Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Transitioning from high school to college can be frightening. It sure was for me. I lived in a small town with an even smaller Jewish community and I wasn’t sure how I would fit in with the rest of the world. I had very little experience with people outside my community and I was worried…
With the release of the University of California’s campus climate survey results, the Anti-Defamation League and the regional pro-Israel watchdog AMCHA Institute pounced on the results, which indicated that life for Jewish students on UC campuses is less than perfect. The results, announced last month, show Jewish students self-describe as some of the most uncomfortable…
My grandmother tells this story about how a relative of hers who lived in Israel asked her, quite intensely, whether she was an American or a Jew. She didn’t know what to say; why couldn’t she be both? For many American Jews, including me, this question is ridiculous. I have no problems with the intersecting…
“Failure will kill the political constituency of the two-state solution,” warned American Task Force on Palestine Director Ghaith Al-Omari at an event co-sponsored by J Street U Brown and Brown RISD Hillel last week. These chilling words reminded me of why it is so essential to demonstrate support for Secretary of State John Kerry’s current…
Scores (if not hundreds) of Jewish and Pro-Israel students spent Tuesday night in a crowded ballroom at UCLA to advocate against the student government’s proposed passage of a divestment resolution. I, on the other hand, sat at my computer 125 miles away, wearing sweatpants and drinking Coke Zero with lemon watching the USAC divestment meeting…
On January 28, a bill passed in the New York State Senate punishing universities that use state funds in support of academic groups, such as the ASA, that boycott Israel. Universities transgressing this ban would lose all state funding. It was fought relentlessly by civil rights groups, unions, academic institutions, and many Jewish groups. It…
I have some reasonable propositions for how Hillel International should respond to the Swarthmore Hillel debacle based on four important facts missed by most other pundits on this subject. The first fact is that Swarthmore Hillel is uniquely financially independent. Swarthmore University has an endowment for all its religious groups on campus, and as…
I am very openly willing to criticize the Israeli government. Two of my recent blog posts for New Voices have been criticisms of Israel’s Housing Ministry for announcing the constructions of new settlements at a crucial point in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and Israel’s Prime Minister in condemning the announcement of negotiations between the United States and…
It used to be, said a speaker at J Street U’s plenary session during the national J Street Conference, that students were expected to listen to learn from others. Now, he said, with the success of the fights for civil rights, marriage equality, unionizing, and women’s rights—all of which were led by student movements—the world…
There’s a legend that’s passed around in Stern College for Women of the student who had a baby on Thursday and came back to class the following Monday. This, as it turns out, is a true story—she was in class with my friend. To have a baby in college often means the condom ripped, or…
Some college graduates got treated to the cream of the crop of today’s politicians and leaders. Here’s a taste of what the Obamas, Romney and Biden’s wife told the Class of 2012. President Barack Obama at Barnard College Obama spoke to graduates of the all-women’s college in New York on May 14. Obama, a graduate…
Suspended by Skin Color? [NY Times] New data from the Department of Education has shown that although African Americans comprise less than a fourth of the nation’s public school systems, their share of suspensions and other disciplinary action is disproportionately high, suggesting that they may face harsher disciplinary action in school. “Education is the civil…
Anybody from AU knows that our homonymic nickname is “Gay Jew,” given the University’s large population, and administration and student support of, both the LGBT and Jewish communities on campus. But this weekend at American University in Washington, D.C., the campus got a dose of both in one when the National Union for LGBT Jewish Students…
is apple picking! Or at least that’s what I think. On Sunday, I went apple picking at Triple B Farms in Monongahela, Pa. which is about 45 minutes from Pittsburgh on winding roads that caution you: “Winding Road Next 1 3/4 miles”. I appreciated the heads up, as I was driving the tiny but formidable…