Fueled by initiative and creativity, Jewish student publications are cropping up on many different college campuses, celebrating the varied lives of Jewish college students.
At Northwestern University, Shmooze, a glossy bi-annual print publication was launched in February 2005. Its first issue was published last spring and a second issue is planned for this winter.
“The main focus of the magazine is to be a source of information and to make a significant impact on Jewish student life,” says editor in chief, Spencer Kalish, a Northwestern junior. “We write about issues on the minds of Jewish students: politics, sports, social action.”
And while, New Voices, a publication of the Jewish Student Press Service, has been in print for 35 years, its current editor, Ilana Sichel describes the magazine as a voice for an “independent Jewish student movement.”
“We’re really driven by Jewish news, Jewish topics and campus affairs,” says Sichel “We want to be an open forum, a space for debate.”
The mission of the new Jewish magazine PresenTense, says its editor, Ariel Beery, is to “invigorate Hebrew culture” for the 20-something set. With its all-volunteer, unpaid staff of 18, it publishes a collection of articles, essays, poetry and photography semi-annually.
Adam Finkel, a University of Michigan junior, is the driving force behind, Jewish Student Weekly, a new Web-based publication. Multiple students author a variety of articles and while Finkel sees the e-publication as a work in progress, it’s striving to “connect together Jewish college students” from multiple campuses across the country.
The newest student publication, The Shpiel, was launched in fall 2006 by students from the University of Florida and Hillel Rabbi Yonah Schiller. With a daily blog and planned events, the goal of the newspaper is to also provide an access point for involvement and identification within the Jewish student community.
”We want people to speak what they are really feeling, not what they [think they] are supposed to feel,” says editor, Kimberly Gouz.