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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Can a Woman Be a Mensch?
What does the word “mensch” really mean? Of course, everyone knows its connotations of decency, kindness and humility; these are not gendered qualities. Yet in common usage, the word is often applied more to men than to women: There’s the children’s toy, a male doll named “Moshe” wearing a prayer shawl, the Mensch on a…
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Dolls Snatched From Doomed Jewish Sisters Were Poignant Reminder of Holocaust
Two dolls taken away from Jewish sisters during the Holocaust found a home with a French family — for three generations. Denise and Micheline Levy, 10 and 9 at the time, were being lined up in the French village of Gemeaux, when a gendarme grabbed the dolls and threw them on the ground, the Telegraph…
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Why Ivanka Trump’s Maternity Leave Plan Wouldn’t Help Us ‘Be Fruitful and Multiply’
The first commandment in the Torah is pru u’rvu, be fruitful and multiply. That is, have babies, lots of ‘em. According to Jewish law, it’s a mitzvah – an obligation. Which Ivanka Trump would seem to take seriously, already 3 kids in. The Torah – and Jewish tradition – was able to require this of…
The Latest
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Is Jennifer Weiner Not Pretty Enough for Oprah — or Just Too Insecure?
Jennifer Weiner, the massively popular popular-fiction writer who also has a column in the New York Times and a profile in the “New Yorker,” was disappointed at not also getting selected for Oprah’s Book Club. That disappointment, which Weiner expressed in a few since-removed Facebook posts (hereis the one she’s settled on, for now at…
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Is It Possible to Grow Jewish Community From the Margins?
The posts on The New Spirituality blog are responses to Rabbi Sid Schwarz’s lead essay in his book, Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future (Jewish Lights). In that essay, which was posted on this site on May 5, 2016, Schwarz argues that any organization that hopes to speak to the next…
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Crossing the Bosphorus: My Great-Grandmother’s Sephardic Memoir
Exactly one hundred years ago, on September 8th, 1916, my great-grandmother Estrella penned the last entry in her French notebook. At the time she was attending an elite preparatory school for Jewish students in Paris. Like hundreds of other Sephardic teenagers from around the Mediterranean, Estrella had been plucked from her tiny Jewish community on…
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‘Denial’ Tells Tale of Historian Deborah Lipstadt’s Epic Fight Over Holocaust
“Denial” is the true story of a Jewish woman who had to prove in court that the Holocaust had taken place, but it also has a timely message for present day society, according to director Mick Jackson. “Denial,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last weekend, recounts how Deborah Lipstadt, a prominent historian,…
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Those Times Golda Meir Passed Out — It Didn’t Make Her a Weak Leader
Despite the media-inspired doom and gloom over Hillary Clinton’s stumble at the 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York on Sunday, passing out is not necessarily an obstacle to a woman becoming a national leader. The historical record shows that Golda Meir, Israel’s first and only woman prime minister, passed out at least twice before taking…
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Stop Worshipping Youth — The Presidency Requires More Important Qualities
Did Hillary Clinton faint or stumble after leaving a 9/11 ceremony in New York? Is she “physically unfit” to be president, as some conservatives have been claiming for months? And does Sunday’s health episode – which quickly became a major media story – even matter? If Clinton is seriously ill, then of course it matters….
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As a Jew, Ivanka Trump Is Supposed to Honor Her Father — Right?
One of the most well-known “thou shalts” in the Torah, and one that has best withstood the test of time, is one of the Ten Commandments: the one that says to honor your father and mother. Actually, you’re supposed to go even further – the concept moreh av v’em means you should stand in awe…
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Food Justice and Environmental Sustainability
The posts on The New Spirituality blog are responses to Rabbi Sid Schwarz’s lead essay in his book, Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future (Jewish Lights). In that essay, which was posted on this site on May 5, 2016, Schwarz argues that any organization that hopes to speak to the next…
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Opinion When my children decorate for Hanukkah, I don’t just see pride. I see pluralism in action.
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Fast Forward A Wider Bridge, a pro-Israel advocate in LGBTQ spaces, is shutting down
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Yiddish פֿאַר וואָס הערט מען ניט וועגן דעם גלעצנדיקן וווּקס פֿון דער ישׂראל־בערזע? Why aren’t we hearing about the dramatic growth of the Israeli stock market?
וואָלט דער אָפּרוף געווען אַנדערש, ווען דער ציל פֿון די טעראָריסטן וואָלט ניט געווען ייִדן, נאָר אַן אַנדער גרופּע?
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