Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
I think all of my friends are amazing people. But every now and then, some friends do such incredible work that you just want to shout about it from the highest mountaintop. But absent a mountaintop, profiling them in your magazine is the next best thing. Joseph Shamash and Andrew Lustig are two of those…
I love hashtag communication: the modern use of these small hash symbol labels meant to convey a specific point. You can sum up an entire paragraph of concepts and ideas in a single pairing of symbol and word. Who needs prepositions, gerunds, and contractions? Who wants words? I’m an English literature major, and even I…
2 Poems by Sophie Katzman: Descendant’s Blessing Zadie. Zionist. Yellow stars. Young and old yearning for years passed. Yahrzeit. Yiddush: lyb, sholem. War. Woody Allen. Leaving notes on the Western Wall. The V’ahavta. U-blessed by the Orthodox Union. Torah. Tzedakah. Tikkun Olam, we repair the world. Shabbat. Sternberg Sewing. Samuel’s Metal Shop. Schlep. Shylock….
I must have told my mother one too many times that she embodies the Jewish Mother stereotype. (She really does, by the way. Ask, as one example, the ten cast and crew members of a show I worked on in high school for whom my mother provided enough food for forty people, lest anyone starve…
In a studio in New York’s theater district, Duncan Pflaster, a playwright and part-time photographer, was unpacking props for his photoshoot: yarmulkes, a menorah, and a book called The Jewish Pleasure Principle. Mr. Pflaster isn’t doing a swimsuit calendar — he’s creating the Naughty Jewish Boys calendar, which will feature a Jewish man in various…
There’s been a bit of news about Sephardim lately. Although the attempt began a few years ago, the Spanish government recently announced a more concerned effort at paving the way for Sephardim – ancestors of those Jews expelled in the Inquisition of the 15th century – to acquire Spanish citizenship. The ways of determining who…
Bloggers made much ado as Julia Lipnitskaia took to the ice in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. It wasn’t because she was one of the best figure skaters in the world at only 15 years old. It wasn’t that in Lipnitskaia Russia had a representative on the rink for the first time in 10…
Al Jazeera. Simply hearing the name would bother me two years ago, like nails on a chalkboard. In my ethnocentric view, I believed Al Jazeera existed for the sole purpose of promoting anti-Israel propaganda with the utmost criticism of the nation. How could I trust any of their other journalism with their articles containing blatant…
For the past few weeks I’ve seen from various sources on Facebook, and most recently on Tablet, a growing concern about a potentially frightening new trend: Featured on several Amazon.com best-seller lists are e-book editions of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The first responses I’ve seen have been understandably negative, coming from some reasonably…
I will never forget the day I brought herring sandwiches to school. There I was, an awkward little seven-year-old, eating a vinegary and odorous pickled herring sandwich on brown bread in the middle of the lunch room. A delicious and very filling lunch for a first-grader. And there were the faces of my (mostly Jewish)…
To the Jewish world, the name Damian Black means very little. He was a rapper from outside of Seattle, with his own music label and growing popularity. Unfortunately, as many can attest, success can make others feel threatened and force a response. Another rapper in the community did just that. He threatened D Black, as…
The Other Israel Film Festival, featuring films by and about Arab populations living in Israel, just finished running for its seventh season at the Manhattan Jewish Community Center. I was lucky enough to stream a few of the festival’s documentaries and dramas this week from my little corner of the West Coast. Two films impressed…
The 7th Annual Other Israel Film Festival, ending today at the JCC of Manhattan, presents films focused on the stories of the other 20% of Israel’s population such as Palestinians and other Arabs and Druze. The message of these films is powerful: There’s a whole other Israel out there than the one you see on…
I have a confession. For all my self-proclaimed desire to rise above the profane, I absolutely love South Park. While the majority of this last season has been a bit of a disappointment for me, the creators of South Park offered up a true gem recently with the episode, “Ginger Cow. “ For most, I…
For 12 weeks I dated an Israeli. The majority of our relationship involved watching TV and smoking cigarettes on his couch. National Geographic was our favorite channel, since it was guaranteed to be in English. At first I felt guilty about staying indoors when I could hear Tel Aviv’s beaches a block away, but I…