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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A ‘Vows’ Column Acknowledges Abortion
There was something a little bit different about a “Vows” column that showed up in last weekend’s New York Times. One chapter in a long, hurdle-filled, but ultimately fruitful story of love between athletes Faith Rein and Udonis Haslem was the termination of a pregnancy — an abortion that led to the blossoming of a…
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Walking Into the New Year
This past summer was the first time I can remember — maybe since childhood — where I didn’t have to wear spandex, shorts, Spanx, tights or some other thigh-chaff-resistant garment. I’ve naturally lost weight since winter, about a pant size or two. Now, each time I wear a dress or skirt, I leave my apartment…
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Blotting Out Female Bodies From Textbooks
In their ongoing quest to obliterate all signs of women from public life, religious Jews in Israel have now decided that the female reproductive system is obscene and have removed it from their science textbooks. As Haaretz reports, “the Education Ministry has asked textbook publishers to eliminate chapters on human reproduction, pregnancy prevention and sexually…
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Facing the Most Uncomfortable Moments
A few years ago, I went to a Rosh Hashanah meal at the home of a friend. It was lovely, until the moment when my friend’s father asked, “So, Chanel, where’s your family spending the holiday?” I felt that familiar cold and burning sensation in my stomach, which generally accompanies these totally innocuous questions for…
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The Benefit of the Doubt for The New Year
In Rosh Hashanahs past, I focused on changes that required adding a new practice to my Jewish life. Nine years ago I bought a second set of dishes. Eight years ago I committed to weekly Torah study sessions with a partner. Seven years ago I began using the mikveh. I’ve made less daunting changes, too,…
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Tanning, the American Dream?
I don’t tan. Actively or passively. I mean, I don’t put on a bikini and spread myself out on a towel in the path of the sun, nor does my skin turn to bronze should it be exposed to the sun. For years, for most of my life really, I saw this as a problem….
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Why Modern Orthodox Choose Children Over Chilling
Despite my oath to myself to not write another blog post about babies, the recent TIME article about women and couples who have made the conscious decision not to have children struck a chord with me, too. A running theme in the article is the constant expectation these people come up against that eventually all…
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Making Jewish Traditions My Own
This is the first post in a series by Johnna Kaplan exploring aspects of Jewish life outside of her own experience. Although I am proud to define myself as Jewish, that definition centers on what I care about and how I think, not so much what I do. There are many traditionally Jewish things, like,…
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The Rise of Private Hebrew Tutoring
When it comes to extreme parenting, it takes a lot to surprise me. I’ve spent a decade studying child beauty pageants and just published a book, Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture, about 95 families with elementary school-age children who compete in chess, dance, and soccer. But while researching Playing to Win…
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Judging Miley Cyrus’ Sexed Up VMA Performance
The internet brouhaha over Miley Cyrus’ fascinating and disturbing performance at the VMAs — the tongue! the teddy bears! the awful molesting of her backup dancer! — has reached maximum overexposure. My social media feed became a stream of long think pieces, most of them searing and brilliant. I don’t want to repeat what’s been…
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Feeling Lost — Then Found — During High Holidays
This Tisha B’av I joined a few colleagues and about a hundred Muslims and Jews for an interfaith break fast at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, NY. As I sat at the table and ate the delicious halal and kosher food that was served, I realized that the two religions share much more than most…
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