Saul, a gaunt-faced and hollow-eyed man, stares out at you from the screen, seeming utterly removed, detached, dead—just like the lifeless bodies he drags from the gas chambers to the crematoria. László Nemes‘ Son of Saul or Saul Fia, in Hungarian, presents a glimpse into…
Bible codes and bad religion
Walking through the old city in Jerusalem on a Tuesday afternoon, I arrived at the Aish HaTorah building overlooking the Western Wall — Judaism’s holiest site. It was about four years ago that I had gone, with about 50 other…
Why can’t we be friends? Religion and understanding
This past Tuesday, UCLA students gathered for an interfaith event in a small room on the third floor of the Humanities building to discuss many important topics. The event was relatively successful, but due to a miscommunication, there were no…
Extreme Makeover: Conservative Judaism edition
Sometimes in life, one may undergo an identity crisis of sorts, feeling the need to redesign one’s image to the world and get a makeover. The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism is taking “makeover” to a whole new level by…
Profile on Dr. Saba Soomekh: the newest administrator of Leve Center for Jewish Studies
With the advent of a new academic year, innovations are practically inevitable for an ever-evolving campus such as UCLA. One novelty at UCLA took place earlier this fall at the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies (CJS), when…
The restriction of our movements: leaning towards nondenominational Judaism
I would like to introduce you to The Box. The Box helps define, categorize and organize. It’s comfortable inside The Box. We were raised in The Box. Our families helped build The Box. Whom would we be without The Box?…
Yiscah Smith: activist, leader, hero
We are a species that categorizes. Categories permeate every facet of our lives, as categorization is a natural process for us to organize the world around us. Essentially, humans naturally dissect one another into compartments, or identifiers. Consider how others…
How Hadas Libman keeps it on par
Hadas Libman is the latest diamond in the rough in Jewish Athletes. She hails from Israel and sacrificed time away from her family to live the dream of becoming a professional women’s golfer. She won her first Israeli Open when…
How Judaism can help students maintain sanity
A college student’s lifestyle can be extremely unhealthy. Besides the physical health issues that may come from binge-eating ramen noodles every finals cycle, students may also develop mental health issues such as severe anxiety and depression, which may be induced…
Azerbaijan: A “Model for Tolerance”
Along the shore of the Caspian Sea lies the republic of Azerbaijan, a country that gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Although composed primarily of Shi’ite Muslims, this country is still the home to “the largest all-Jewish settlement outside the…