Israel on college campuses
13 Aug
Israel, Latest

Who’s Behind the Israel Activism on College Campuses?

Arguments over Israel on college campuses are not new. Every few months, stories of antisemitism and anti-Zionism at American colleges appear in Jewish and non-Jewish publications alike. From Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolutions to students claiming they were ostracized for their Zionist ideologies, college campuses are a focal point for the conversation about Zionism in America. Often these national stories focus on events, but skip over the students that are involved—and they have plenty to say. Moment spoke with three student activists across the political spectrum to highlight how a new generation of Jewish Americans feel about the current state of Israel.  Alida Jacobs founded Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) at the University of California, Davis. This past year, they worked to pass a BDS resolution for their school divesting from Raytheon, Viola Environments and...

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Nancy at the University of Virginia
29 Jun
Latest, Moment Memoir

‘I am So, So, Very, Very Jewish:’ The Time My Heritage Went South

This piece is part of Moment Memoir, expanding the conversation through a monthly exploration of the personal and beyond by some of our finest writers. In my junior year of high school, my principal called me into his office and asked me where I wanted to go to college. I said, “Duke.” He said, “Duke?” I said, “Yup.” He said, “Why Duke?” I told him I heard it was the Yale of the South, and “Yale doesn’t take girls.”  The year was 1958. He said, “What about the University of Virginia? They have a great theater department.” I said, “Yeah, but I don't want to go that far south.”  Dr. Rives leaned over, opened a drawer and pulled out an atlas. “Here,” he said. “Look, here’s North Carolina and here’s Virginia.” He could have said, “You have no...

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Brandeis
08 Apr
Beshert, Latest

Beshert | Finding My Tribe

I was raised in Downers Grove, Illinois—the kind of place with so few Jews that when someone found out I was Jewish, they’d always ask, “But you still celebrate Christmas, right?” No, we didn’t celebrate Christmas, but we weren’t super-observant either. We belonged to the only Reform temple in Chicago’s western suburbs in the early 70s. We celebrated the “big” holidays and loved Jewish food, but things like observing the Sabbath, keeping kosher, and studying Torah… not so much. I had green eyes. I was fair. I looked Irish. And yet, as my mother said, Jewish is Jewish, and if Hitler showed up in DuPage County, bacon in the fridge and almost blond hair wouldn’t fool him. When it was time for college, I applied, as did five hundred other kids in my high school class,...

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13 Aug
Beshert, Latest

Beshert | Was My Depression Meant To Be?

If you ask my therapist, she’ll say I’ve been struggling with hypomanic depression since my freshman year of college. But if you ask me, I think I’ve struggled with some form of mental illness since at least seventh grade. That’s when my bouts of melancholy, followed by periods of merriment began. Until college, the emotions were manageable, not raising alarms as anything more than typical teenage mood swings. But by the middle of my freshman year, the fluctuations were more palpable. During the days of depression, I’d skip class, watching endless hours of TV and eating whatever takeout was easiest to get my hands on. Happiness eluded me, seemingly unattainable. Coming out of those moods felt better, but was by no means healthy. I’d feel frenzied, talkative and overexcited. I would stay up till three and...

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09 Jul
Beshert, Latest

Beshert | Shareyna and Kim

Long before fused celebrity names like “Brangelina” (now back to Brad and Angelina) became trendy, my college roommate and I were known as “Shareyna.” Thirty-six years ago this fall, Reyna and I met as Yale freshmen after a guy friend asked me why I switched back and forth between two outfits every day and I realized that he must be mistaking me for someone else with a similar face but different clothes. I had watched “The Parent Trap” (friends mix up identical twins who meet for the first time at camp) enough times to know that this meant I had a doppelganger.  It turned out that my twin-like double lived three floors below me. Reyna was another five-foot-four, dark-haired young woman from the shared gene pool of Eastern European Jews. We stood next to one another...

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11 Jul
Culture

There's a New Hillel in Town

by Gabi P. Remz For a newly arrived freshman seeking a Jewish community on campus, the choice used to be obvious. There was just one place to go, and while it might not have been perfect, it was Jewish. When the first Shabbos at college came around, you would mosey on over to Hillel for dinner and maybe even some services. But times have changed, and while Hillel is still an extremely popular and vital source of Jewish life on campus, alternatives are popping up all over the country—and thriving. Most notably, Chabad has developed an extremely strong presence on many campuses, sometimes eclipsing attendance figures of Hillel and being considered the primary source of Jewish life on campus. But lately, smaller communities and movements have created names for themselves. Perhaps the strongest of these is a group called...

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11 Jul
Culture

There’s a New Hillel in Town

by Gabi P. Remz For a newly arrived freshman seeking a Jewish community on campus, the choice used to be obvious. There was just one place to go, and while it might not have been perfect, it was Jewish. When the first Shabbos at college came around, you would mosey on over to Hillel for dinner and maybe even some services. But times have changed, and while Hillel is still an extremely popular and vital source of Jewish life on campus, alternatives are popping up all over the country—and thriving. Most notably, Chabad has developed an extremely strong presence on many campuses, sometimes eclipsing attendance figures of Hillel and being considered the primary source of Jewish life on campus. But lately, smaller communities and movements have created names for themselves. Perhaps the strongest of these is a group called...

Continue reading