the cost of countless dollars and hours. I am understandably wary. In the time it took to raise me to the age of 18 with aspirations of…

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Diaspora Jews Shouldn’t Give up on Zionism

By Lev Gringauz December 19, 2017

After Jewish summer camp, USY, and a Talmud Torah education, my friend told me he was disillusioned with Zionism. “I’ve always found the idea of Diaspora to be super meaningful,” he said. “The majority of Judaism is based on Diasporic tradition and the allegory of Diaspora. Modern Zionism sort of spits at this.” He explained…

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Cyber Bullies Made Life Lonely on the Jewish Left

By Hailey Levien December 18, 2017

“Oh Allah, liberate the Al Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews… Oh Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one.” In July, Imam Ammar Shahin said these words in a sermon to his congregation at the Islamic Center of Davis. The sermon was delivered shortly after…

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What Hanukkah Teaches Us About Scarcity

By Noah Strauss December 14, 2017

In Houston, Texas, Laverne Cox looked out on an auditorium of eager listeners at the 2014 National Conference on LGBTQ Equality. In her keynote speech, she made a statement that stood out to me. “The scarcity model is a myth,” she said. Cox was talking specifically about trans women of color working together instead of…

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It’s No Surprise Birthright Silenced Israeli Arabs

By Elaine Cleary November 14, 2017

I grew up hungry for Jewishness. As a young American Jew eager to explore my family’s culture, I tried countless times to find a rabbi or a Hillel staffer who could connect me to our rich history. Everyone gave me the same answer: go on Birthright. Early in college, I considered it. I felt no…

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Did Jews For Jesus Get Jewish Millennials Right?

By Sara Weissman November 6, 2017

I know, I didn’t think I’d be writing that headline today either. But a Jews for Jesus study may have actually made an interesting insight about Jewish millennials. What am I talking about? Jews for Jesus recently commissioned a study surveying 599 Jews born from 1984 to 1999, using a legit, often religion-focused polling firm…

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No, Israel, You Can’t Have My Number

By Sarah Asch November 1, 2017

This is how I imagine the Israeli government making the decision to collect the contact information for 350,000 American Jewish college students: I imagine that Naftali Bennett and Bibi met in a dark basement under the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and, in the light of a single candle, recommitted themselves to their a secret plan…

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The Cost of Privatizing Jewish Campus Life

By Misha Vilenchuk July 26, 2017

Throughout the 20th century, American Jews – particularly young Jews – were agents of social change. The pre-war generation stood for worker’s rights, while the generation after the Holocaust marched at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. Why then are there so few Jews active in the contemporary resurgence of progressive student activism? Some…

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Can We Stop Calling Campus a War Zone?

By Sara Weissman July 25, 2017

“Where do you go to school?” “UC Berkeley.” “UC Berkeley? Wow, the front line. You students are fighting an important battle over there. Keep it up!” I can’t tell you how many times I had this conversation – at shuls, Shabbat tables, even half a world away in Jewish communities abroad. The language always struck…

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We’re Not Talking About BDS, So Why Are You?

By Sara Weissman July 13, 2017

Dear Jewish community, So, you wanna understand Israel/Palestine debates on campus. The first thing you have to do is stop talking about BDS. Shocking, right? We try. But really, BDS doesn’t summarize what Israel conversations on campus are all about these days. BDS measures on major campuses are actually going down, and yet, somehow, they…

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Social Media Was Bad For My Judaism

By Sarah Simon July 11, 2017

Our generation has created two gods. One of them is Facebook. Bold statement, right? But let me explain: There is a real G-d and a god we have created in our own (albeit distorted) image, and we dubbed that god “social media.” We spend all our time on it and use it to engage in…

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LGBT Jews Are the New Target of Anti-Zionism

By Peter Fox June 30, 2017

At the root of anti-Semitism is the belief that all good things Jews do are for nefarious reasons. There is an emerging belief in the far left that LGBT Jews who are Zionist are doubly guilty of re-branding Israel as a progressive society while covering human rights abuses against Palestinians. The name for this alleged…

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‘End Jewish Privilege’ – Left or Alt-Right Rhetoric?

By Sara Weissman March 27, 2017

In an oddball crossbreed between leftist language and retro anti-Semitic tropes, posters that read ‘End Jewish Privilege’ appeared on University of Illinois at Chicago’s campus earlier this month. The posters proclaimed, “Ending white privilege starts with ending Jewish privilege,” followed by an image of a pyramid with Jews at the top and “goyim not drawn to scale” at the bottom. Eva…

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