Why Yom Tov need not ruin your Freshers' Week

It didn’t bode well. We pulled up at the entrance to my university accommodation about seven hours after everyone else.

The reason? Rosh Hashanah, which that year unfortunately coincided with the first day of my Freshers’ Week.

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Yachad conference will give students a new voice

Having attended the JStreet conference in Washington earlier this year, I’ve seen first-hand the successes and momentum that students in the US have achieved through bringing a new type of Zionist debate to universities.

On campuses in the UK, we too need to create spaces to discuss and learn. It is important that students can define their Zionism and not be defined by it.

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Israel must relinquish ownership over Kafka

With the impending verdict of a three year legal battle regarding Franz Kafka's unpublished papers due to be announced imminently; Israel hopes the decision will allow Kafka's work to be restored to the National Library of Israel.

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My not-so-stereotypical year in the deep South

My first reaction to finding out that I was going to be spending my third year of university at the College of Charleston in South Carolina was, it’s fair to say, not entirely positive.

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Amid the failures, bright hopes for future on campus

It would be easy to highlight the antisemitic attack which left a young Jew with a broken nose on a student union ski trip as evidence of another depressing and desperate year for Jewish students.

But the past nine months have been a period of relative calm on campuses, albeit one peppered with occasional serious incidents acting as reminders of the constant threat of racism and extremism.

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A letter to the woman at at the Tel Aviv asylum seeker protest

After seeing the image of an Israeli woman wearing a vest with the message 'Death to Sudanese', as part of protests against African workers in South Tel Aviv, I wrote a letter:

Dear Miss Vest Wearer,

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The UN, human rights and the Israel question

In discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, reference to a UN resolution tends to charge the individual’s argument with unique powers. The UN is, invariably, an all-out, exclusive, power-pack trump card.

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Tell me, what do university fees have to do with Israel?

At the NUS Conference I was once again astounded by the attention given to the Israeli-Palestinian debate. For three days numerous students wore stickers calling for a boycott of Israeli goods, while candidates for the NUS executive committee mentioned the "siege on Gaza" and the "apartheid state that is Israel" in their speeches.

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...as Durham enjoys exciting new era

Durham University Jewish Society has gone from strength to strength since winning the UJS Developing JSoc of the Year award two years ago.

Although it may not be the first university that comes to mind when thinking of Jewish campus presence, Durham offers a friendly, community feel that is often difficult to find in more politicised "Jewniversities".

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Holocaust memorial that brought us together

When you are sitting in a circle with new friends around you, the sweet smell of grass and birds tweeting, it's hard to conceive that you are in a place where 1.1 million people were murdered at the hands of the Nazis.

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