Converting to Judaism in Small-Town Kentucky

By Jay Wells March 14, 2019

Before 23-year-old Aleah Gabbard began her conversion to Judaism four years ago, she grew up around deeply-rooted anti-Semitism in Owensboro, Kentucky. Owensboro made national news this past Halloween when a resident wore a Nazi soldier costume and dressed his young son as Hitler. This incident reflects the environment that Gabbard experienced in public schools in…

Read More...

In Which the Wall Spits Back My Prayers

By Nesha Ruther January 31, 2019

  In my hollowest moments I wish my mother named me after a breathing thing a name with a voice to choke it over I pray for RachelRebeccaLeah, nice Jewish girl names that never die bonded to a land we bulldozed to make our own, but a man calls me the new Josephus curses me…

Read More...

Has Ramah Taken #YouNeverToldMe to Heart?

By Lev Gringauz January 3, 2019

It’s off-season for the Jewish summer camp world. But the conversation about including Palestinian perspectives in Israel education, started by IfNotNow earlier this year with their #YouNeverToldMe campaign, will continue to haunt institutions like Camp Ramah, the Conservative movement’s camping arm. As any camper, counselor, or camp professional knows, last summer defines what next summer…

Read More...

At the Jewish Media Summit, a Focus on Young American Jews

By Lev Gringauz December 13, 2018

Though 150 journalists and bloggers from 30 countries had gathered in Jerusalem for the Israeli Press Office-sponsored Jewish New Media Summit in late November, American Jewry was very nearly the only subject of conversation when discussing the strained relationship between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. Over the course of the three and a half day…

Read More...

Murder of Gay, Jewish Student Raises Questions About Hate Crime Prosecution

By Jay Wells October 3, 2018

On January 9th, 2018, Blaze Bernstein’s corpse was discovered in a shallow grave in Lake Forest, California. Bernstein’s murder came in the wake of the year that had, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the largest single-year increase of anti-Semitic incidents on record. Bernstein was a 19-year-old gay, Jewish man. His alleged killer is 21-year-old…

Read More...

A Day in Ramallah

By Nesha Ruther September 27, 2018

H. meets me in the Menarah at around 4:30; I am late, and she, in the tradition of everyone I have met here, is beyond gracious. We walk down Rukab Street towards Rukab Ice Cream. It’s the oldest ice cream shop in Ramallah and so notoriously good that the street is named after the shop…

Read More...

“When he goes in he stumbles upon her”: A D’var Torah for Ki Tetzei

By Avigayil Halpern September 7, 2018

Content warning: discussion of sexual violence. The below is an edited version of a d’var Torah that was delivered at Yale University’s student egalitarian minyan on Friday night, August 24th. Parshat Ki Teitzei begins with a particularly haunting section: י) כִּֽי־תֵצֵ֥א לַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה עַל־אֹיְבֶ֑יךָ וּנְתָנ֞וֹ ה’ אֱלֹקֶ֛יךָ בְּיָדֶ֖ךָ וְשָׁבִ֥יתָ שִׁבְיֽוֹ׃ (יא) וְרָאִיתָ֙ בַּשִּׁבְיָ֔ה אֵ֖שֶׁת יְפַת־תֹּ֑אַר וְחָשַׁקְתָּ֣…

Read More...

Lessons From My Grandmother

By Julia Métraux August 2, 2017

Now more than ever as I am trying to make sense of the world and find employment, I find myself looking for female role models. I realized quite recently that my Jewish grandma is the only female icon that I really need. To put it simply, my grandma is a badass who pursued her dreams…

Read More...

University of California approves statement condemning anti-Semitism

By Chloe Sobel March 24, 2016

The University of California’s governing board has signed off on the “Statement of Principles Against Intolerance,” which condemns anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism. The original statement, which has since been revised, stated that “anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California.” The University of California Academic Council objected to the original language…

Read More...

Samson’s Delight

By Josh Weiss September 3, 2015

This short story contains racial and ethnic slurs.   “When’s that kike getting here?” “I wish you wouldn’t use such language, Henry.” “Why not? You’ve read the Protocols, same as me. They can’t be trusted, Gerry.” Gerald Thompson fiddled with his pocket watch that was always a minute behind. He glanced at his business partner,…

Read More...

Gay Christian Palestinian looks for salvation in Canada

By Jackson Richman June 12, 2015

In the 16th century, Protestant theologian John Calvin fled France amidst violence against Protestant reformers. Now, in 2015, the life of his gay Christian Palestinian namesake is in danger. Born under a different name into a West Bank pro-Hamas family, John Calvin is the grandson of former Muslim Brotherhood leader Said Bilal, who oversaw Hamas…

Read More...

Imagining an Alternate History in Lithuania: A Jew in the Motherland

By Jonathan Katz April 21, 2015

  I, your faithful correspondent from the Colonial Motherland, just spent six days in the other motherland – Lithuania, the place from which most of my ancestors came. Other than a return in the 1990’s by my Holocaust-survivor maternal grandmother, and a similarly timed visit by my paternal grandparents, none of my “nearby” extended family…

Read More...

Honoring the Holocaust in the Land of the Liberators and Bystanders: A Jew in the Motherland

By Jonathan Katz April 16, 2015

Seventy years ago, on April 15, 1945, the British Army liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and its 60,000 mostly Jewish, starved, and diseased prisoners. Among these prisoners was my maternal grandmother – who had survived several deportations, from Kovno (Kaunas) to Vaivara to Bergen-Belsen – and had lost her first child, first husband, and most…

Read More...

On French Anti-Semitism and Conflicting Identities

By Ari Bloom April 8, 2015

My first experience with anti-Semitism was at 6 years old. Someone painted a swastika on the front gate of my school and I remember asking my dad why it upset him so much. I had a limited understanding of Nazism at that age, but I knew enough to understand when he told me simply that…

Read More...

Brunch With Progressive MK Merav Michaeli and the American Jewish Left

By Derek M. Kwait December 16, 2014

Merav Michaeli, the Israeli journalist and women’s rights activist-turned-Knesset member for the Labor Party, is a sign of hope for a progressive future in Israel. Last Tuesday, she tried to convince an exclusive crowd of worried Jewish leftists gathered in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that there was hope for the upcoming elections…

Read More...