This week we celebrate the festival of Passover. If asked on the spot what the point of the holiday is, you would probably respond “to commemorate the redemption from Egyptian bondage.” This interaction is reenacted on the Seder night: The…
Money is not the root of all evil, passivity is
Resistance does not have to mean rejecting the system, or even aiming to change the system. Resistance means not letting the system change you. In case someone has not caught up yet, money is the name of the game and…
Bruin Passover meal plan options
Passover is just around the corner, which means Jewish Bruins may be the hungriest students at UCLA for those eight days. Thankfully, UCLA has an amazingly supportive Jewish community that makes sure its students eat heartily. Hillel, Chabad and JAM…
Purim: did the party really end?
It is no secret that Persians like a great party with food, wine, dancing and music! King Ahasuerus of 4th century Persia, was no different, throwing a 180-day-long drunken festival in celebration of his vastly growing Persian Empire in its…
Aliyah throughout the ages
Imagine you are living in a land where you must tuck away your kippah or Magen David necklace in public in fear of putting your life in danger, simply because of who you are. This has been an unfortunate reality…
Kosher newspapers? Sticks and stones and words
Unlike the spoken word, which is formidable in its own right, the written word is powerfully enduring and persistent. In general, people’s perception is that the written word — having been meticulously chosen — is usually well thought-out and therefore…
International Jews of UCLA
UCLA’s prestige, location, and admiration for diversity within its student body has made it a highly attractive university for potential attendees around the world. In fact, international students constitute 12.6 percent of UCLA’s undergraduate program. Elinor Samuel: The Tea-Loving Hippophile…
Is it time to move to Israel already? And other questions about the future of Diaspora Judaism
The Impetus: What happened? As most of the world is abundantly aware, on Jan. 7, two radical Muslim terrorists charged the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 journalists whom they held responsible for depicting the prophet…
“Accepted” outsiders: the Jewish people in Germany today
“Germans and Jews never mixed well.” This was spat during one of my ten trips to Germany throughout my lifetime — each of which was accompanied by my family’s mini travel Shabbat set. The quote is a declaration of hatred…
You are why you eat; or why I keep kosher
Personal responsibility is rather like the pet tarantula you might have begged your parents for when you were little: it sounded like so much fun until you got it, but then you realized that aside from being fuzzy and hairy,…