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
-
10 Times ‘Girls’ Captured Life Perfectly, for Lena’s 30th Birthday
You don’t have to like Hannah Horvath to love Lena Dunham. Ok, let’s get this out of the way first. Hannah is selfish/annoying/fill in the blank negative adjective that is inevitably used when you first get into a conversation with someone about the television show “Girls.” She is also a vehicle for some of the…
-
Q&A — Filmmaker Reveals How to Survive a Monster of a Jewish Mother
Many of us have, shall we say, challenges in our family relationships — and memories from childhood that are more brutal than blissful. Most of us work out these sorrows and struggles in journals, in therapy, or perhaps over wine with trusted loved ones. Gayle Kirschenbaum took a road that’s surely less traveled. In the…
-
These Blinged-Out Bras Are Helping Find a Cure for Breast Cancer
This Sunday, May 15, within the halls of the Academy Mansion, a stately and elegant building off Fifth Avenue, teenage girls and their mothers will celebrate community, judge bras and raise awareness for breast health. Spearheaded four years ago by high school students, who were inspired by their private school’s no fabric fashion show, Protect…
The Latest
-
Going All The Way With Bernie: Why I’m Not Giving Up On the Man or the Movement
A few months ago I wrote a piece for the Sisterhood called Why I’m a Feminist For Bernie – and Won’t Apologize for it. Mathematically, Bernie’s path to the nomination has narrowed considerably since then – but little else has changed for me. The refrain I’ve heard from Hillary supporters has been the same all…
-
Kathryn Hahn’s No Rabbi But She Plays One on ‘Transparent’
(JTA) Kathryn Hahn’s no rabbi, but this nice Catholic girl from Cleveland plays one on TV. As Rabbi Raquel Fein on “Transparent,” the groundbreaking Amazon series about a dysfunctional Jewish family with a transgender parent (Jeffrey Tambor), Hahn has spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be Jewish. On Monday, Hahn…
-
Sheryl Sandberg’s Mea Culpa and the Limitations of Jewish Feminism
On Mother’s Day, Sheryl Sandberg used her Facebook page to apologize to single mothers. By her own second Mother’s Day as a single parent, Sandberg realized she’d shortchanged other single mothers in “Lean In,” her her manifesto urging women to embrace opportunity at work, by not recognizing how hard it can be to do that…
-
Beach Read: A Manhunt in Brazil Arouses a Buttoned-Up Protagonist in ‘Ways to Disappear’
Ways To Disappear By Idra Novey Little, Brown and Company, 258 pages, $25 In her delightful debut novel, “Ways to Disappear,” Idra Novey makes a gutsy decision: to cast a Portuguese translator as an action hero. Her formula satisfies like a caipirinha served by a green-eyed Adonis in low-slung swim trunks. Novey’s buttoned-up protagonist, Emma…
-
A Mother’s Day Note to Carrie Fisher
Dear Carrie, The last time I wrote about reaching out to you was five years ago, just after reading your book “Shockaholic.” I did a review of your book for this newspaper, mentioning what we specifically had in common—long-deceased Jewish-Communist relatives and being adult children of song-and-dance mavens, and what we didn’t—cocaine habits, marriages to…
-
In San Francisco, Bringing Single Jewish Mothers Into the Circle
According to a recent article by Rebecca Traister in New York Magazine, single adult women now outnumber married women in the U.S. Single women, Traister tells us, “are now leading full professional, economic, social, sexual, and parental lives on their own.” They’ve also become a powerful force in this year’s election. Single mothers, however, are…
-
Towards a New Spiritual Community
The conventional way to belong to a Jewish religious community used to go something like this: Join a synagogue. Pay your dues. Send the kids to Hebrew school. Show up at services a few times a year. I’m stereotyping here, but not much. For many Jews, “community” meant a synagogue, an institution, and their relationship…
-
A Holocaust Survivor Dies — and a Secret Child Is Revealed
One week after my 85-year-old grandmother died, I learned that she had abandoned her first child and kept her son a secret for decades. A senior in college, I was jarred by the news. I’d spent nearly every day with Grandma Daisy as a kid growing up in Connecticut. While my parents worked, she sang…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 3
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 4
Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward These Jewish arts organizations have been defunded by the Trump administration
-
Fast Forward Dave Portnoy revokes Auschwitz trip for student who said ‘F– the Jews’
-
Fast Forward Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian writer targeted by far-right pro-Israel activists, wins Pulitzer for commentary
-
Fast Forward A Jewish nonprofit may have accidentally caused Michigan to drop charges against pro-Palestinian activists
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
