Life

Prime Ribs: BRCA Study; Eating Disorders; Funny Jewish Lesbians

By Elissa Strauss December 17, 2010

The Washington Post reports that eating disorders are on the rise in the Orthodox Jewish community — a trend that the Forward wrote about here

In the L.A. Jewish Journal, actress Annie Korzen writes about being too Jewish to play an “Annie Korzen type” in Hollywood.

The lesbian pop culture site After Ellen profiles four rising Jewish lesbian comediennes.

More women artists, led by Jewesses Joan Semmel and Nan Goldin, are portraying the male nude in their work, ARTnews reports.

On Tablet Margot Lurie writes about Simone de Beauvoir’s affair with Jewish American novelist Nelson Algren.

Aliza Phillips, a former Forward staffer and a doctoral candidate, is in the process of recruiting research participants, ages 18 to 40, who have tested positive for the BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 gene mutation. The mutations are most commonly found in Ashkenazic Jews, and greatly increase a woman’s chance of developing breast and ovarian cancers. Since the presence of the mutations can mean frequent doctors visits, cancer screenings and prophylactic surgery, Phillips is studying the effects of what it means to be a chronic patient, without being chronically ill. If you’re interested in participating, email BRCApatientstudy@gmail.com.

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.

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