//from the editors//
Fall 2020
Fall 2020
From the Editors
It has been 15 years since The Current was founded by Bari Weiss, and it is the perfect time to step back and think carefully about who we are as a journal. We have been involved with The Current since our freshman year, during which time it has provided a unique space for students to explore their interests, identities, experiences, the City, different forms of writing, and more. In the past few years we have also focused on expanding our base of writers and editors and the number of pieces we publish each semester. In all this time the number of articles has increased and so too the number of topics we cover, but we have strayed from, in our view, the most unique aspect of The Current: its Jewishness.
What does it mean to be a Jewish literary journal? Was The Current even founded with Jewishness as a central theme? The Current’s masthead since its founding has been: a journal of contemporary politics, culture, and Jewish affairs. Where does Jewishness fit into that? Does it encompass all the other categories or is it positioned as only one among others? Does its Jewishness derive from its primarily Jewish writers and editors writing as Jewish writers, about whatever interests them? Is ascribing to some limited idea of Jewishness inevitably reductive?
From the first issue editors have seen The Current as imbued with a Jewish spirit. Weiss wrote in the original editor's note that The Current’s commitment to Jewish affairs meant that “our Jewish identity inspires the high value we assign to the power of ideas and meaningful debate.” The embrace of debate itself was read as lending a Jewishness to the journal. Beyond providing the general context for the journal’s existence, Jewishness had no explicit place in its content. In most of the subsequent issues, Jewish references and ideas, while present in many articles, did not pervade the issue as a whole, which instead embraced its eclectic identity and consisted of a wide range of topics of interest to those years’ writers. While that has generated many intellectually engaging and compelling past versions of The Current, we hope to place the Jewish aspect of this journal at the forefront, sometimes explicitly and sometimes more subtly infusing it into the fabric of the Fall 2020 issue—in the articles, photographs, and connective tissue that binds them.
The Current is in a period of transition. Major changes like this take time, especially since we are still exploring what it even means to be a Jewish journal. We also must strike a balance between the creative freedom that past issues of The Current have offered and a somewhat more constrained space. Our transition has also been inhibited by the devastating Covid-19 pandemic which has disrupted the lives of many Columbia students, including some of our editors and writers, making school and extracurriculars like this more difficult. We have nevertheless spent this semester building together a new version of The Current as a Jewish journal.
It is an ongoing process that will continue with our issue next semester. As you read these pieces we invite you to think about how they engage with Jewish ideas, values, and themes. While it may not apply for every piece, Jewishness is at the core of this issue, in a way only possible in The Current.
Maya Bickel, Editor-in-Chief; Harry Ottensoser, Managing Editor
Image by Sophie Levy.
What does it mean to be a Jewish literary journal? Was The Current even founded with Jewishness as a central theme? The Current’s masthead since its founding has been: a journal of contemporary politics, culture, and Jewish affairs. Where does Jewishness fit into that? Does it encompass all the other categories or is it positioned as only one among others? Does its Jewishness derive from its primarily Jewish writers and editors writing as Jewish writers, about whatever interests them? Is ascribing to some limited idea of Jewishness inevitably reductive?
From the first issue editors have seen The Current as imbued with a Jewish spirit. Weiss wrote in the original editor's note that The Current’s commitment to Jewish affairs meant that “our Jewish identity inspires the high value we assign to the power of ideas and meaningful debate.” The embrace of debate itself was read as lending a Jewishness to the journal. Beyond providing the general context for the journal’s existence, Jewishness had no explicit place in its content. In most of the subsequent issues, Jewish references and ideas, while present in many articles, did not pervade the issue as a whole, which instead embraced its eclectic identity and consisted of a wide range of topics of interest to those years’ writers. While that has generated many intellectually engaging and compelling past versions of The Current, we hope to place the Jewish aspect of this journal at the forefront, sometimes explicitly and sometimes more subtly infusing it into the fabric of the Fall 2020 issue—in the articles, photographs, and connective tissue that binds them.
The Current is in a period of transition. Major changes like this take time, especially since we are still exploring what it even means to be a Jewish journal. We also must strike a balance between the creative freedom that past issues of The Current have offered and a somewhat more constrained space. Our transition has also been inhibited by the devastating Covid-19 pandemic which has disrupted the lives of many Columbia students, including some of our editors and writers, making school and extracurriculars like this more difficult. We have nevertheless spent this semester building together a new version of The Current as a Jewish journal.
It is an ongoing process that will continue with our issue next semester. As you read these pieces we invite you to think about how they engage with Jewish ideas, values, and themes. While it may not apply for every piece, Jewishness is at the core of this issue, in a way only possible in The Current.
Maya Bickel, Editor-in-Chief; Harry Ottensoser, Managing Editor
Image by Sophie Levy.