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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Byline Bias — and What We Can Do About It
This year’s batch of VIDA numbers, detailing women’s bylines — or lack thereof — at major literary-oriented magazines and book review sections were as dismal as last year’s, as Elissa notes. I got into writing and journalism to elevate other people’s voices. I find it demoralizing that I have to fight to get my own…
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Too Pink for the ‘Thought Leaders’?
So VIDA, an organization that promotes women in literary arts, put out another count on the gender disparity at “thought leading” magazines and things don’t look great. Women are still far outnumbered by men in terms of who gets published and who gets reviewed in places like The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The Nation….
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Limbaugh and the ‘Slut’-Shaming Epidemic
The latest salvo in the war on women came from the microphone of the notoriously crass and offensive talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. Even for someone who offends as regularly as Limbaugh, his latest comments were beyond the pale. Limbaugh has launched an attack on Sandra Fluke — the young Georgetown law student whose testimony…
The Latest
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Israel Peace Week at Brandeis
There was a clear divide in the room — kefiyas and kippas, Muslims and Jews, secular and religious. It was Ali Abunimah, an outspoken supporter of the “one-state solution,” who had made this gathering possible. Recently Abunimah spoke at the University of Pennsylvania where his presence seemed to join together the emotions of the entire…
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‘What Jewish Feminism Means to Me’
What does it mean to be a Jewish feminist today? That is the key question that we will explore in a new Sisterhood series, in which women and men, from across denominational, political and generational spectra, will write about the convergence, and in some cases the separation, of their Jewish and feminist identities. The series,…
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How a New Baby Turns Strangers Into Friends
Chatty strangers are now everywhere
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Congressman Pressed on Agunah Issue
Never before has so much public pressure been brought to bear on an American man for refusing to grant his wife a Jewish divorce, or get. There have been public demonstrations against Aharon Friedman, and articles in prominent publications, public calls by one of the nation’s leading Orthodox rabbis, and lots of back-channel efforts as…
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Celebrating International Women’s Day
On March 8th, mothers, daughters, wives, and girlfriends around the world will be showered with tokens of adoration in celebration of International Women’s Day. Although this holiday has become something of a Valentine’s/Mother’s Day hybrid in many regions, it originated as a Socialist political event in countries of the former Soviet bloc. In honor of…
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Cross-Dressing in Grade School
Yesterday was “boy-girl” day at my daughter’s school. What does that mean, exactly, you wonder, as I did when the news arrived home? Turns out, it is part of the Purim lead-up week, when every day the school has another dressing-up theme, like the less-charged “pajama day” or “face paint day.” The school this year…
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Why Are We Afraid of Being Too Religious?
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about what makes some people uncomfortable with varying degrees of belief within their own religion. Certainly even within the Russian-Jewish community, there are misunderstandings about what Jews of a stronger religious lifestyle represent. I wanted to know what creates a divide between being Jewish by blood and stringently…
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How Madonna Defines the Third Wave
At a dinner party recently, a British journalist asked me to quickly define the difference between second- and third-wave feminism. I stumbled a bit, muttering about diversity and post-modernism and something about sexuality. But now I realize I should have just told him that the difference is Madonna. To second-wavers, Madonna is all wrong. She…
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