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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Struggling To Dialogue Over Israel And Palestine? Try Poetry.
On a cold afternoon at the end of Fall term, I walked into my college classroom with trepidation. I knew the students well by then: they were intelligent, engaged, and willing to discuss complex poetry and fiction from all over the world. But the reading for that day — a selection of poems by Israeli…
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Honoring Daniella Moffson’s Legacy Through Acts Of Chesed
A museum; escape the room; the movies; brunch; ice skating; the office; the zoo. These are some of the myriad places you might find the average adult or child on a regular Sunday. Today, for many of us, was different. More than 400 people, old and young, gathered together at the Ramaz Middle School for…
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Two Ukrainian Cemeteries Housing Holocaust Victims Are In Danger Of Destruction — To Make Room For A Hotel
In the city of Lviv in the Ukraine there are two cemeteries for the burial of Jews. The old Jewish cemetery, one of the most famous in Europe, was started in around 1420 and was closed by 1855 due to the cholera epidemic. Then in 1850, a new Jewish cemetery was started and today it…
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MuslimGirl Snubs Revlon Award Over Gal Gadot
Can you imagine in 2018 someone publicly exclaiming “I’m not sitting next to this black lady on the subway!” and then taking to Twitter and Instagram to voice validation for their vile, preposterous statement? Switch out the African American woman with a Jewish one and change the subway scenario to a Revlon Awards Dinner and…
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A Smart Investment In The Jewish Future Starts Even Earlier Than You Think
When we Americans contemplate our nation’s future, we tend to focus on things like livability, economic growth, job opportunities and a skilled workforce. While each of these presents its own challenges, an unexpected solution may well be a focus on early childhood development, supported by Jewish commitment to the community. Studies show that how we…
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How One Young Dreamer Found Hope — In A Holocaust Museum
I first met Maria Cruz a little over two years ago at an Einstein Brothers Bagel Cafe on the campus of Augsburg University in Minneapolis. At the time, I was starting an academic fellowship at Augsburg’s Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship. My project was to research and analyze how the Holocaust is distorted and…
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A 2018 Manifesto For The Woke Jewish Woman
The past year has been a dramatic whirlwind of change and uncertainty for Americans, and for American women in particular. A year that began with the largest protest in modern history — led, organized and overwhelmingly attended by women — ended with earth-shattering conversations about the harassment, abuse and systemic inequities faced by women across…
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11 Things The Talmud Teaches Us — About Behaving Ourselves On Social Media
While In real life we carefully avoid rebuking others, with the advent of social media and its artificial nature, often vitriolic criticism has become an almost daily challenge. Criticism can serve as a tool for improvement, but online, it often makes the situation worse and becomes a destructive force that wrecks individuals, families, communities and…
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To Move Past #MeToo, Society Must Embrace The Power Of Shame
Shame is one of the most human emotions. It’s that feeling of your face getting hot and your heart beating fast when you cross an invisible line of acceptable behavior. Shame is your soul letting you know that you are walking on the sacred ground of someone else’s dignity. Because it’s one of the worst…
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Eulogy for Blaze Nathan Bernstein Delivered by Rabbi Arnold Rachlis
Rabbi Arnold Rachlis of University Synagogue in Irvine, CA delivered this eulogy at the funeral of Blaze Bernstein on January 15, 2018. All of us have shared and are sharing an incredibly painful experience with Blaze’s family. And this pain will be with us for a long time. We are angry and numb and emotionally…
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Is Modern Rabbinic Judaism Based On A Myth?
The story of Yavneh is dramatic — heroic, even. A famous rabbi is smuggled out of Jerusalem prior to the violent destruction of the Second Temple. He wins Roman assent for his prescient plan: to establish a great yeshiva at Yavneh, to reconstitute the Sanhedrin and to guide a traumatized people. He succeeds. Rabbi Jochanan…
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Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
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Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
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