Shomer negiah. The topic is a near-obsession for Modern Orthodox high school students: who is, who isn’t, who has started, who recently stopped. Many Judaic Studies teachers have found their classes derailed by impromptu discussions of the subject; almost every NCSY advisor has spent hours discussing the halakhot of intimate touch and the reasons behind […]
Like many Stern students, I spent a year after high school studying in a seminary in Israel. Like most of my peers, I can reel off a list of indelible memories from that year abroad: meandering adventures in Machaneh Yehudah surrounded by a kaleidoscope of unfamiliar scents and sounds; the peaceful loneliness of an impromptu […]
It sounds like a scene out of a dystopian movie: crowds of people in the streets, chanting slogans that demand the refugees go back to where they came from. Molotov cocktails hurled at several homes by night, a daycare center set aflame. Local businesses display shattered windows, and there are reports of individuals being harassed […]
I am normally the first to admit that I would rather not adopt most of the “trends” touted by the New York Times “Sunday Styles” section. I was disdainful of its piece about people who have apparently abandoned regular showers, and was frankly horrified by the purported “fashion” of women wearing potentially harmful contact lenses […]
A conversation with Margot Reinstein “Student Leaders Speak” will feature interviews with SCW and YC student leaders about their initiatives to improve the Yeshiva University community. In this edition, The Observer speaks with Margot Reinstein about the new initiative, spearheaded by Nechama Yagod, to create a women’s Beit Midrash on the Wilf Campus. Margot Reinstein […]
By now almost every student at Stern College for Women is familiar with the name Tamar Epstein. Described by Failed Messiah as “the world’s most famous agunah,” Epstein has been an agunah for four years now; her husband, Aharon Friedman, has repeatedly refused to grant her a get. Students have participated in rallies, written letters […]
Denim Skirted Stereotypes
“You’re not a typical Stern girl.” The comment is supposed to imply that the woman being addressed is somehow better than her fellow students. It’s a statement loaded with implications: mainly, that the woman being addressed thinks for herself and does not let others define her. Not being a ‘typical Stern girl’ is meant as […]