Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the robust lives of American Jews. Here there’s a little of everything about the multifaceted world of Jewish life. There are light-hearted Jewish celebrity stories and shocking Jewish celebrity news. Food is also plentiful,…
Life
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‘Hannah the Hanukkah Hero’ Toy: Festive Feminist Role Model or Watered-Down Judaica?
“Hannah Maccabee is mad! Her cousins have gone off to face the Greeks and defend the Jewish people. Her father, Jacob, struck out days ago to find more oil… meanwhile she’s sitting at the Great Temple not allowed to help. Luckily Hannah is smart, strong, and has a heart filled with love. Nothing can stand…
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Yiddish-Inspired Ethical Fashion Label Pintl + Keyt Makes Organic Glamorous
Shifra Whiteman, 28, grew up in an activist family in Queens, New York, where she was taught to make a difference in the world. As she grew older, she went into design, but couldn’t figure out how to incorporate her passion for giving back into her career. When she moved to Chicago in 2011 started…
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Donald Trump, Lena Dunham, and Why the ‘Persona’ is a Bad Fit For Politics
As anyone with even the most fleeting familiarity with the news cycle knew would happen, Lena Dunham has now offered an apology for her remarks about wishing she’d needed and had an abortion. Yes, we are all sick of hearing about Dunham’s antics. Yes, I’m conflicted about keeping her in the news cycle. But there’s…
The Latest
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Lena Dunham’s Poorly-Phrased Abortion Remarks Draw Outrage
A headline is making the viral rounds: “Lena Dunham: ‘I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had.’” What Dunham was expressing, in her Women of the Hour podcast, was a wish for abortion to be destigmatized. But she expressed this wish in very on-brand (that is, oblivious and outrage-inspiring) terms, thereby insuring…
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Watching “Zero Motivation” as an American Jewish Woman
Over the weekend I finally got around to watching “Zero Motivation,” the 2014 IDF tragicomedy by Talia Lavie (interviewed here). The movie centers on female characters’ experiences doing administrative work as part of their mandatory military service, and has been aptly compared to “Office Space.” What most struck me about the movie, watching it as…
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Is Richard Spencer’s Mom Paying Price for Sins of Her Racist Son?
In a Daily Inter Lake op-ed, Rand and Sherry Spencer, “alt-right” leader Richard Spencer’s parents, make clear that they do not support their son’s politics: “We are not racists. We have never been racists. We do not endorse the idea of white nationalism.” That’s good to hear! The story, alas, does not end there. I…
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A Celebration of Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Rejection of ‘Natural’
Until approximately five minutes ago — that is, until she died yesterday, at 99 — I had not realized Zsa Zsa Gabor came from a Jewish family. (Was of Jewish origin, I’m tempted to say, because that’s how it would be said in French, and a Continental flair seems apropos.) As Benjamin Ivry points out,…
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When Haters of Jews and Women Join Forces
On Jezebel, classics scholar Donna Zuckerberg (who happens to be Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister) raises an important question: “[W]hy have so many white, male leaders of communities and websites that used to focus on sex and gender shifted in recent months to anti-Semitism, white nationalism, and complaining about “(((the media)))”? In part, of course,…
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Links for Later: Self-Care Edition
-Marisa Meltzer explores “the difference between self-care and simply pampering.” -Madeleine Schwartz reported on Zika and reproductive rights in El Salvador. -Marianne Cooper ponders the cancellation of Good Girls Revolt argues that the “tendency for white men to disproportionately control editorial decision making — to use their particular experience and taste as a proxy for…
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‘Ivanka’s Salad’ Gets Panned in Brutal Vanity Fair Review of Trump Grill
When is a restaurant review not a restaurant review? Tina Nguyen’s Vanity Fair story, “Trump Grill Could Be the Worst Restaurant in America,” is a masterpiece, down to the last detail. (Note the caption on the photo of the wall art.) Yes, it’s a description of an aggressively mediocre-sounding restaurant. But not in the manner…
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Donald Trump Tweets Without Consequences. His Critics Like Julia Ioffe Cannot.
It had long struck me that the one innocuous aspect of Trump’s anti-‘PC’ appeal — yes, in a sea of more sinister ones —is that he represents the ability to succeed without having gaffes or gauche slip-ups held against him. That thing where politicians had to be impeccable, to have never literally or proverbially inhaled,…
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Fast Forward Biden administration sanctions Israeli settler group, in move that Trump could reverse
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Fast Forward Why Neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the U.S.
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Yiddish אַ זעלטענע זאַך אין פּאַריז — אַ קאָנפֿערענץ בלויז וועגן די ליטוואַקעסA rare event in Paris — a conference just about the Litvaks
צוליב דעם וואָס ס׳רובֿ פּאַריזער אַשכּנזים שטאַמען פֿון פּוילן, קומט די ליטוויש־ייִדישע קולטור נישט אָפֿט צו רייד
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