Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

Digest: Should Kagan Join JDate? Is Sarah Palin a Feminist?

Sisterhood Digest:

• Maureen Dowd, writing that Elena Kagan “as resigned herself to a cloistered, asexual existence,” suggests that the nominee for the Supreme Court join JDate.

• Australia says no to a burqa ban. Read our recent Sisterhood post on recent efforts to ban the veil.

• The online Jewish women’s magazine 614 is out with a new issue all about the Jewish psyche. It features pieces about psychoanalysis’ Jewish roots, a social worker who combines handwriting analysis with Jewish mysticism, and what Jewish women talk about with their therapists.

• Over at Tablet, Adam Kirsch reviews the new English translation of “The Life of Irène Némirovsky,” a biography of the Russian-French “Suite Française” author whose conversion to Catholicism didn’t save her from being sent to — and killed at — Auschwitz.

• Jewish Woman magazine profiles Jewish mothers of special needs children who have become activists for the rights of the disabled.

• Is Bethanny Frankel of “Real Housewives” fame Jewish? During a recent televised interview, she answered that question like this: “No, I don’t consider myself Jewish. My dad was Jewish and my mom converted … but I don’t think of myself as Jewish.” Her response is rubbing some people the wrong way.

• Sarah Palin is no longer shying away the word “feminism”, And Meghan Daum, writing in the Los Angeles Times, says that if Palin “has the guts to call herself a feminist, then she’s entitled to be accepted as one.” But Taylor Marsh, on the Huffington Post says Palin isn’t worthy of the title: “Anything less than supporting women’s full individual rights simply renders you a pretender, a fake, a feminist fraud.” Watch Palin drop the F-bomb here.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.