American Antizionism

Published in Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas Fall/Winter 2025 “Two years after Hamas’s “Al-Aqsa Flood” (we must confront the name for reasons that I will explain below), it is less the horrors perpetrated on October 7 than the traumas of October 8 that have forced an American Jewish reckoning. What does it mean that,…

Posted by kelnersj on November 26, 2025 in Magazines and Opinion

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Turning Critical Theory on Its Head: Academia’s Palestine exception

Published in SAPIR: A quarterly journal of ideas for a thriving Jewish future Autumn 2024 “Rehearse the litany of abuses and double standards against Jewish and Israeli students and faculty in campuses this past year…. Those parts of the academy that have most embraced critical theory have failed to critique the ways in which their…

Posted by kelnersj on November 18, 2024 in Magazines and Opinion, antisemitism, antizionism

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Special live music returns to campus with COVID protocol-compliant performance

Students and faculty from Vanderbilt Blair School of Music and a Jewish studies class hosted a COVID protocol-compliant live music performance on April 8. Full story and video here.

Posted by kelnersj on April 12, 2021 in In the News, Media, arts, Covid-19, pedagogy

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Drink Prey Lust

Wexner Foundation Blog, March 15, 2016. Purim is a festival of inversion, a time when the lowly are honored, the esteemed are mocked, the serious is parodied, and the forbidden is — for a moment — permissible.  By turning things upside down for a day, Purim reaffirms what right-side-up should look like. It is only…

Posted by kelnersj on March 15, 2016 in Media, pedagogy, religion, ritual

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Encounters and Journeys: Cultivating Jewish Peoplehood?

This December 2015 blogcast sponsored by the Consortium for Applied Studies in Jewish Education focuses on travel as a form of Jewish education, ethical engagement and community-building. Click here to view.

Posted by kelnersj on December 19, 2015 in Media, Birthright Israel, diaspora, education, israel, tourism

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Seeing Jewish Studies Through Christian Students’ Writing

From the Brandeis University Mandel Center’s blog, “Learning about Learning”, Jan. 6, 2015: The Zohar may seem an unlikely text to use for the first session of a 100-level Introduction to Jewish Studies class. I chose to open with it, however, for three reasons…  Continue Reading »

Posted by kelnersj on January 6, 2015 in Media, education, pedagogy

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Reshaping the World Through Vision, Activism, Ideas and Initiative (Not Demography)

Wexner Foundation Blog, May 22, 2014 I have now seen several rounds of brouhaha over Jewish population surveys: 1990, 2001, and now Pew 2013. One would think that the conversation would advance each decade. This is social science after all; time marches on and we build our knowledge cumulatively, on the shoulders of giants as…

Posted by kelnersj on May 22, 2014 in Media, Pew, religion

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A Lexicon in Flux

Sh’ma February 2010, Issue no. 666: Do-it Yourself Judaism This new creative enterprise that has been variously referred to as start-ups, emergents, and the innovation ecosystem is now being called DIY, Do-It-Yourself, a term with roots in the subculture of punk music. Drawing on the lexicon of punk rock offers an important counterbalance to a…

Posted by kelnersj on September 28, 2011 in Media, jewish innovation, jewish leadership, op-eds

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Serious Fun

The Jerusalem Post June 28, 2010 When Birthright was launched a decade ago, skeptics dismissed the 10-day tours of Israel as little more than a free party for privileged college kids. It was an unfair critique, but it gained traction because it combined the ever popular lament about the “youth of today” with an equally…

Posted by kelnersj on June 28, 2010 in Media, Birthright Israel, book, diaspora, israel, op-eds, tourism

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So Near, So Far

New York Jewish Week
May 12, 2010

A traveler’s quiz: When American Jewish tourists arrive at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport, which two words are they more likely to be greeted with?

A) “Welcome home!”
B) “Passport, please.”
Resist the temptation to choose “A.”

Posted by kelnersj on May 12, 2010 in Media, Birthright Israel, book, diaspora, israel, op-eds, tourism

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