Maccabee Games
“The reason that I went was that everything was paid for,” she said, adding, “It was so clear that there was an agenda, but I didn’t ask who funded it. I didn’t really want to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Article Archive
There and Back Again: Tracing an Activist’s Unusual Journey
In July of 2014, sirens pierced the Jerusalem air, warning of rockets coming from Gaza. Nathan Young, then a 22-year-old junior studying abroad, leaped off the bus heading toward his dorm room at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and hurried into a gas station store-turned-bomb-shelter, feeling numb. Young recalls being on the phone with a…
Hillels and Israel: How Campus Jewish Communities Are Grappling with Polarizing Politics
This is part 1 in a 3-part series about politics, identity, and Jewish community on college campuses. Click here to view part 2, and here to view part 3. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah in 2015, a new wave of violence arose in Israel. Often referred to as the “stabbing intifada,” it led to…
On Friday, We Wear Teal to Hillel for Survivors
Statistics show that one in five women on American college campuses will be the victim of sexual assault. That’s why I work every day to educate my campus on Title IX issues, as a student at Pace University and the executive director of PaceUEndRape. Having watched my friends experience helplessness after assaults and debate if…
The OSU Incident: The Problem Is Hillel’s Israel Policy
Ohio State University Hillel cut ties last week with an LGBTQ Jewish student organization, and possible homophobia is just the beginning of why it’s a problem. To recap, the split occurred after the group, B’nai Keshet, hosted an event to help queer refugees. They co-sponsored the event with Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish group…
Ari Shavit’s Sexual Harassment Spurs Ongoing Discussion Among Campus Jews
For the last two years, Israeli author and journalist Ari Shavit spoke at dozens of college campuses around the country and for Hillel International. This was before American journalist Danielle Berrin accused Shavit of sexual misconduct, igniting ongoing discussions about sexual harassment in Jewish campus communities. To recap, soon after the accusation, J Street disinvited Shavit from…
Reclaiming Alienated Liberals: Israel’s Imperative for Diaspora Jews
Originally published in the Spring 2016 edition of The Current. It has been over seventy years since the end of World War II and the Holocaust. As remaining survivors become fewer and fewer, the Holocaust moves from being a living memory to one that is more historical in nature. Inevitably, as we are further removed…
Why doesn’t Emory University have a J Street U?
When Emory University first-year Zoe Robbin got to college, she was upset by the lack of left-wing Jewish organizations on campus. With four other students, she founded a campus chapter of J Street U and set out to become a chartered organization. “We wrote a constitution … according to the college’s charter rules exactly,” said…
Dear fellow liberal Zionists: The establishment doesn’t want us
Three weeks ago, I attended a small lunch event at Hunter College’s Roosevelt House featuring spokespeople from the New Israel Fund and Breaking the Silence, as well as the Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard. Given the recent tension at my alma mater between student supporters of Israel and members of Students for Justice in…
The left-wing double standard on Israel
When the documentary “The J Street Challenge” was released in 2014, one of its main arguments was that while certain Israel advocacy groups who claim to be bipartisan are acceptable political advocates, left-wing political groups, like J Street, should be condemned as beyond the pale of acceptable conversation about Israel for disagreeing with the Israeli…
New J Street U president will work to hold Jewish organizations accountable
For Amna Farooqi, the newly elected president of the J Street U student board, what was once the elephant in the room has now become her job. Farooqi, a first-generation Pakistani-American, has been making headlines across the Jewish world as the board’s first Muslim president. She was elected to the position at the Aug. 17 J Street…
Fingerhut’s apology to J Street U meets mixed reactions
As the rift between J Street U and Hillel continues to widen, J Street U members remain dissatisfied with Hillel’s efforts to close the gap. On Aug. 17, Hillel International CEO and president Eric Fingerhut addressed J Street U in D.C. to apologize for declining to speak at the J Street U conference in March….
J Street U sees little progress months after march on Hillel
Though J Street U and Hillel moved closer to working together in June, progress is still slow. At the meeting, which took place on June 10, J Street U made several requests of Hillel, and Hillel asked for time before committing to any of them. The meeting came after Hillel International CEO Eric Fingerhut’s decision…
Progressive Hillel Director Speaks Out
After reading my coverage of last week’s J Street Conference, a campus Hillel director reached out to me to confess their thoughts on Eric Fingerhut’s withdrawal from the conference and what the new Israeli government means for Hillel and its standards of partnership. To protect themselves and their Hillel, they would only let me publish…
On the Ground at J Street U’s March to Hillel
WASHINGTON – Hundreds of students stormed Hillel International’s headquarters Monday, the second day of the 5th annual J Street conference, demanding the organization show tangible support for them and their pro-two states agenda. The march was organized by J Street U, the lobbying group’s campus affiliate, in protest of Hillel International CEO Eric Fingerhut…