Scribe, the Forward’s curated contributor network, is a place for showcasing personal experiences and perspective from across our Jewish communities. Here you will find a wide array of reflections on Jewish issues, life-cycle events, spirituality, culture and more.
Community
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You say matzah — and matzo and matzuh and matzee and more
Readers respond to our editor-in-chief’s column about a Passover copy-editing conundrum
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Hunter College Jews Are Thriving
I am deeply troubled by The Algemeiner’s inclusion of Hunter College on its list of The 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students in America. I spent four years on Hunter’s campus as a student and an additional six months as a Hillel professional, and I speak from experience when saying that Hunter’s Jewish life on…
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Oberlin Is The Most Jewish Place I’ve Ever Lived
When choosing the right graduate school, I wanted to make sure that I found a school that had good academics and a good sense of community. As an upperclassman at a conservatory of music within a small liberal arts college, it was only natural that I’d look at The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, perhaps the…
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Clickbait And Fear-Mongering Don’t Define Northwestern’s Thriving Jewish Community
Once again, Northwestern has been included on a wildly inaccurate and non-scientific list of “anti-Semitic” American college campuses. This time, it is Algemeiner’s “The 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students.” It is clear that Algemeiner’s editorial staff chose not to engage with the Jewish communities at the schools they listed; instead, they ranked them based…
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McGill Shaped Me Into A Better And More Engaged Jew
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…
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At NYU, Cliques Aside, Jewish Culture Thrives
Walking onto NYU’s campus during my freshman year, I wasn’t sure what to expect but I feared the worst. I’d heard the stories about Students for Justice in Palestine antagonizing and threatening Jewish students, the administration and faculty taking part in the BDS movement, and Jewish students generally feeling unsafe. On top of the stress…
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At UCLA, Jewish Life Is What You Make of It
We certainly have to take steps to defend our identity against the BDS activism that percolates across many college campuses, but rather than hiding behind faces of nonchalance and indifference, our Jewish students work that much harder to connect with resources on campus to change the narrative. As someone deaf in one ear, I was…
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What Really Happened at the Presidents Conference Hanukkah Party
On December 14, 2016, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations (the Presidents Conference) in concert with the Embassy of Azerbaijan held a historic Chanukah party in Washington, D.C. that will be talked about for some time. Controversy continues to swirl over not only who attended the party, but who did not; how many…
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Though Spiritually Bereft, I Never Felt Bullied As A Jew At McGill
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…
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At NYU, Interfaith Solidarity Abounds
If NYU rates #9 on the list of “Worst Universities for Jewish Students,” then the Algemeiner would weigh in as #1 on the list of “Worst News Outlets for the Jewish Future.” Generally, it doesn’t top that list. To the contrary, the Algemeiner has established an important voice in the Jewish communal conversation. It was…
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Despite An Active Anti-Israel Community, Columbia Is A Place Where Jews Thrive
Pundits have called this year the beginning of a new post-fact order, and a recent ranking of colleges by the Algemeiner lends credence to that classification. In a list entitled “The 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students, 2016,” the Algemeiner ranks Columbia University as #1. I graduated from Columbia University just this week, and I…
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Jewish Life at SDSU is Not Defined By The Haters
For the second year in a row, San Diego State University, my campus, has been called an unsafe place to be Jewish. In 2015, David Horowitz listed SDSU as the “sixth most anti-Semitic campus” in the United States. This year, The Algemeiner’s first annual list of the “40 Worst Campuses for Jewish Students” in Canada…
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Sports Today’s American Jews finally have their era’s Sandy Koufax
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