Scribe, the Forward’s curated contributor network, is a place for showcasing personal experiences and perspective from across our Jewish communities. Here you will find a wide array of reflections on Jewish issues, life-cycle events, spirituality, culture and more.
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You say matzah — and matzo and matzuh and matzee and more
Readers respond to our editor-in-chief’s column about a Passover copy-editing conundrum
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Have We Got Some Tunes For You: ‘Jew of Oklahoma’ Releases First Folk Album
Cut live and mostly first takes, this is my first genuine “folk” release: Songs for the Hangman’s Daughter. I believe in it so strongly that I present it to you on a pay-as-you-like basis. Anyone and everyone who is even curious can give it a listen. I would be remiss if I did not also…
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Tel Aviv Councilman: Supreme Court Decision Makes Shabbat Accessible for All
The combination of these two words -– Shabbat and politics — has always stimulated toxic social turmoil in Israel. For decades, the so-called “status quo” about the nature of the seventh day in the public sphere has generated endless attempts to preserve some symbols of the biblical Shabbat in the modern era — in the…
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Chronicles of #TheGirlWithTheCancer: Bringing ‘The C Word’ Into The Bedroom
Stav Meishar, 28 years old, was born and raised in Israel. She is based in New York City where she founded the award-winning organization for creative Jewish education, Dreamcoat Experience. When she’s not shaping the futures of young Jewish minds, she is a stage artist specializing in Circus Arts. Stav’s biggest project at the moment…
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Sean Spicer’s Downplaying of the Holocaust Comes at the Worst Time Possible
For years, the horrors of the Holocaust were demonstrated to the public through the stories of victims and the soldiers who liberated them. Speeches by Holocaust victims used to pack arenas on college campuses across the nation. Few college students secured their cap and gown without hearing a survivor speak on their campus. These survivors…
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Growing Up In The Shadow Of The Holocaust
I wasn’t aware there was either an annual Day of Remembrance or Holocaust Memorial Day until I went to Israel on a pre-college semester at Tel Aviv University a few months after the Yom Kippur War. In my life, every day was Holocaust Memorial Day. I was a child of Holocaust survivors whose small community…
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Queer Jews Deserve Better: Why OSU Hillel Should Reinstate B’nai Keshet
Growing up in a tight-knit Modern Orthodox community, I rarely encountered people whose backgrounds, perspectives, or life experiences were very different from my own. I went to college at Yeshiva University, a Modern Orthodox University in New York.Though I learned from brilliant professors and formed lasting friendships, I regretted the fact that I had placed…
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The Selfishness Of Silence
On December 10, 1986, Eli Wiesel accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. His acceptance speech exemplifies so much of his character, his grace, his fearlessness, his greatness. As the speech called to the people of that day, it can call us, too, if only we listen. He begins: “Words of gratitude. First to…
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Third Time’s The Charm: A Jewish Rock Star Shares His Las Vegas Wedding Tale
I proposed marriage to my girlfriend of 13 years, Sharon Gitelle, The Forward’s Director of Community and Audience Development, this past August in the midst of my band Twisted Sister’s final farewell tour. Having been together for 13 years, the decision to ask her wasn’t one that I dwelled on too much. In fact, I…
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The Secret Jewish History Of The Atom Bomb
Lately, I’ve had nukes on the mind. I began reading a Kurt Vonnegut novel this week because I think we are now living in one, and I need to plot strategy. All of this was exacerbated Monday afternoon when a senior North Korean official said that the U.S had created “a dangerous situation in which…
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What Nobody Tells You About Bringing Home Baby
Postpartum From The Pulpit: Maternity Leave, Postpartum Depression And My First Year Of Parenthood When Charles Dickens opened his classic novel” A Tale Of Two Cities” with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” I’m convinced he was talking about the first year of parenthood. I look back on it…
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The Key To Healing Just Might Be A Freshly Baked Challah
The Shabbat after Passover is special to Jews around the the world, and even to foodies and bread connoisseurs —there is nothing like the smell of the dough rising and the taste of a warm piece of challah after almost two weeks of no leavened homemade bread. In recent years, the tradition of baking a…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture A Jewish prophet of the 1980s would be horrified to see that we didn’t heed his warnings
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Opinion With killing of Hezbollah’s chief, Israel occupies the inarguable moral high ground
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Opinion This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
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Special Report At the kibbutz hit hardest on Oct. 7, a wrenching debate over how to rebuild
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