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.
Community
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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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For Religious Speech, The Bus Stops Here
Last month, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an opinion allowing the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority to reject religious advertising on its system. Civil libertarians should applaud the ruling. Over 40 years ago, public transportation systems opened subways and buses to commercial advertisements — painlessly, they thought, to hold down…
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I Was Skeptical That Women Are Sexually Assaulted — Then 3,000 Sent Me Their Stories
It’s been a tense week in the White House and all across America during the SCOTUS confirmation hearings for Judge Kavanaugh. The big concern Americans on the left have is that the latest Trump pick could possibly reverse the landmark Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision on abortion rights or take other steps to undermine…
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Trump’s Aid Cuts Could End Lifesaving Medical Care For Palestinian Children
A version of this article originally appeared in Plus61J, an Australian Jewish publication. While receiving her dialysis treatment at East Jerusalem’s Augusta Victoria hospital last week, nine-year-old Amani Hababa broke into laughter. Two rednosed therapeutic clowns were singling her out for special attention, babbling nonsense verses, playing guitar and singing “Amani is the sweetest.” Six…
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Ari Fuld Was Not A ‘Settler’ — He Was An Innocent Victim Of Terror
On Sunday September 16, 2018, Ari Fuld was murdered in a shopping mall. Fuld, a 45-year-old loving husband, father of four, writer, teacher and former paratrooper, was stabbed to death by a 17-year-old terrorist. Fuld was an incredible man with a generous heart, as many have attested since his tragic murder. Ari Fuld was also…
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Want Your Synagogue To Be Truly Inclusive? Embrace Transliteration
If you’ve been to a synagogue any time recently, I’d take a gamble that somewhere on the synagogue’s website or on its literature, you’d find the synagogue describing itself as “warm and welcoming,” a phrase I’m guessing that was thought to perform better than the alternative, “cold and uninviting.” This alliterative phrase can mean many…
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Remembering The Jews Of Ratno
Every year, I say Kaddish for 12 members of my family whom I have never met. Nearly everything I know about them I learned from a Yizkor (remembrance) book that was written by survivors of Ratno, the small town in Poland/Ukraine, just 14 miles from Chelm, where my 12 family members lived. Ratno is not…
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19 Songs To Get You Ready For Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur is known as the day of atonement, and it’s one of the holiest days in Judaism (besides my Bar Mitzvah and Jon Stewart’s birthday). It’s a time for reflection, forgiveness and self-improvement. With our weeks filled with deadlines, to-do lists and texts we forgot to return, Yom Kippur provides a much needed time…
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Stephen Miller’s Rabbi Was Wrong To Shame Him From The Pulpit
Stephen Miller, President Trump’s senior advisor, gets no sympathy from me. He presents as a smallminded man who advances dangerous policies, including the detention of thousands of migrant children. But Miller’s rabbi was also wrong to call him out from the Rosh Hashanah pulpit. On a holiday that is the birthday of the universe, Rabbi…
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I Can’t Fast On Yom Kippur — And That’s Nothing To Be Ashamed Of
Yom Kippur is not a fun day for anyone. The “hanger” is real, caffeine withdrawal is always worse than I remember it to be and I’m pretty sure every non-Jewish person I follow on Instagram posts more #foodporn photos that day than any other day of the year. However, when people tell me I am…
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What Justice Brett Kavanaugh Means For Women
In his opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Brett Kavanaugh spent a considerable amount of time noting the women in his life: his mother, Mary Kavanaugh, who served as a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge; his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh, a former White House aid; Justice Elena Kagan, who hired him at Harvard Law…
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I Was Kicked Out Of A Jerusalem Pizza Shop For Being Who I Am
I grew up dreaming of the land of Israel. My family is both proudly Jewish and proudly American; we were raised to believe that America was the home where we lived, but that Israel was the place we could truly feel at home. I longed for an opportunity to visit and hopefully spend time living…
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