Beth Schwartzapfel
By Beth Schwartzapfel
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Life Digest: Virtual Plastic Surgery and a Bar Refaeli Boycott
The Sisterhood Digest: • The recently released results of an Orthodox Union survey seem to indicate that Orthodox Jewish women have happier marriages than married women in the general U.S. population. Some 74% of women responding to the O.U.’s online poll characterized their marriages as “excellent/very good.” Compare that to the National Marriage Project 2009…
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Culture Standing Against Abortion Restrictions in the Healthcare Bill
As the House and Senate hash out their versions of the sweeping healthcare reform bill in the coming weeks, several crucial women’s health issues hang in the balance. The most high-profile, and controversial, is abortion — the Stupak-Pitts amendment in the House and the Managers Amendment in the Senate would both severely restrict abortion coverage…
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News Earning College Degrees Behind Bars
It’s a Friday afternoon in December, and history professor John Fout is leading the students in his course, “Nazi Germany and the Holocaust,” in a spirited discussion. Every time he has taught this class, Fout says from behind his desk in Room 7, students always ask: “If the Germans were losing the war, why didn’t…
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News Rabbinical Student Heads Up the Fight For Gay Marriage in New Jersey
Steven Goldstein jokes that his office in suburban New Jersey is “like the Jewish Museum of Montclair.” A sage-looking rabbi peers down from a lithograph on one wall, and a print of Theodor Herzl hangs from another. There are a Hebrew movie poster and a mezuza. Goldstein, however, doesn’t work for a Jewish organization; he…
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News Uncertain Territory: Conservative Judaism’s Pioneering Gay Rabbinical Students Tread Carefully In Israel
When the first openly gay rabbinic students came through the doors of Conservative Judaism’s Jewish Theological Seminary in 2007, there remained in the back of everyone’s mind one sensitive, still-unresolved issue: What would happen when they went to Israel? All understood that their curriculum, like that of all JTS rabbinic students, would include a third…
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News Victims Lose Faith That Government Protects
After they retired, Ronnie Sue Ambrosino and her husband, Dominic, crisscrossed the country in their RV. They kept an American flag in the cab, and flew it on occasion. Ronnie Sue’s e-mail address included the words “patriot” and “USA.” “I wasn’t a zealot or anything,” she said, “but I was very proud to be an…
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News Musical Chairs
What’s Hanukkah without some festive music? Whether you’re in the mood for folk, reggae, klezmer or even live DJs spinning tracks, there are musical events across the country that promise to keep your December full of holiday cheer. We’ve pulled together eight of our favorite options — separated by event type, for your convenience —…
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News The Gittith and Uggav Play Again in Tulsa
From the beginning, Jews have been a musical people. When God parted the Red Sea, what did Miriam do? She played the timbrel. When Saul was troubled by evil spirits, he called for David to play the harp. King David, in fact, was known as a great musician, and many of the psalms are attributed…
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News Scoop: Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors
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