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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Luise Rainer’s American Way
Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly photo feature in which we sift 116 years of Forward history to find snapshots of women’s lives. Perusing the Forverts’ Art Section of December 8, 1940, scanning past images of important personalities that appeared on the Forverts’ radio station WEVD in a ‘Salute to America’ pageant was the intense…
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Bess and the Jews: A Defining Moment?
In the wake of Bess Myerson’s death and all the talk about her rise and fall, it’s worthwhile to remember a moment when her fate turned with ours, and her future really began. Immediately post World War II, many of our families were just beginning to understand the enormity of the Holocaust. They knew it…
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Gap Between Israeli and American Jewish Feminism
illustration by Lior Zaltzman Growing up in West Hartford, Connecticut, at every Shabbat meal in my home, my father would make kiddush and my mother would make hamotzi, the blessing on the challah. For me, this is part of the fabric of what Shabbat feels like, and it has always felt strange for me to…
The Latest
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Don’t Write Off France Just Yet
Jews and Muslims from the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding march in Paris. Photo courtesy of Samia Hathroubi As an American and as a Jewish woman who has lived in France and spent time with its wonderful Jewish community, the events of last week hit particularly close to home. As I scoured my Facebook page Wednesday…
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Orthodox Paper Edits Angela Merkel Out of Paris March Photos
Ultra-Orthodox Israeli newspaper, HaMevaser caused a stir yesterday when it edited out two female world leaders from a photograph of the march for Charlie Hebdo in France. In the original photograph, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini appear marching in the front line of world leaders. But on HaMevaser’s front…
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Make Space for Transgender Jews at the Kotel
illustration by Lior Zaltzman When Kay Long approached the Western Wall in Jerusalem last week, she was turned away because according to one of the Orthodox women supervising the women’s side of the Wall, Ms. Long was not a woman. In Orthodox Judaism, religious space is gendered space. Men and women are rigorously separated, not…
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Norman Lamm, Alfred Kinsey and the Re-Making of Jewish Sexuality
Norman Lamm, Yeshiva University When the biology professor Alfred Kinsey published his reports on male (1948) and female (1953) sexuality, his results proved explosive. Through personal interviews that were designed to uncover sexual behaviors rather than the meanings behind them, Kinsey and his associates gathered information about the sexual activity of men and women. Among…
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Why Couldn’t My Two Bubbies Love Each Other?
illustration by Lior Zaltzman My grandmothers, Bubbie R. and Bubbie G., lived next door to each other throughout my childhood in Wilmington, Delaware. They had also been next-door neighbors throughout my parents’ childhoods in that same city. Yet even then they were striking in their differences, as dissimilar to each other as night and day,…
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Unlikely Orthodox Superstar Finds Her Voice
Shayna Rehberg performing on Kochav Nolad. Screenshot via mako.co.il Shayna Rehberg is an unlikely superstar. A 30-year-old religious mother of four originally from Texas and now living in Safed, Shayna walked onto the stage of Israel’s popular singing competition show, Kochav Haba [Next Star], donning her headscarf and long skirt, and made it to the…
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Transgender Woman Barred From Kotel — Both Sections
Kay Long poses on the Kotel plaza after being refused access to both women’s and men’s sections. (JTA) — A transgender woman was denied access to both the women’s and men’s sections of the Western Wall. Kay Long, who designs wedding dresses, evening gowns and costumes, on Monday visited the Western Wall with a friend…
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Lizzie Stark’s ‘Real Steps to Survival’
Courtesy of J.R. Blackwell In 2009, while still in her 20s, Lizzie Stark — a carrier of a BRCA1 mutation which increases the risk of breast or ovarian cancer — decided to have a prophylactic double mastectomy. Today, Stark is a healthy 33-year-old writer and recently published her memoir “Pandora’s DNA” which chronicles the history…
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