Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
I think my education started early. I remember sitting in the car with my mother at the age of 10, en route from my Hebrew school to … somewhere. It was the spring of 2002, height of the Second Intifada,and the rhetoric that went alongside it. I was narrating all of the things we had…
San José is an ugly city. The streets are lined with storefronts due for a paint job. Trash and dog droppings line the sidewalks. Every afternoon, like clockwork, the tropical weather brings in a rainstorm that puts most Sunday showers stateside to shame. At night, drug dealers and (legal) prostitutes roam the streets. In this…
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…
When I traveled to Warsaw on a Holocaust study tour two summers ago, my group found the city particularly warm. In the middle of the day, we stopped for a respite—from the heat as much as the emotional drain of touring Holocaust sites—at a Starbucks in the city center. The juxtaposition—of both the air conditioning…
My high school taught about the Holocaust in English class. It was part of the unit on Elie Weisel’s Night, which is required reading for students entering tenth grade. I remember the Holocaust was nothing more than a picture of Jews in a concentration camp with an explanatory caption in my AP European history textbook….
Part 3 in a 3 part series. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. 7. What are your reactions to survey respondents’ answers to “What does it mean to be Jewish”? What creates Jewish meaning for you? Dr. Steven M. Cohen, sociologist: These questions pertain to areas of great ambiguity. I wouldn’t…
Hitler, the Holocaust, gas chambers, Nazis, concentration camps — these all loom large in our contemporary cultural consciousness. They call forth strong feelings and evoke vivid imagery. At the same time, it is no longer surprising to encounter cheap comparisons to them. It happens all the time: You’re walking down the street, on your way to…
It has been pointed out that director Steven Spielberg’s mainstream success has inspired a turn toward broad, “public interest” works. For Spielberg, pop-history and film preservation have taken precedent over purely artistic endeavors. If one were to mark this shift in Spielberg’s career, it likely started with the Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List,” for which the…
When I was in my Holocaust phase—and by that I mean the years I spent consuming every book about the Holocaust I could find, wildly curious about my own family’s personal Holocaust stories—I was transfixed by one person in particular: my grandfather’s brother, Todris. Both of my mother’s parents are survivors, and both had many…
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama announced new sanctions on Iran and Syria and a renewed commitment to preventing genocide and mass atrocities. “We need to be doing everything we can to prevent and respond to these kinds of atrocities, because national sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your people,” Obama said at the United…
Mormons apologize for baptizing deceased Jewish family [Forward] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has issued a public apology after accidentally allowing the posthumous baptism of the parents of the late Simon Wiesenthal, an Austrian Holocaust survivor who pursued fugitive Nazis during his lifetime. The baptismal practice, which involves church members acting in…
Israel blames Iran for assassination attempts against Israeli diplomats. [Washington Post] The Israel government responded yesterday to bombings targeting diplomats in both Georgia and India, pinning the blame for the attacks on Hezbollah and Iran. Though Iran is denying responsibility for the incidents, the bombings have propounded concerns over its nuclear program, and led to heightened…
Holocaust music video resonates with online viewers. [YouTube] In an effort to re-engage young Jews and others to the loss and legacy of the Shoah, an audiovisual collaboration between composer Cecelia Margules and director Daniel Finkelman is quickly making the rounds. Since January 25th, the YouTube video has received over 51,000 hits. Hadassah organization investigating…
My group traveled to Jedwabne on July 11, 2011. We were not meant to go to Jedwabne; it was not on our original itinerary. We left Warsaw early in the morning, and by the time we pulled into Jedwabne, it was a beautiful day — the first nice day after a week of rain. The…
On my first day in Poland, as I sat jet-lagged in the only Kosher restaurant in Krakow, the Olive Tree, my group leader told us each that we would be taking a day trip in a few days to small, formerly Jewish towns around Krakow. Only half-aware of what was happening, my friend Alexandria and…