American Jewish University launches Institute for Jewish Creativity

by Evan Henerson for Jewish Journal

What do you get when you bring 23 Jewish artists to a bucolic, 3,000-acre campus in Simi Valley and keep them together for three days with no cellphone service? You get shared visions, simpatico new friendships, connections and boundless creativity.

Those are just some of the results from the recent L.A. artist retreat titled “Reciprocity,” which took place in mid-November and signaled the public launch of the Institute for Jewish Creativity (IJC) at American Jewish University (AJU). The IJC looks to integrate Jewish artists into the broader Jewish community, spark cultural programming for Jewish audiences of all ages and spur artistic contributions that benefit Jewish culture.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

What Jewish college students can learn from their hometown congregations

By Ethan Sobel  for The Jewish Advocate

Antiquated, stuffy, boring, archaic and tranquil. Those might be the terms millennial Jewish college students would use to describe the synagogues where they grew up. Whether coming from a Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Renewal, Orthodox or other background, it rarely seems “cool” to reminisce about going to Sunday Hebrew classes, attending Shabbat services or joining the local Jewish youth group as the highlight of your Jewish upbringing. At Hillels across the country, the chatter focuses on politics, romantic prospects or the in-crowd. But what if the 18-21 year olds were wrong – what if their childhood Jewish experiences did add value to their lives, offering lessons that they will never embrace or even understand?

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

Singling Out Israel is Singling Out Every Jew

Nurit Greenger  for The Times of Israel
In Germany, in the 1930s’ is started with crating an image of an evil Jews, it ended with 6 million Jews murdered.

Today, one can say with confidence that the fastest growing “religion” after “Leftism-Progressive-Liberalism” is the spread of anti-Israel hatred, a guise for anti-Semitism. And the nucleus of this movement is the North American university campus, acting as a leading incubator for this dehumanization fashion.

Antisemitism on Campus

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

What Judaism will actually look like 50 years from now

by Amram Altzman for newvoices.com

I don’t often like to think about the future. Instead, I like to study my past (hence my Jewish History major) and understand my present (hence my sociology major).

But when Commentary released its symposium wherein seventy professional Jews — academics, philosophers, researchers, and the like — were asked about what Judaism will look like in 2065, the answer was a resounding and ambivalent shrug. Some, to be sure, were more negative than others, claiming that Judaism and Jewish culture outside of Israel and those who cling to it will no longer exist, as Elliott Abrams surmised in the opening remarks of the symposium. Others, fearing the continued ascendancy of the Islamic State and the rise of anti-Semitism, see the future of Jews as downright bleak at best and utterly destroyed at worst.

Continue reading.

Follow us on