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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Why I Absolutely, Totally Dread New Year’s
There’s a particular sort of dread that accompanies a holiday you don’t enjoy. Every year it looms on the calendar, slowly but steadily coming closer, while you try to ignore it. Every year the pressure builds and arrangements must be made — or you risk being plan-less on that most momentous of nights. You guess…
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Motherhood Can Wait… Right?
It was pretty impossible to be a female writer and not be aware of Judith Shulevitz’s Dec. 6 article in The New Republic on the aging of American parents. Not since the premiere of Girls was there such an eruption among the ladyblogs; it seemed as if everyone had her own perspective on the article’s…
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Q&A with Scientist-Turned-Novelist Beverly Akerman
For most of her adult life, Beverly Akerman was a molecular genetics researcher at McGill University and the Montreal Children’s Hospital. But in 2003, after several years of feeling an underlying malaise and professional unhappiness, she decided to make a mid-life career switch. Following dreams she set aside for 20 years as a busy working…
The Latest
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Not-So-Nice 2013 Jewish Guys Calendar
I know, readers, I don’t like anything: heteronormativity, fat shaming, traditional gender roles, the patriarchy, the list goes on and on. I’m impossible. And now, I’m really going to upset you, because here’s another thing I don’t like: the 2013 Nice Jewish Guys Calendar (Incidentally, it was tagged under “weird news” on the Huffington Post.)…
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Why We Struggle to Honor Autistic Newtown Victims
Zichronom livracha says the liturgy. And, certainly, the memories of the 26 children and adults who were tragically gunned down in Newtown last week are a blessing, not only to their immediate families but also to all of us across the country who have been struggling to comprehend this incalculable loss. I grieved for these…
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Happy 40th, ‘Free To Be…You and Me’
A new book celebrating the 40th birthday and impact of one of the greatest cultural touchstones of 1970s American childhood, “Free to Be… You and Me,” has just been published. “When We Were Free To Be You and Me: Looking Back at a Children’s Classic and the Difference it Made,” is a rich compendium of…
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Women in Israel Fight for Their Voice
When asked at a JOFA panel about the status of women in Israel and what can be done to protect women’s basic rights, I replied that I would first make it illegal for a political party that has no women on its list to run for the Knesset. Thankfully, I’m not alone in this sentiment….
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Is Kotel Alternative Women’s Back of the Bus?
Two leading thinkers went head to head on the next best step for Women of the Wall regarding the quest to make Judaism’s holiest site a place where women can pray any way they want — even if that means wearing a tallit or tefillin. Yossi Klein Halevi and Rabbi Rachel Beit-Halachmi, both American-born scholars…
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Right Time to Have Kids?
Is there a right time to have kids? This is the question brought to my mind, and many others, by Judith Shulevtiz’s much discussed new piece on older parents in the New Republic. In the story, Shulevtiz outlines all the reasons it is bad to have kids too old, which really means north of 35….
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The Christmas/Hanukkah Card Conundrum
Throughout high school, college and my early twenties, I exchanged holiday cards with my friends every year. Christians got Christmas cards, Jews got Hanukkah cards, and Christians-slash-Jews got semi-humorous cards about celebrating two holidays at once. I never thought to not send cards; that was just what well-behaved girls did, like wearing slips under skirts….
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2012: The Year in Gender
An election, a superstorm, and high-profile battles over women’s health marked 2012 — not to mention a whole lot of Lena Dunham. In January and February, the birth control wars raged. The year began with a major kerfuffle: Planned Parenthood got dropped as a funding partner by the Susan G. Komen Foundation — an intra-nonprofit…
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