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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The Definitive Guide to Joshua Kushner, Your Mother’s Dream Man
As one helpful Instagram commenter put it, Joshua Kushner is what would happen if Andy Samberg and Seth Cohen had a baby. While most Victoria’s Secret Angels surround themselves with rock stars, models, and DJs, Karlie Kloss, Angel extraordinaire, found herself a nice Jewish boy — just like my mother always wanted. Karlie’s the only…
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The Costs of Women’s Synagogue Participation
When my family walked into our Orthodox synagogue on Monday, the first day of Sukkot, we got there in time to see women holding their own lulav and etrog and performing the processional of “hakafot” on the women’s side of the mechitza as the men made the circuit on their side. This tandem march is…
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Missing from the Feminist Conversation
It should have been an exciting night. Anita Hill and Letty Cottin Pogrebin were scheduled to be in conversation about “Faith, Feminism, Race and the Ties that Bind” under the auspices of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and Interfaithfamily.com. But the two women sat in armchairs on the stage of the Levin Theater in Brandeis University’s student…
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A Woman’s Place Is in the Sukkah
Nobody intentionally set out to make Sukkot and Simchat Torah feminist holidays. Yet, slowly but surely, these two Jewish festivals have evolved into a time of year when the envelope is pushed when it comes to women’s participation, even in Orthodox communities in which egalitarian practice isn’t easily accepted. Over the past four years,…
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Pulpit Plus One: Like Being the Rebbetzin, Only a Man
features the voices and experiences of the partners of pulpit rabbis. In this interview series, “Pulpit Plus One” takes an honest and lively look into the nuances of a complex role. Gary is a writer in his early fifties who grew up secular Reform. He is married to Carrie, a Conservative rabbi at a mid-sized…
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Can Premarital Sex Get You Fired From a Synagogue?
On Wednesday, while many Jews were camped out in synagogue repenting, Gothamist ran a story entitled “Woman Claims Synagogue Fired Her for Having Pre-Marital Sex.” Alana Shultz, 36, had been employed as program director at Congregation Shearith Israel — the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States — on the Upper West Side, for 11…
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Remembering Jackie Collins
Jackie Collins passed away on Saturday, September 19th after a six year battle with breast cancer. Survived by her three grown daughters and her sister, the actress Joan Collins, Collins was best known for her novels about Hollywood debauchery. Some of her books were so steamy, they were banned not just by a single library,…
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Introducing: My Heretical Year
My first visit to a public library was at age 24 where I discovered, in the children’s section, a set of World Book encyclopedias. This was my first encounter with such a vast amount of general knowledge, and I immediately sought out the “J” volume; I wanted to see if there was an entry for…
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Why I Choose to Forgive Rabbi Barry Freundel on Yom Kippur
His handwriting is terrible. He signs the letter, addressed from the D.C. jail, “Barry Freundel.” It makes me wonder if he always signed off that way, or if he recently stripped himself of the title “Rabbi.” I search through my Gmail inbox, scanning the past three years of correspondence, starting from when I began seriously…
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Should ‘Peeping Rabbi’ Barry Freundel Be Forgiven on Yom Kippur?
It was an impressive apology – even considering the fact that Rabbi Barry Freundel has been penning elaborate sermons about repentance and forgiveness for decades, and that, since he was sitting in solitary confinement in a Washington, DC jail when he penned his missive, he had plenty of time to refine it. “No matter how…
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Why Medicalizing Menstruation Is Bad for Women
When I first read Alana Massey’s recent piece in The Atlantic, about period-suppression, I wondered if it was sponsored content for a pharmaceutical company, specifically Bayer, the makers of the Mirena IUD. Massey interviews a number of women who’ve endured incapacitating menstrual cycles, and I can empathize. I have had painful, debilitating periods since the…
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