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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Is Miss America for Nice Jewish Girls?
Miss America 2014 Nina Davuluri made headlines this past week — not just for taking the crown on Sunday night, but also because of a racist backlash that occurred after she won. The American-born Indian woman representing New York was accused of being “Miss Al Qaeda,” a terrorist, Arab, Egyptian and everything in between. Davuluri…
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Baby Photos Don’t Belong on Facebook
Clearly, I like to share. Some would say I over-share. I post on Facebook daily, I have a Twitter account in case I get bored of Facebook and if that weren’t enough, I have this blog, where my job is to share personal stories, thoughts and opinions. Maybe it’s too much. But at least I’m…
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When Jewish Humor Stops Being Funny
In the 2011 box-office hit “Bridesmaids,” Kristen Wiig’s character Annie has an alcohol and Xanax induced meltdown on the plane to Las Vegas. After the flight attendant asks her to return to coach, she responds with, “Oooo. This is a very strict plane that I’m on. Welcome to Germany.” She then puts her index and…
The Latest
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The Patriarchy Alive and Kicking
Slate recently ran an excerpt of Hanna Rosin’s book “The End of Men” under the purposefully provocative headline “Feminists, Accept It: The Patriarchy is Dead.” The article suggests that professional women, even professional feminists, have access to living the “good life” in a way they never had before. They’ve won! Certainly, this may be true…
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Coming Out of the Orphan Closet
It’s the beginning of another Jewish year, holidays are bookending each week, and death is in the air. Two of the Yizkor prayers — the mourner’s prayer, which is recited on four different holidays throughout the year — are said this month alone. If that weren’t enough to put death on my mind, my father’s…
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Begging for Boundaries
The High Holidays are a beautiful but complicated time for me. Besides Passover and Hanukkah, which I pretty much celebrate the same way each year, the Days of Awe are the only time when I get “the itch” to observe, the only time when I feel like if I don’t do something Jewish and highly…
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Q&A with ‘Commie Camp’ Filmmaker Katie Halper
Comic and writer Katie Halper says that “she wouldn’t be alive without Camp Kinderland,” the 90-year-old leftist, secular Jewish summer camp in the Berkshires. When Kinderland came under attack by right-wingers following their discovery that an Obama nominee for the Department of Labor had sent her kids, Halper realized that she had set the story…
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Your Stories of Jewish Mourning
In late August, The Sisterhood launched a series examining the role of women in Jewish mourning traditions. Grieving for a loved one is fiercely personal; doing so as a woman, guided by Jewish laws and rituals, can be comforting or restricting, depending on one’s experience. We asked you, Sisterhood readers, to share your stories. Many…
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My Kind Of, Sort Of Yom Kippur Fast
This is the third post in a series by Johnna Kaplan exploring aspects of Jewish life outside of her own experience. I have always felt compelled to fast on Yom Kippur — just not compelled enough. Usually I either forget what day it is until it’s too late or simply give up at the first…
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Amy Klein’s Fertility Struggle
This summer journalist Amy Klein, a former Forward reporter, began chronicling her fertility journey in weekly posts for the New York Times’ Motherlode blog. Klein spoke to the Sisterhood on why she decided to write about what was long a private struggle, the negative feedback she has received and the support she is, and isn’t,…
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Forgiving the Man Who Killed My Brother
A year and a half ago, when I found out the man who caused my brother’s death had died, heavy emotion flooded my body. Not because it made me miss my brother, Josh, who was hit by this man’s car and killed in October 2002. Not because it made me envision the rendition of the…
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