The words flashed on my phone. I stared at them in disbelief. My friend Sean was dead. Just around my 18th birthday, I was drafted into the IDF. My base, Michve Elon, was in northern Israel. My friend Sean and I shared a room as well as our philosophies, life views, and histories. The transition More
In tribute to the recent trend of Buzzfeed articles, here is a “Top Reasons Why” Israel Advocacy edition. Because your mom guilt tripped you out of joining the IDF Obviously you love Israel. You’re a Zionist in one way or another (no matter how you choose to define it). Ideally, you’d be in an olive More
This summer marked my second visit to the State of Israel. I’m sure you already know all about my first trip–good old Birthright, they call it. But this time around, I was there for a two-month internship in Jerusalem at The Michael Levin Lone Soldier Center through the Onward Israel program. To give you a More
I come from an immigrant family. My father and both sets of my grandparents came from Portugal. I was raised Catholic and was never exposed to other religions until I grew older, so much so that I never even met a Jewish person until high school. So how did I become a Zionist? My high More
From Princeton’s Nassau Hall and Dartmouth’s Baker Library to the streets of Claremont McKenna and Yale, American colleges across the country have witnessed protests of racial injustice that silence dissent and opposing viewpoints. Deans, presidents, faculty members, and student leaders have all been forced to apologize and even resign for the mere crime of saying More
