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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Ultra-Orthodoxy as Feminism? Not So Fast
Yesterday on XOJane, my favorite site for a good ol’ fashioned hate-read, there’s a first person post from Chaya Kurtz, a Chassidishe married woman, who writes in the response to the waves of negative press the Orthodox community has received in the wake of the gathering of 40,000 ultra-Orthodox men at Citi Field this past…
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Why Get Hitched?
M. is someone I once loved hysterically, and now more rationally. We’ve been friends for 14 years and at one point, we used to make out in cars. It took me a while to process the dictate that says men and women can’t be friends, that they are only capable of relating to one another…
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So Are We Colleagues, Allies or Friends?
In the first episode of “Downton Abbey,” Lady Cora asks her mother-in-law, the Dowager Countess, “Are we to be friends then?” In response, her mother-in-law wisely says, “We are allies, my dear, which can be a good deal more effective.” In other words, there is a significant difference between women being friends and women being…
The Latest
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In Zuckerberg Nuptials, No ‘Intermarriage’ Talk
Mazel tov, Priscilla and Mark! You pulled it off: a surprise wedding. What was supposed to be a medical school graduation party for a newly minted M.D. turned out to be an event in which she collected a M.R.S. degree and also wedded a newly minted billionaire. The wedding was strategically timed to happen the…
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Tel Aviv Rape, Blanket Indictment
It never ceases to amaze me how some so-called leaders will use women’s issues to advance their own agendas that have nothing to do with women. The overtly racist statements coming from the Shas government minister Eli Yishai last week in light of a Tel Aviv rape case were particularly troubling. When the police arrested…
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Adrianne Jeffries: A 21st-Century Yentl
It’s Yentl for the 21st century. A female reporter from The New York Observer’s tech blog, BetaBeat, snuck into Sunday’s ultra-Orthodox, men-only rally against the dangers of the Internet by dressing up — apparently rather convincingly — as a man. Adrianne Jeffries bought a pair of cheap loafers at Payless, borrowed her brother’s white dress…
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Changing My Mind About Marrying Young
Before I came to Yeshiva University’s Stern College, for Women, my mother told me about what the college was like back when she was an undergraduate there. One thing that stood out as something truly mockable was the marriage stats she gave me about her graduating class: “One third of the class was engaged and…
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Dirty Prayerbooks? Blame Women
Ah, the holy tears of Jewish women who weep while praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Not holy, says the holy site’s chief rabbi. Instead, says Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, women’s tears are responsible for the high level of fecal contamination found in the prayer books at the Wall, or kotel, even those that are…
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Mommy Wars: A Province of the Privileged
When I saw last week’s much-discussed Time magazine cover with its provocative mom-breastfeeds-toddler photo I groaned, worried that the debate over attachment parenting and breastfeeding would bring with it another chapter in the “mommy wars.” When it comes to parental choices, such as staying at home vs. going back to work, breastfeeding vs. bottle-feeding, it…
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A Russian-Jewish American Graduate
With much fuss and fanfare, this week’s NYU 2012 university commencement marked the conclusion of my undergraduate career. But instead of rushing forth and celebrating recklessly, determinedly, as is perhaps appropriate, that evening was a decidedly low-key affair. In this post-graduation haze, the only thing I’m inclined to do is sit and self-reflect by the…
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Getting Intimate at the Airport
Airport “pat-downs” have been the set-up for too many jokes to count. But the much-ridiculed security measures have also provided the inspiration for a new series of paintings by the Israeli-born, Brooklyn-based artist Tirtzah Bassel, 33. In “TSA Chapel,” featured at the 14th Street Y’s LABA Festival — the event begins tomorrow, and runs through…
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