Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
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…
The day before this past Yom Kippur (oh, fine, literally minutes before this past Yom Kippur) I wrote a post on this blog mentioning some of the religious writing of the 18th century decidedly non-Jewish philosopher Immanuel Kant, and I noted that his outlook on sin and repentance is kind of depressing. In a nutshell,…
On the first day of the semester, a certain professor of mine unreservedly characterized the great 12th-century Rabbi Moses Maimonides as “the most influential figure in Jewish rabbinic history.” While there certainly might be other contenders for that distinction, the fact that my professor was willing to make that claim is telling. Maimonides’s groundbreaking theological…
Looking at the picture of Hermann Cohen on the cover of his opus Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, it is a bit difficult to believe that he was a rock star. Not in the sense that he wrote brave contemporary music that spoke to the minds of the people, garnering an…
Since E!’s The Soup premiered a few years back, I’ve enjoyed watching thirty-something comic Joel McHale give Hollywood stars slaps-upside-the-head for being idiots. I’ve recently gotten into Community, a comedy on NBC about a disbarred lawyer who has to return to community college to get his degree, starring McHale. Like everywhere else, the issue of…
It was the Jewiest episode of Glee yet! Rewind. Glee is one of the only television shows I watch on a regular basis. Don’t judge. It’s amazing. This week’s episode elevated studly muskeljuden Noah “Puck” Puckerman to the top of my list of Jewish heroes and sealed diva Rachel Berry, AKA Lea Michele, as the…
If the Maya thought the world was going to end in 2012, some Jews seem to have a different opinion for the next few years ahead of us. One kabbalist rabbi says that G-d will “erase China from the world this year.” Why China, rather than Israel’s traditional antagonists? Possibly because China is an emergent…
A Jewish dance troupe in Germany is attacked by young boys throwing stones. Welsh men bandy racial slurs about and tell the Jews to “go home.†Helen Thomas barks out a similar request. What is all of this hatred doing in today’s world? It’s time to take a stand and nip this racism in the…
For those of you that know New York, you’ll know that Jews have become as much a part of the Big Apple as the Statue of Liberty. From bagels to black hats, the Diamond District to door mezuzot, we’re a huge part of the city. Still, New York is made up of a lot of…
This is the beginning of a creative writing piece inspired by an experience that New York City’s finest in religion offered. A Thousand Leagues from Hillel Or, A Moderately Fictional Version of How I Began a Search for the Hare Krishna, Avoided a Lecture on Duck Gender Rights, and Ended Up at Whole Foods “‘Hallelujah!’…
After a long hiatus from watching Israeli movies (my Netflix account doesn’t see much action while I’m away at school), I finally decided to get back to my roots a bit and watch Ushpizin with my brother and his friends. At first, the movie’s premise didn’t seem like anything extraordinary–a Jewish Orthodox couple in Jerusalem…
“Hey, wanna come to Shabbat services with me tonight?” I’ve been hearing that question a lot ever since I started school at Northwestern University. We have both Hillel and Chabad on campus (as well as a new group called Meor Northwestern), so there’s never a shortage of places to be on Friday night. However, something…