Tattoos: Hip. Cool. Artsy. Permanent. Kosher?

by Hillel News

Tattoos, once considered off-limits for Jews, are becoming increasingly popular, for some as a form of rebellion, while for others as a prideful marker of Jewish identity. Tattooing and body art are classic forms of religious expression among people of some faiths, yet have been historically viewed unfavorably by the Jewish tradition.

As more young hip Jews make the choice to emblazon inky Jewish stars, Hebrew lettering, and kabbalistic imagery across their skin, it begs us to ask the question: What does Jewish tradition actually have to say about tattoos?

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

More Inclusive Jewish Spaces Are Possible

Derek M. Kwait for newvoices.com

Everyone is awkward when they start college. Eventually, most students find a group they feel comfortable with, build a community, and the awkwardness goes away. For students with special needs, however, that awkwardness can become a social stigma with aftereffects that can last a lifetime.

People with special needs often report feeling invisible to others, even—if not especially—those who will ordinarily go out of their way to be inclusive.

To change this unacceptable status quo, two organizations have stepped forward to serve as models for the inclusion of Jewish young adults with special needs: the JCC of Manhattan with its Adaptations program and Hillel International with its American Sign Language Birthright trip, among others.

Adaptations builds and supports a community of independent young adults with disabilities by bringing together a wide-range of people, including those with autism, Asperger’s, O.C.D., anxiety, and depression, all of whom are at higher risks of loneliness and isolation.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

The Problem Starts at the Top

Responsibility for American universities’ failure to confront anti-Semitism rests with administrators and faculty.

By Ruth Wisse for Mosaic

As an image for countering anti-Semitism, I once used to keep tacked over my desk the Polish proverb, “It’s lousy to swim upstream in a filthy river.” Happily, upstream swimmers who now overtake me seem better shielded from the pollution. I’m enormously grateful to Ben Cohen, Douglas Murray, and Bari Weiss for essays that make it feel as though we are within sight of the open sea.

Ben Cohen enlarges the historical context by reminding us that ours is not a new story. Hitler’s attempt to establish the Third Reich in 1930s Europe gained legitimacy when leaders in Western democracies excused the Nazi assault on democratic institutions as long as it aimed at Jews alone. Prominent among such leaders were presidents and faculty of American universities who extended a welcome to Nazi alumni and officials, and maintained cordial relations with anti-Semitic institutions. The universities’ appeal to academic decorum as a reason for tolerating German anti-Semites finds its equivalent in today’s invocation of “free speech” as the excuse for sanctioning Arab and Muslim anti-Israel incitement.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

Dear Not-Yet-Grads: It’s Time To Fight the Haters

Anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses is swelling. It’s time to go on the attack.

By Liel Leibovitz for Tablet Magazine

Is there a more syrupy genre than the commencement speech? Having had the opportunity to deliver one in person, I can report that once you accept the honor and present yourself, becapped and begowned, in front of the newly minted grads, you are already poised and primed to lie. Anything else would be a stretch: You would have to be a meanie to tell these plump youngsters anything resembling the truth, which is always too thorny and complicated and dark to deliver while Mom and Dad are beaming from the back rows, awaiting the celebratory graduation lunch.

And so this week, as school comes to an end, I want to deliver a different kind of address, not to those leaving college with pomp and circumstance at their backs but to those bedraggled souls staying behind. You young scholars are Rapunzeled atop the Ivory Tower for some years to come and so could benefit from a dispatch that has little of the swishy beauty of the commencement speech but is more accurate and direct. Here it is, short and unadorned: Things on the quad are pretty grim.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

20 Facts about Hillel in the Former Soviet Union

From eJewishPhilanthropy

1. The first FSU Hillel opened in 1994 in Moscow as a collective effort of Hillel International, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

2. There are now 18 Hillels working in the FSU, covering eight time zones, from Minsk Hillel in Belarus to Khabarovsk Hillel in Russia’s Far East.

3. Every year, FSU Hillels engage about 14,000 students and young adults in Jewish life.

4. Women make up 50 percent of FSU Hillel directors.

Continue reading.

Follow us on