JVOICES

A week ago, Wednesday, March 26th, was the first anniversary of the Jewish Theological Seminary’s decision to admit openly gay and lesbian rabbinical and cantorial students, following on the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards’ December 2006 vote. In celebration, the students of JTS’s Committee on Inclusion a fantastic program called “Hazak Hazak V’Nithazek: Celebrating [...]

(apologies to those who aren’t living in new york city - this is an event announcement)
(it seems like there are many more radical purim extravaganzas going on all over the country, though, and i’m posting this announcement in part to encourage folks to think big and exciting for next year…)
this year’s eighth-or-so edition of the [...]

Jewish Voice for Peace

JOB DESCRIPTION
DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION AND OUTREACH

JOB TITLE:
Director of Education and Outreach

SUMMARY OF POSITION:

The Director of Education and Policy is responsible for providing internal and external education through a wide variety of methods that increase the ability for members, supporters and allies to [...]

whenever i start to get bored with the idea of staying vocal as one of the surprisingly few non-closeted secularists in most of the electronic jewish spaces i frequent, something like this comes up.
ruth messinger, former manhattan borough president, american jewish world service president, and makher-in-chief of the current (and problematic as well as important, [...]

Chapter I. Are Jews White?
in The Color of Jews by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, pg 1-10. 2007. Permission to Reprint from Indiana University Press: Bloomington & Indianapolis.
People have suggested that if I have experienced racism, I am of color. But what if I have experienced racism in Israel and white privilege in the United States? [...]

The Dean of the H.L. Miller Cantorial School at the Jewish Theological Seminary called me this week. I had just walked out of the Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Center, and when he told me that I had been accepted into cantorial school I jumped up and down on the sidewalk, drawing interesting looks from [...]

One of the things that I love about new media is that sometimes you still get to see at least part of events you weren’t able to make it to in person.
With that, I saw today that the Applied Research Center has posted some videos and summaries from their latest conference, “Facing Race”. The [...]

for poetry month (why april, by the way? ‘the cruelest month’? ‘with his shoures soote’? please.), here’s the text of a talk by irena klepfisz - a fantastic poet in yiddish, english, and both at once, as well as an insightful essayist and deeply committed radical - from a 2006 conference at barnard college called “Jewish Women Changing America: Cross-Generational Conversations”. at the bottom is a poem from one of klepfisz’s books. a complete transcript of the “Changing Culture” panel that klepfisz spoke on (and the rest of the conference) is available online here.

April is National Poetry Month in the U.S. and we’re hoping to celebrate it in style here on JVoices. National Poetry Month began in 1996–a recent phenomena–in order to celebrate, and I’d say, to revive a critical body of literature in the U.S.
So, we will be bringing you a few guest contributors, posting some exquisite [...]

I’ve seen the bumper sticker hundreds of times - an American flag waving across the bottom and the phrase “Love it or leave it!” emblazoned above. The people who claim to be “patriotic” by displaying these continue to disappoint me, because my own feelings on the subject are so complex.
On one hand, I love [...]