Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
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…
In some ways it feels like yesterday that I walked into this apartment for the first time, toured Pardes for the first time, and met the people who turned out to make up what came to be a fantastic and interesting community of friends. In reality, however, nearly four months have passed. A few weeks…
Bailey Spagat is participating in Career Israel, one of Masa Israel’s 180 programs.
Bailey Spagat is participating in Career Israel, one of Masa Israel’s 180 programs.
How Jews separate themselves from the rest of the world is an interesting issue, and a hot topic this week. It so happens, at Pardes this week, we looked at issues of separatism in Judaism, from the extremely current issue of the letter banning rental of apartments to Arabs to the more theoretical ‘how should…
I’d like to focus on something I mentioned very briefly in my overview of Chanukkah which has been coming up in my mind as I consider life back home: namely, Hityavnut or Hellenization, or what would today be called assimilation. The word gives varied messages manifested in different languages. Hityavnut is an example of a…
Bailey Spagat is participating in Career Israel, one of Masa Israel’s 180 programs.
I see religion (specifically Judaism) as being a specific embodiment of a set of central tenets, expressed in a subjective sense. Just like people list their most fundamental beliefs in their own language, so to is this personal religiosity is transmitted. In continuing with the theme of my last post, I will use a single…
Being constantly surrounded by texts, and basing the vast majority of my education this term at Pardes on those texts, has made me think a lot about issues of how we understand texts. Specifically, I have reflected on just how much is lost from a traditional Jewish text (Chumash, Talmud, etc.) when it is read…
Bailey Spagat is participating in Career Israel, one of Masa Israel’s 180 programs.
After another busy few days at Pardes I have had time to review the news from the week that has past, and I am pleasantly surprised to note the tone that the prime minister of my country, Stephen Harper, took in his speech to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (see Canada’s national paper,…
As students and the rabbinate try to reconcile in Israel proper, violent followers of a Chabad rabbi in the West Bank are attacking military and security personnel. [Failed Messiah] Meanwhile, here’s a guide to how Chabad does its kiruv, or religious outreach, on campus — the final installment of a three-part guide to kiruv. [Frum Satire] A student…
What value does tradition have? What is added to an action, ritual, or practice from it being something that has been done for 500 years as opposed to 50 years or five years, or compared to starting a new ‘tradition’ altogether? As anyone who has watched Fiddler on the Roof knows – and judging by…
חבר אתה חסר Bailey Spagat is participating in Career Israel, one of Masa Israel’s 180 programs.