Batya Ungar-Sargon is the former Opinion Editor at the Forward.
Batya Ungar-Sargon
By Batya Ungar-Sargon
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News U. Penn Hillel Hosts Event With ‘Palestine’ Group — But Was It Against The Rules?
An event at the University of Pennsylvania Hillel co-sponsored by a group that backs boycotting Israel took place recently with no interference despite its challenge to the plain language of Hillel International’s guidelines. The April 26 event featured Avraham Burg, who is a former speaker of the Knesset and served as chairman of the Jewish…
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Life Turning Rape and Bulimia Into Comedy
Jessie Kahnweiler, right, with her mother, Jennifer Kahnweiler, at the 2013 Los Angeles premiere of Jessie’s web series “Dude, Where’s My Chutzpah?” (Clark Henry) (JTA) — In an early episode of “Dude, Where’s My Chutzpah?,” the 2013 docu-comedy web series by Jessie Kahnweiler that put her on the comedic map, Kahnweiler’s character ends up at…
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Opinion Can Yoga Fix the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?
Farashe (JTA) — Inhale your arms up into warrior one. Exhale and extend your arms into warrior two. I followed the instructor’s soft but firm voice as she led me and five other women through the yoga poses, and the deep breathing helped to calm my nerves. The large tiled room was gently lit through white…
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Culture 10 Women’s Voices We Want To Hear More From
Though 2014 was a year of many things good and bad, one thing the year unquestionably delivered was a plethora of strong female voices speaking out on a number of crucial subjects. Whether responding to crises, analyzing data, or sharing personal stories, these women are some of the writers whose work I’ve most enjoyed this…
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Culture A Work of Heartbreaking Genius and Erudition
The crisis facing American Jews today is the result of the comfort of their surroundings. The barriers to assimilation Jews faced in the past are now gone, if not reversed, rendering the border between liberal Jew and non-Jew a thing of the past. And yet, one author, raised in liberal Judaism’s bosom, has been quietly…
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Israel News Open Hillel Meets With Exuberance and Defiance
(JTA) — Harvard senior Rachel Sandalow-Ash scanned the exuberant crowd that packed a campus auditorium on Saturday night. “Wow,” she said, speaking to an audience of some 350 composed primarily of American college students. “This is amazing. This is really cool.” Sandalow-Ash, 21, went on to discuss the importance of nurturing a pluralistic and intellectually…
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Opinion Nechemya Weberman’s 103-Year Sentence Is Clumsy Slap at Ultra-Orthodox Jews
When is a long prison sentence too long? That’s the question many inside and outside the ultra-Orthodox community are asking this week after a judge dealt Nechemya Weberman a 103-year term behind bars for abusing a young girl. “The abuse of a child cannot be swept under the rug or dealt with by insular groups…
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The Schmooze Two Views of Eichmann and Arendt
Crossposted from Batya Reads This year’s New York Jewish Film Festival, starting January 9, is heavy on the Holocaust. Two films, however, stand out in conversation with one another. “Hannah Arendt,” directed by Margarethe von Trotta, is a fictionalization of Arendt’s presence at the Eichmann trial. And a new documentary, “The Trial of Adolf Eichmann,”…
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