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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Our Bodies, Our Selfies
Move over Mommy Wars, breastfeeding wars and other categories of intra-feminist warfare. The selfie wars have arrived. Soon after “selfie” — a picture one takes of oneself — was proclaimed word of the year, the debate over the value of selfies began. Erin Gloria Ryan caused a furor when she wrote at Jezebel that selfies…
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Q&A: Susan Katz Miller on ‘Being Both’
For some, Susan Katz Miller’s new book “Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family” (Beacon Press) is an inspiring testament to inclusive religious identity. For others, it sparks debate about what it means to be Jewish, what it means to be Christian, and if it’s possible to be both. But however it’s read,…
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Birth Stories Are the New War Stories
The fact that birth stories are almost always intense and captivating is common-knowledge among women. The same goes for abortion stories, though those are less-frequently shared. The comings and goings that occur in a woman’s womb are as dramatic and emotional as what happens on the battlefield. As entertaining, too. There are moments of despair…
The Latest
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Why Hamas Spokewoman Might Matter
Earlier this month Hamas appointed its first female spokeswoman. The new voice of the organization is Isra Al-Modallal, a 23-year-old British-educated former journalist and divorced mother with a toddler (pictured below). She will be in charge of all communications with the international media and will focus on humanitarian issues and not suicide bombings or policy….
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Fracturing the Jewish Mom Stereotype
Is there a Jewish stereotype more inextinguishable than that of the overbearing, food-pushing mamele? It’s 2013 and, Hollywood is still churning out characters like Amy Kanter-Bloom; the fretful mother of Larry Bloom on Orange Is the New Black. What the Jewish mother needs, however is not a modern makeover, but a fracturing. Better than supplanting…
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Gloria Steinem’s Medal for the Movement
Calling her award a “medal for the movement,” Gloria Steinem accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom yesterday, the highest civilian honor in America. Steinem’s feminists achievements — from co-founding Ms. Magazine to her activism for reproductive rights to her recent push for fair immigration reform — will no doubt be recounted by the news media…
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Modern Loss, From Those Who Know It
In her essay “The Love of My Life,” Cheryl Strayed writes about losing her mother when she was a young woman, and returning to college to tell peers she had gone to Mexico over spring break. She wished to protect others from her own deep pain. Only later did she realize how unnatural this modern…
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Throwback Thursday: Moscow’s Yiddish Stage Star
Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly photo feature in which we sift 116 years of Forward history to find snapshots of women’s lives. Born in 1897 to an artistic Jewish family in Warsaw, Yokheved-Yudes Minkova, garnered fame as part of the beloved Moscow State Jewish Theater troupe, known by the acronym GOSET and headed by…
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Hanukkah and Transgender Day of Remembrance
Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside to memorialize trans people who have been killed because of their gender identities. Founded in 1998 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a transgender designer and activist in the wake of the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Mass., the day is now observed in hundreds of…
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A 10-Year-Old’s Take on Pew
I gave my 10-year-old son, Zev, the Pew survey on American Jews. The entire thing. One Sunday afternoon at our kitchen table. It all started the night before, when an undergraduate student at Hillel at Ohio University, where I am a rabbi, told my son during our Sabbath dinner that he recently found out he…
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The Muslim Film Every Bat Mitzvah Girl Should See
“Wadjda,” the first feature film shot in Saudi Arabia, seems an unlikely fit for a b’nai mitzvah curriculum. Haifaa al-Mansour’s film about a plucky Muslim tween girl in Riyadh whose greatest desire is to buy a bicycle has no reference to Jews and no coming-of-age celebration to speak of. The film’s one connection to issues…
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