The Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, along with nine other other campus organizations, held a conference on water in the Middle East and Africa on May 7 at the Faculty Center. Dozens of students, faculty, industry professionals and even several…
Submission: Vote “Yes” to move Westwood Forward on Tuesday, May 22
Stakeholders in Westwood are being asked to vote on whether or not a broad coalition of UCLA students, UCLA faculty and staff, Westwood businesses, homeowners and renters should get their own Neighborhood Council to better represent their interests. While this might not…
Taste of Torah: Is Your Judaism Dead?
How much of the material you learned for your last midterm do you still remember? Studies say less than 10%. How come? You studied well. However, most of knowledge we acquire is superficial and does not connect to us on…
Can Jewish Stereotypes in TV Be Used For Good?
As I continue to watch TV shows like The O.C. and New Girl, both of which contain prominent Jewish characters that express their religious backgrounds freely, my immediate reaction is a proud and happy one. I think that it is so cool that TV…
Taste of Torah: Man, Animal and Object
This week’s Torah portion is Parshat Emor. The portion describes the idea of holiness through man, animal and objects. Although they are spread throughout the portion, they all communicate the same idea: We are all holy beyond knowledge and as soon…
Activists Must Avoid Flippant Responses to Protesters
After a major Jewish community leader sticks his middle finger up at protesters, we need to rethink how we engage with those with whom we disagree. An old adage suggests that if you don’t have something nice to say, you…
Taste of Torah: Love Your Fellow As You’d Love Yourself
This week’s Torah portion introduces the well-known Judaic concept of “Love your fellow, as yourself.” It is interesting to note that in contrast to most of the other fundamental commandments, the instruction to “Love your fellow, as yourself” does not…
UCLA Professor Judea Pearl on Jewishness, Israel, and BDS
Judea Pearl is an Israeli-American professor of Computer Science and statistics at UCLA, the director of UCLA’s Cognitive Systems Laboratory, and a Turing Award recipient recognized for his contributions to the field of artificial intelligence by his invention of Bayesian…
Submission: The Jewish community’s vote must be earned
I want to take you back to the UCLA I was admitted to three years ago, in the spring of 2015. A close friend of mine, Ariel Rafalian, was running for Transfer Student Representative in a hard fought student government…
Taste of Torah: On Tzara’at and Intellectual Honesty
In this week’s parsha, Tazria, we are quickly confronted with laws and procedures dealing with tzara’at. The initial verse regarding this phenomenon is as follows: אָדָם כִּי־יִהְיֶה בְעוֹר־בְּשָׂרוֹ שְׂאֵת אוֹ־סַפַּחַת אוֹ בַהֶרֶת וְהָיָה בְעוֹר־בְּשָׂרוֹ לְנֶגַע צָרָעַת וְהוּבָא אֶל־אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן אוֹ אֶל־אַחַד מִבָּנָיו…