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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I Finally Got My Body Back – But Who Is this New Woman Who Inhabits It?
Being pregnant for 9.5 months is a monumental transformation. Your body swells. Your hormones pulsate. Your appetite ranges from ravenous to nauseous within minutes. I enjoyed housing another human, but I couldn’t wait for the end. I wanted to meet the specimen I had grown and get my body back. I imagined giving birth and…
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Muslim and Jewish Feminists Gather to Seek Common Ground
Heba Macksound, a founding member of the first Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom Jewish-Muslim women’s interfaith dialog chapter, tells her story. “I was in the detergent aisle at ShopRite, thinking about what most Muslim women think about in the detergent aisle — which brand, and how many ounces to buy — when a man started cursing…
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Passing on Jewish Tradition Via a Blue String
When my father offered to weave blue techelet threads onto my tallit, I was so surprised that I said no. It took me several minutes to re-consider my reflexive reaction, but it took me another year until I picked up the phone and asked him if he would, indeed, tie the blue threads on to…
The Latest
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When Israel Classifies Rape As Terror — and Not
It isn’t making headlines around the world like it was back in October, but Israelis and Palestinians continue to ride their “latest wave of violence.” Only this week, a Palestinian into a bus stop in Jerusalem, wounding more than 10 people, including an infant, and was shot dead by security forces. Over the weekend, clashes…
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Janet Yellen Shows Off Her Orthodoxy — With a Small O
Janet Yellen is guiding the Federal Reserve towards its first rate rise in a decade armed with traditional economic models that some economists worry could fail her in a world of massive money printing and near zero rates. The 69-year-old economist argues the time is coming for a rate-lift-off even though inflation has yet to…
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When Modest Is Hottest
The obsession with covering girls’ knees is no longer the territory of religious schools alone. Earlier this month, according to a report in Ha’aretz, a group of 12th-grade girls at the Israeli state Ben Zvi High School in Kiryat Ono were asked to cover their knees for yearbook photos, or stand behind a bench to…
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Gender in the Workplace, in Your Words
Forward readers were surveyed about their experiences in the workplace. Here are some responses: “I realized that my emails included ‘just,’ ‘don’t want to bother you,’ ‘if that’s okay.’ Men’s emails include statements. I was making way too many excuses and apologizing for having ideas and taking up space.” “If you are in the right…
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Men Take Monthly Mikveh Dunks as Menstrual Rite With Wives
(JTA) — Mikvah night has an unusual meaning in the Ozur Bass household. As for many observant Jewish women, it’s the night each month that Janet Ozur Bass immerses in the mikvah ritual bath following menstruation. Once she emerges from the water, husband and wife may resume the physical intimacy traditionally forbidden while a woman…
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Eight Lights to Keep Jewish Feminists Warm This Hanukkah
It’s dark outside. I know, I’m stating the obvious. But this year, the darkness feels like it is swallowing me. It is not simply that it is often still pitch black when I wake up again the next morning, and already dark when I leave the Beit Midrash every night. This darkness is thick, obscuring…
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Will The Constant Parade of Sexual Harassment Scandals in Israel Ever End?
The meteoric political rise and devastating fall of Knesset member Yinon Magal cast a glaring spotlight on a major problem in modern Israeli politics – and Israeli society in general. On one hand, the Israeli public still prefers their (predominantly male) leaders to confidently take-charge and to be macho, tough talking fighters who swagger on to the…
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Israel’s Voiding of Conversions Should Worry Us All
For at least the past seven years or so, the State of Israel has been subjecting converts to intense examinations and inquiries regarding the level of their religious observance. When a convert requests that a rabbinic court administer a get in the context of an amicable divorce, rabbinic judges will surreptitiously cross-examine the convert: Did…
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