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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After Plagiarism Suit, Standing by Naomi Ragen
The news that Naomi Ragen was found guilty of plagiarism came as quite a blow to those of us who deeply admire her work. Ragen is more than a bestselling author; she’s an activist by writing, and in some circles, I would go so far as to say she’s an icon. The devastating verdict creates…
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Prime Ribs: Israel Edition
Things were starting to look up earlier this week when both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres spoke out against the exclusion of women. It was also announced that the Knesset task force was meeting to discuss sanctions against businesses that discriminate against women. …But then only one government minister, Education Minister Gideon…
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Haredi Paper: Nazis Liked Gender Segregation, Too
One would like to think that there are red lines of offensive bad taste that one doesn’t cross, even in a heated ideological argument, and especially when such an argument is taking place between Jews. But the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Yated Neeman has chosen to cross such a line, by publishing a stomach-turning argument in a…
The Latest
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After Plan B Decision, Our Own Plan B
Last week I was happily monitoring the news and reading all sorts of positive stories about how the FDA was poised to approve Plan B, one-step emergency contraception, for unrestricted over-the-counter use. Imagine a system in which terrified young women who had experienced a condom breaking, a failed sexual negotiation, or any other contraceptive mishap…
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A Simple Secret to a Happy Marriage
My husband and I just marked our 20th anniversary. When you’re first getting married, or busy going through life, the idea of “20 years” just sounds like a lifetime. Can you imagine doing 20 years’ worth of anything? Twenty years in one job, 20 years wearing one hairstyle, 20 years with the same roommate. It…
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Putting a Price Tag on Gender Segregation
When the Israel’s High Court ruled back in January that forcibly segregating men and women on so-called ‘mehadrin’ public buses was illegal, but that segregation could take place on a ‘voluntary’ basis, I was worried by what seemed to be to be a wishy-washy decision. At the time, I wrote: One can’t help but worry…
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Why I Published That Sex Column
When one of my editors at the YU Beacon sent me an essay she had received from a friend, I responded to the submission with two words: “Love ittt.” The nonfiction piece, submitted anonymously to the Beacon’s creative writing section, was written by a Stern College student about her first sexual experience, in a hotel…
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The Recognition Debbie Friedman Desired
Something didn’t sound quite right to me at last week’s dedication of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, the cantorial school at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion. Despite the love and sadness that suffused the event, which was born out of a desire to honor the singer-songwriter who died in…
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Talking Infertility With Strangers
In her post “Why Infertility Breeds Silence,” my fellow Sisterhood blogger Elissa Strauss writes about the silence surrounding conception and infertility in her group of friends in the child-bearing stage of life. She observes that it: feels as though we lack a vocabulary for how to discuss these things and as a result conversations are…
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L’Chaim: Drunk on the B-Word
“OMG, you ARE a bitch! Be-atch! No, no, in a good way. Seriously, I love you. You are the best. Want a glass of wine? I bet you like wine. Bitches love wine!” This, I suspect, is how marketers imagine women who imbibe speak to one another. Why else would they, as The New York…
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Under Pressure, YU Site Pulls Sex Column
UPDATE: December 8, 12 p.m.: Following a meeting with school administrators, YU Beacon has restored the column to its site. A Beacon editor is telling New Voices that the publication will no longer be subsidized by the university. Sure, sex columns are staples in college newspapers — spaces where student scribes describe, often in lascivious…
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