Attending McGill was the best thing to happen to my Jewish identity. For the first time, I was no longer the token Jew, but a leader in a vibrant Jewish community. Measuring quality of Jewish life on campus solely on perceived anti-Zionist rhetoric is immensely reductionist. Algemeiner ignores the vibrant, active Jewish community infrastructure on…
Everyone loves lists. Lists are fun and informative, and ranked lists in particular help us make decisions more efficiently. But lists are also deceptively powerful: it’s really hard for a person to properly judge the objective value of something distinct from its ranking once they’ve seen it on a ranked list, whether that “something” is…
A report by The Algemeiner recently named Columbia University as the “worst college for Jewish students in 2016.” In my five years leading The Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life, Columbia/Barnard Hillel, I have seen multiple articles and reports criticizing Columbia University as being hostile for Jewish students. I cannot express in strong enough terms…
Being Jewish at Oberlin is complex. On the one hand there is a large dedicated Jewish student population, an active Chabad and Hillel, and plenty of opportunities for engaging in Jewish life. On the other hand, there are incidents that make being Jewish at Oberlin difficult. That being said, I think that often the media…
My time at McGill University was intellectually satisfying but spiritually deficient. Let me preface my words by acknowledging that I am an Orthodox Jew and Orthodoxy was absent from McGill University’s campus. Benchmarks of Orthodoxy such as a daily prayer quorum, hot kosher food, fellow observant Jews, and Shabbat and Chagim observance were scant. Orthodox…
Steve Bannon, the controversial hard-right media provocateur and newly appointed chief strategist to President-elect Donald Trump, is set to attend the Zionist Organization of America’s annual dinner in Manhattan on Sunday — and his appearance is setting off a political firestorm in the Jewish communal world. The Anti-Defamation League has called Bannon “hostile to core…
A row over Israel on campus is as predictable as the fall of autumn leaves, and it’s no different this season. Fliers accusing pro-Palestinian students of being anti-Semitic have cropped at numerous colleges in October — including the University of Chicago, Tufts University, Brooklyn College and Berkeley — and have been claimed by the David…
Every time I have a glimmer of hope for the progressive community to get it together about anti-Semitism, something happens to quickly dash it. The incident with Miko Peled, the Jewish son of a high ranking Israeli general, is a recent example. After a brouhaha over his string of anti-Semitic tweets, his event at San…
100% of profits support our journalism
