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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Say No to the ‘C’
Courtesy of Jennifer Margulis According to a 2014 study by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, the United States is the only developed country with increasing rates of maternal mortality rates. And the World Health Organization reported that between 1990 and 2013, the maternal mortality rate increased from about 12 to 28 deaths per…
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Bring Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Your Seder
Getty Images Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg can now add Torah scholar to her resume (after fashion icon and weight-lifter). On Wednesday, the 82-year-old released a feminist reading of the Exodus story to be read at the Seder. The essay, created with Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt of D.C.’s Adas Israel congregation, focuses on the women…
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Throughly Modern Esther
Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly photo feature in which we sift 116 years of Forward history to find snapshots of women’s lives. From 1915 until 1930, Esther Grosshandler Friedman of the Bronx helped usher in the modern era in local politics when she presented herself as candidate for the Socialist Party’s representative in New…
The Latest
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28 Women Elected to Knesset in Record
Ayelet Shaked of the Jewish Home Party is one of 28 women elected to the Knesset./Flash90 In an election with the highest voter turnout since 1999, a record 28 women were chosen for the 20th Knesset. The percentage of eligible voters who came out Tuesday was 71.8; the turnout 14 years ago was 78.7 percent….
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‘Kimmy Schmidt’ Is My Ex-Orthodox Life
Netflix After all the New York Times articles, PBS segments, NPR interviews and memoirs (including my own) about the Off The Derech (OTD) narrative, the long rumored OTD TV show has finally arrived. Well, the show isn’t exactly about a person trying to build a self-determined life after leaving ultra-Orthodoxy — but it still feels…
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A Tour of Jewish China
Courtesy of Yael Farjun Growing up in Eilat and studying about Asia and political science, Israeli Yael Farjun decided to put her learning, including fluency in Mandarin, to use by going to China. Farjun’s first step was working for the Israeli Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, the first year the Expo was…
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Head of Ultra-Orthodox Women’s Party Answers Haters
Ruth Colian, the founder of Haredi Women Making Change, speaks with Israeli voters. Photograph by Bruce Shaffer/Hidden Sparks Photography. In the women’s section of the haredi news site kikar.co, Ruth Colian the founder and and head of the ultra-Orthodox women’s party U’bezchutan — literally, “in their [women’s] merit” — writes about what motivated her to…
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Quitting My Meds, Slowly
illustration by Lior Zaltzman Three years ago I decided to take Abilify, an anti-psychotic medication, prescribed to me to boost the waning effectiveness of my anti-depressant. I had been on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) since the fall of 2001, and Abilify would be the third psychotropic prescription in my pill organizer. Almost immediately, though,…
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Barbara Mikulski, a Pro-Israel Stalwart
Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images (JTA) — The pending departure of U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) has the Jewish community wondering who will fill the vacuum left by the fiercely pro-Israel liberal leader. Mikulski’s announcement on March 2 that she would not seek re-election in 2016 triggered fond memories for Jewish leaders of the career…
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The Eastern European Fetish
Olga K, Eastern Eve by Sasha Rudensky Recent studies show that only 30% of artists represented by galleries are female. This statistic is troubling, given that women comprise 80% of BFA graduates, and 60% of MFA graduates. In this series, The Sisterhood aims to shed light on this staggering gender skew in the art world….
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Sexist Chocolate Bar Rocks Ultra-Orthodox Party
Ultra-Orthodox women activists hoped that perhaps their time had finally come in 2015 – that they would finally be seen and heard by the parties that represent their community in the Knesset. But just days before Israelis go to the polls, the highest-profile outreach to women by an ultra-Orthodox politician to the women of his…
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