BlogCentral: Big Jew on Campus

A religious moderate American student shares his take on the Holy Land.

By BEN-ZION JAFFE
big jew on campus 88 (photo credit: )
big jew on campus 88
(photo credit: )
Ahmadinejad's first victim Generally, the diversity of the college campus is enjoyable. Otherwise, I would not have made friends with students that fall outside my closed Jewish world. But with diversity comes difference in belief, lifestyle, and politics. While many in college still try to find out who they are personally, many develop political views based on the world around them. After two and a half years of attending Rutgers University, a fairly liberal school, I have become used to condemnations of Israel along with the basic anti-Israel rhetoric that join with those criticisms of a situation I believe most Americans do not comprehend. Although I have developed a political callus to the arguments against Israel that are considered to be acceptable and legitimate (such as denunciations of targeted assassinations, settlements, and roadblocks, to name a few), there are still some thoughts and beliefs that I hear from other students that shock me as if I never knew there were those who thought differently than me. As I spend more time in school I learn not only of more arguments against what I see as true, but I also come to find that these arguments are real and dangerous. One of these surprising moments happened during final exams in December. I was studying with such a clearly diverse group of people from a political science class of mine that another friend saw the study group and asked me why I was "studying with the UN." Read the rest of this blog »
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* * * Previous blog entries: The skeletons of a Jewish community The neb of New Brunswick Cheap Jew Coexistence, almost The intellectual tragedy of 9/11 Happy birthday Gilad To the point of exhaustion Growing pains No refuge for a refugee Rational fear The World Cup, part II: Does anyone have a TV? Not in Israel The World Cup, Part I: Sports and history Israel: A superpower The violence within 'You're a Nazi' Palestine: Be educated Tent-ative residents Clean up 1, 2, 3 Israel's survival beyond politics Purim, the way it should be Time to protect Israel The Cold War returns Hasbara Part III: Bob Woodruff, Ken, and I Hasbara II: Two-front war Hasbara I: "Stay safe tonight" A long day's night My Football Dilemma: Part III: $300, Give or Take Signs of hypocrisy The Jewish obsession Laughing at death Too young to drink, old enough to wed Big Jew on Campus: My Football Dilemma, part II The OCC My football dilemma Bad memories The future of American Jewry The weak link Rituals and Practices of Simhat Torah 101 How God is lost and found in college Why I hate to love Robert Kraft Some things never change September 11 The sad link To party or not to party?
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