Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Originally published in the OC Hillel blog. Around 18,000 pro-Israel people in one room singing Hatikvah together, admiring Israeli innovation, hearing empowering stories about Israel, and giving endless standing ovations for countless speakers. It is easy to get carried away in this incredibly pro-Israel environment. This was my fifth consecutive year attending the AIPAC Policy…
Over the past three weeks, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Steve Bannon for chief strategist has drawn a lot of attention. Bannon has been accused of turning conservative website Breitbart News into a home for neo-Nazis and the alt-right movement, of being a racist, a white supremacist, and even an anti-Semite. At the same time,…
In an election between two of the most unpopular candidates in U.S. electoral history, real estate and media mogul Donald Trump accomplished the unthinkable – winning the presidency. His transition from the Trump Organization to political business in the Oval Office will entail a lot of challenges domestically and abroad. His domestic challenges will include handling…
“Is _________ good for the Jews?” This question seems to be asked any time a major political development is revealed, especially in the Diaspora. One might ask, for example, if Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is good for the Jews; many asked if Obama’s election in 2008 was good for the Jews; and there…
It is no great surprise that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu was reelected last week. He is a skillful politician and an astute campaigner. What did surprise some, however, including many American Jews and American Jewish communal institutions, were the various statements Netanyahu made during the last days and hours of his campaign. The day…
It’s no secret that the war for Israel currently has two fronts: the Middle East and American university campuses. Jewish students feel increasingly threatened and intimidated by anti-Israel activity on campus that too often crosses the line into anti-Semitism, as seen recently in incidents at UC Davis and UCLA. All people concerned with the…
I’ve written before about my how my hesitance to involve myself in the Israeli political process stems from a larger phenomenon I’ve noticed of the increasing separation between Israeli Judaism (and Israeli-Jewish culture) and American Judaism. Yet, the controversy over Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned congressional speech and the upcoming Israeli elections are extremely important to…
On Monday, the final day of what Previous New Voices Rebbe David A.M. Wilensky calls “Liberal Jewish Comicon,” my first interaction was with Ali Kreigsman, who was attending in support of her and Jana Kozlowski’s upcoming documentary, Between the Lines, about Jewish day school students who come to university and discover that in spite of…
In his post on New Voices last week, Tomer Kornfeld recounts how he worked with his campus Hillel to set up “a debate, or ‘mock peace talk’ with Students for Justice in Palestine.” But “instead of reciprocating our goodwill, sitting down with us and working things out, S.J.P. sent out an email to club members…
Witnessing the first day of the Presbyterian General Assembly has been both empowering and dismaying. I am glad to have been part of an effective coalition of Jews, Presbyterians, and Palestinians, and Muslims coming together to support the Presbyterian Church’s effort to divest from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola. But I’m dismayed by the opposition’s claim…
Israel has always been always at least somewhat present in my life. Though I have only visited once, as a Jew who was raised in a Jewish educational system, Zionism came part-and-parcel with my religious education. In school, I learned Modern Hebrew as a second language and was exposed to Israeli culture and food….
This has, possibly until now, been the academic year of Hillel shooting itself in the foot. Though its roots go back much further, Hillel’s troubles began in December, when then-new Hillel President and CEO Eric Fingerhut published an op-ed in the Jewish Week with AIPAC’s Jonathan Kessler announcing their intention to work together on college…
Hannah Silverfine’s experience with a Jewish education that taught only a very narrow definition of “pro Israel” is not only a problem in the Reform Movement. I agree that a good argument can be made for teaching children why support of Israel is important first, then leave the messy stuff for when they’re old enough…
Many Jewish students experience “Jewish Burnout” when they first enter college. After years of Jewish education, Sunday School, Jewish youth groups, Jewish camps, and Jewish summer programs, many Jewish young adults enter college thinking that they are sick of everything Jewish and don’t want to do Jewish programs at college. They may have felt pressured…
For all its hype, the Pew report missed a lot of college-aged Jews, and therefore might have missed a lot about us. Two professors from Trinity College in Connecticut, Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, hope to get the true picture of who we are and what we want by creating an online survey accessible here…