JVOICES.COM

Sarah Lyhall of the New York Times reports that Britain’s Supreme Court ruled against a Jewish high school in London that had rejected an applicant because his mother wasn’t Jewish enough – and so, by extension, neither was he. Yep, she had chosen Judaism years ago and gone through a conversion process, but
By all outward [...]

The following drash/sermon was given during Yom Kippur at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav.
I love being Jewish. I always have. From the moment I knew I was Jewish, I found a home in the prayers, larger-than-me concepts, values and sense of community that were infused in everything we did. I was aware, however, that I was different [...]

Adam Serwer over at The Root has a great new post called “The Self-Hate Hustle.”
Serwer draws a parallel between divisions in Jewish communities over Israel and divisions in (U.S.) Black communities “about loyalty and authenticity.” Describing Netanyahu’s characterization of David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel as “self-hating Jews” based on their support of a settlement freeze, [...]

Check out Michelle Goldberg’s new web-only piece, “Same As It Ever Was?” up at The American Prospect. Her tagline, or more likely her editor’s tagline, for the article wonders if the “pro-Israel lobby, long seen as an immutable part of American politics, may be headed toward obsolescence.” I’m not sure if I buy that, since [...]

Below is an excerpt from a piece I published earlier today on Mondoweiss.
I am a Jew. I am a religious Jew. I am an anti-Zionist Jew. I realize that to make this last claim is to risk that you will stop reading, as often any claim of anti-Zionism brings with it a label of traitor, [...]

Quick hit:
Fatemeh Fakhraie over at Racialicious does a great job analyzing W magazine’s big article on Persian Jews in Los Angeles. The first commenter sums it up well:
On one hand, it’s nice to see some acknowledgment that non-Ashkenazi Jews and Jews of color exist. On the other, a representation that just plays [...]

this is basically a note to send you to a piece i’ve written for the latest issue of the Monthly Review on the origins of the current rise to visibility of jewish opposition to zionism. i hope you’ll read and enjoy – and if you disagree with me, argue here.
the piece is online, at [...]

Originally published in jweekly.com
Until this year, I had never counted the Omer — the ritual of marking each of the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot with a nightly blessing.
But when Passover came to an end this year, I felt I could use more of that “liberation” our tradition speaks of. Armed with no more [...]

I am a trained ethnomusicologist, and began to go to Belmonte to investigate the role of music in their lives. I continue to go, partly because I rarely consider any project “finished”, and also because there are many people I have come to love dearly, especially the family I always stay with when there. I [...]

x-posted from Mondoweiss
Michael J. Jordan has a great article over at the JTA talking about the contortions people are going through to avoid stating the obvious: Jewish and pro-Israel groups worked to undermine the Durban II conference. Although “it’s no secret who was behind the effort to discredit the 2009 Durban Review Conference in Geneva,” [...]