Elissa Strauss has written for the Forward over a number of years. She is a regular contributor to CNN, whose work has been published in a number of publications including The New York Times, Glamour, ELLE, and Longreads.
Elissa Strauss
By Elissa Strauss
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Life How to Get Jewish Grandchildren
I found myself surprised by the critical response Caroline Rothstein and Debra Nussbaum Cohen got for explaining why they feel Jews should marry Jews. Rothstein wrote about why she only dates Jewish guys and Nussbaum Cohen about why she wants her children to marry Jews. I see no problem with the act of wanting a…
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Life R.I.P. Breadwinner Marriage
In a recent op-ed for the New York Times, professor Stephanie Coontz explains how marriage has not only survived the great upheaval that is the women’s movement, but is actually stronger because of it. These days, high-achieving women are more likely to get married, the later a woman gets married (when she is presumably more…
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Life When Hillary Clinton Joins Twitter
Hillary Clinton’s Twitter debut has already inspired more exegesis than an Ivy League graduate seminar on Joyce’s Ulysses. It wasn’t really her first Tweet that got everybody so excited, but her bio, which reads, “Wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling…
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Life The Perks of Having One Child
Might some of us be more fruitful without multiplying? Lauren Sandler thinks so, and she wrote about in her new book, “One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child and the Joy of Being One.” In the book, Sandler takes on stereotypes of only children and explores whether single-child families might be the…
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Life The Mommy Wars Just Got Literary
The mommy wars just took a turn for the literary. A couple of weeks ago Lauren Sandler, author of the new book “One and Only: The Freedom of Having and Only Child, and the Joy of Being One,” wrote an essay for the Atlantic about whether keeping families small is the secret to success for…
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Life The Ten Steps to Becoming a Great Dad
In a recent essay for the Forward, columnist Lenore Skenazy asked why Jewish moms have such a “definitive brisket-braising/doctor-raising image” while Jewish dads are roaming around the world stereotypeless? Skenazy pushes forward, searching for the true essence of Jewish fatherdom. Incessant people-pleaser? Pushover? Closet worrier? Nobody knows for certain. Well, if Jewish dads really are…
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Life 9 Must-Read Female Pundits on the Middle East
Like in much of the pundit world, those who opine on Israel and the Middle East tend to be disproportionately male. According to the OpEd Project, men continue to be 80-90% of key contributors to opinion forums, guests on TV talk and new shows and authors of editorials in newspapers and magazines. The OpEd Project…
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Life Why We Need Amy Schumer
Please, if you haven’t yet, go watch “Inside Amy Schumer,” the new show on Comedy Central right now. On the show, Schumer, who was raised Jewish on Long Island, plays with topics like sex, body image and relationships through skits, stand-up and man-on-the-street interviews. The show, beyond being friggin’ hilarious, inadvertently makes one of the…
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