Oy! Oy! Oy! Vey!"Are you eating all your food?"Yes mom, 14P keeps me fullThe meals here are the best in the westFirst week was so much funSigned up for way too many clubs My phone keeps ringing during the day... It must be momOy! Vey!The sound of my momThe nag goes on and on and on and on andOy! Vey!You...

As a new student, the ongoing tradition of Students for Justice in Palestine’s mock Apartheid Wall installment on campus this Tuesday was my first experience with the organization’s activism. The Wall stated a number of non-contextualized facts regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, calling for empathy to the Palestinian struggle. On Wednesday of that week, Steven Salaita, a teacher and author on...

This Friday night, I'm going to host an intimate (and crowded) Shabbat dinner in my apartment as part of Hillel's quarterly Shabbat Around Westwood (nicknamed ShabbAW). While I could just get it catered with Hillel's help, I've decided midterms be damned, I'm going to cook! Looking through the recipes folder I keep in my Google Drive to plan my menu,...

Written by Naomi Karp, director of student life at Hillel at UCLA. This week’s Torah portion, Vayeira, is jam packed with action, comedy and drama. The penultimate event is the Akeda, the binding of Isaac. To briefly recap: God instructs Abraham to take his son Isaac to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him as a burnt offering to show his faith...

Following this summer's tragedy and controversy with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the recent closing and reopening of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem triggered an additionally sensitive dimension for Israel's stability. On Wednesday, October 29, Rabbi Yehuda Glick, founder of the LIBA initiative for Jewish Freedom on the Temple Mount, was shot in a drive-by attack during an event he hosted promoting...

Traveling far and wide from every corner of the world, Israeli “lone soldiers” risk their lives every day to protect a 10,782 square mile territory for their people; a territory less than 1/16th the size of California. Such a decision provokes a variety of questions for these lone soldiers, or men and women who voluntarily serve in the Israel Defense...

Written by Rabbi Jacob Rupp, senior rabbi at the Jewish Awareness Movement at UCLA. Contemporary research reveals that millennials, more than ever before, want to find a job that is fulfilling. Gone are the days that we work for the paycheck — now we work for a cause or a calling, and get paid as a result. It is phenomenal...

Talk about a disappointing ending. After a month of nonstop celebrating with little respite between the High Holidays and Sukkot, we have recently waved goodbye to the Hebrew month of Tishrei and jumped into Cheshvan, a month when we celebrate…absolutely nothing (except maybe our food coma recoveries). After the spiritual and physical high of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the...

Matisyahu, also known as Matthew Miller, is a Jewish reggae artist who has reached international acclaim — but maybe you already knew that. Maybe you also knew that Matisyahu began his musical career as an Orthodox Jew of Chabad-Lubavitch affiliation, complete with the visual signifiers of long beard, curling payot (sidelocks), and dangling tzitzit (fringes on the corners of a...

An Introduction to the SeriesJudaism has always been somewhat of a romantic religion to me. Perhaps it is because it never ceases to evoke within me an authentic array of emotions, ranging from awe to love to apprehension. Through my knowledge of biblical and Talmudic tales of the nation of Israel, I would advocate that the purest love (that of...