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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On Shopping Around Your ‘Ex-Frum’ Story
Hasidim, and even more “garden variety” Orthodox Jews such as myself, are a people apart, and we will always seem strange against the backdrop of 21st century America. With all the press coverage over the last few weeks, I can’t even count how many of my classmates have asked me if I have any hair…
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I’ll Take My Haggadah Without Fathers or Kings
I bought 24 copies of “The New American Haggadah” sight unseen, based on the recommendation of a friend and the yiches of its creators, writers Jonathan Safran Foer and Nathan Englander. The aesthetic of the books is very Zen, very Steve Jobs: It’s light — literally, the paper seems nearly weightless — and spare, with…
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Don’t Let Preference Veto Justice
This is the third entry in an ongoing series exploring Jewish feminism. I want to answer the question of “what Jewish feminism means to me” in two ways: First, about how I learn from it both substantively; and second, on a meta level, in terms of how all of us enrich the Jewish conversation through…
The Latest
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Using Sexism to Our Advantage
The investigative news site ProPublica hosted a session Monday on women in the newsroom at the Tenement Museum, a Lower East Side institution dedicated to telling the story of immigrant life in New York. Unfortunately, the venue wasn’t the only thing that felt retro about the event. The topics covered — the dearth of women…
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Bat Mitzvah Confessionals
When we talk about bat mitzvahs, we tend to focus on the more absurdist elements of the day, like our regrettable sartorial choices and tales of general teenage awkwardness. We get so caught up in the puffy sleeved pink skirt suits and the fact that Ron Greenberg decided to do “Love Shack” in the karaoke…
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The Road to Identity
It’s no small feat to capture generations of hardship in the span of a single theater production. But somehow, the theater collective The Lost and Found Project has managed to do just that, in their experimental play ”Doroga” (or “Road,” in Russian). In the words of the creators, ”Doroga” is “an interactive play that explores…
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On Flying Rockets and Missing Work
We’ve become used to the gender roles in conventional war. The brave male soldiers march off to the battlefield, the women and children remain back at home, protected in their domestic routines. Or, in the alternative scenario, when the horror of war comes to civilian neighborhoods, life grinds to a halt, and the family huddles…
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On Covering War — as a Young Mother
I never met Marie Colvin, the intrepid war correspondent who was brutally murdered by Syrian army shelling. But I used to fantasize about being like her. Scratch the surface of any journalist and you’ll find someone who was once intrigued by the vision of living dangerously, moving from trouble spot to trouble spot, always in…
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‘Feminist’ Feels More Political Than I Am
This is the second entry in an ongoing series about Jewish feminism. It’s difficult to be “for” something I have never lived without. I don’t remember a bimah without women. When I was growing up, my mother was the cantor at our makeshift shul on Fire Island, so my Jewish practice always had a female…
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Why Is Clothing the Focus at JTS?
Coming this Sunday, to the intellectual and spiritual fountainhead of the Conservative movement, the best and brightest women (and men) in the movement will be talking about….clothing. As Renee mentioned in this post, JTS will be hosting “What to Wear?” on March 11. It is an event billed as “An All-Day, Multifaceted Exploration of Women’s…
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The Right Kind of ‘Slut’
“We are all sluts now” is the rallying-cry in a post Sandra Fluke vs. Rush Limbaugh world. By smearing one young woman with that word for advocating contraception coverage, Rush attacked everyone who uses birth control, 99% of women in America. He also chose a victim who was not already in the public eye and…
Most Popular
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
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Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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