Queen Esther’s Second Seder
The Talmud says the story of Purim happened over Passover. Who says second night seder isn’t special?
Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Article Archive
Atoning for Jessica Krug
“Whether we ‘claim’ her or not, whether we knew her or not, as a Jew, Jessica Krug is part of our community. All of us must atone for her transgression, just as all of us must atone for the transgressions of synagogues who hired police and security that scrutinized Black Jews and Jews of Color entering our sanctuaries. There cannot be any evasion here.”
Women’s Talmud Study is Still Revolutionary
We are still at the beginning of this period, and it can still feel like a miracle; we will learn more from this moment if we remember that it is nothing less than a revolution, and that we are responsible for helping this revolution reach all Jews.
What Talmud Has Taught Me About Twitter
While the two may have dramatic differences, I think that the successful model of the millennia-long conversations that make up Talmud can teach us a lot about how to argue – and understand each other – on Twitter.
Learning Torah While the World is Burning
Returning from a short break, after sitting in a small lawn outside between classes and reading the New York Times’s inside look at the squalid conditions in an American concentration camp in Texas, complete with maps demarcating where children are held in cinderblock cells and auxiliary tents for overcrowding, I stare at the wall of prayerbooks and wonder: How can I learn Torah while the world is burning?
Revelation and Renovation: A Shavuot Zine
This zine was created by Rena Yehuda Newman, who is a 2019 fellow with New Voices and Judaism Unbound. It was originally published on Judaism Unbound’s website.
And The Sages Said Let Him Die
the day i bit my fingers a biblical red i found an excerpt from the Talmud; a man becomes deathly ill with love for a woman i can count the number of men my body trusts on one hand the doctors say; he will have no cure until she engages in sexual intercourse with him…
It Belongs to My Brothers
The new rabbi is running late. It’s the first day of eleventh grade and there is a buzz of hushed excitement in the room. Our brothers have been studying Talmud since they were seven or eight and we know its cadence. We’ve heard its rhythm chanted and recited at our kitchen tables while we stood…
To Go to Class or Not to Go to Class?
Originally published in Ha’Am. There is perhaps no decision more representative of the difficulties of being a practicing Jewish college student than the quintessential question of whether or not to attend class during Chag. To me, this is not a question of grades or even the inconvenience of having to spend long, sleepless nights catching…
I Don’t Want a ‘Woman of Valor,’ I Want a Lover
When I envision the rituals that will someday characterize my family’s Judaism, singing “Eishet Chayil“, or “A Woman of Valor” to my future wife is not among them. However beloved and time-worn a tradition the singing of this particular chapter of Proverbs is, it seems odd to me that I should strive so hard for…
The Myth of the ‘Feminized’ Religion
I have written in the past about my experiences with gender, privilege, Jewish ritual, and the need to find new and creative ways to engage both men and women ritually. Women, I’ve argued, should be encouraged to try out more traditionally masculine rituals, and men should be encouraged to try out more feminine rituals. There…
Rabbi Hillel, the Tube, and Reading the Comments – A Jew in the Motherland
I usually read, but do not respond to, the comment threads on my articles for this publication and others. Why, then, do I read them, despite my editor’s adamant suggestions not to? To a certain extent, I have a perverse pride in rankling ideologues of all stripes (and for those of you critical of my…
The Value of a Chained Woman
Deuteronomy 24:1 states, “If a man takes a wife and possesses her and she fails to please him because he finds something obnoxious about her, he writes her a Bill of Divorcement, hands it to her and sends her away from his house.” Based on this verse of the Torah, the entire decision to divorce…
When Will Orthodoxy be Ready for Me?
I’ve written about the successes and shortcomings of my fourteen years of Modern Orthodox day school education before, from religious, secular, and Zionist perspectives. I’ve also written about the thought processes behind my decisions to leave the Modern Orthodox world and join — at least for now — egalitarian communities that fall more in…
OMGWTFEXODUS: A Dialogue With the Man Who’s Bringing the Bible to the 21st Century
Part live spectacle, part Biblical scholarship, comedian David Tuchman’s OMGWTFBIBLE podcast “reframes the Bible as the world’s oldest weekly comedy serial.” A year-and-a-half after its debut in April 2013 (as seen in New Voices), he’s now heading into Exodus. I caught up with David recently in the food court of Grand Central Station to discuss…