Although a person typically achieves Bar Mitzvah — coming of age in the Jewish tradition — at 13 years old, four Cornell students received the opportunity to participate in a B’nai Mitzvah, a Bar Mitzvah that includes multiple people, on Saturday. The ceremony was followed by a celebration of more than 400 people in Duffield Hall. 

Sun Senior Editor Sam Cross chronicles his trip to Israel.

The Passover Haggadah (storybook) exhorts us to view ourselves as though we were liberated from Egypt. How do we experience freedom in a society as comfortable and complacent as ours?

Since Passover is a religious holiday — it celebrates God’s deliverance of the Jewish people — we should focus on religious freedom. Since, furthermore, God delivered his people to bring them to the land “flowing with milk and honey,” it is even more appropriate to compare our religious freedoms with Israel’s, to understand what we have here.

As a student at one of the schools that was not off this festive week, I was left to face the challenge of observing Passover at Cornell. The most difficult challenge for me, like many, is avoiding bread products. Once a year I understand why people on carb-free diets are so miserable. Later in this article I want to express my disappointment towards Cornell dining, for I believe there are simple steps the University should be taking to help students who wish to observe the holiday. First, however, I want to raise a second challenge that I faced this Passover — explaining to people what Passover is and why I insisted on eating my hamburgers without buns.

Ever since that historic moment when God instructed Abraham, the founding patriarch of Judaism and the ancient Israelites, to circumcise himself as a sign of their covenant, Jews have been at the forefront of wooing the ladies. It’s not our fault that, as a collective people, we get more action than a sorority house toilet after dinnertime. It’s in our genes.

I started thinking a few weeks ago about the idea of sin. Fitting, considering that on the holiday of Yom Kippur, Jews apologize for sins committed by our individual selves and on behalf of the larger Jewish community.

Today is Love Your Body Day, another holiday. LYBD is sponsored by National Organization of Women and celebrated across the nation. On its website, NOW writes:

“Women and girls spend billions of dollars every year on cosmetics, fashion, magazines and diet aids. These industries can’t use negative images to sell their products without our assistance.

Together, we can fight back.”

Cornell students enjoyed a night of delicious food and stimulating discussion at a Jewish-Muslim Dialogue Dinner last night.

With Rosh Hashanah and the end of Ramadan coinciding together this year, Jewish and Muslim students on campus gathered in the One World Room at Annabel Taylor Hall in the hopes of bridging a dialogue between the two communities. Cornell Hillel, Muslim Education Cultural Association (MECA), Cornell Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Islamic Alliance for Justice were the four hosts of the dinner.