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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Are More Women Really on Slingshot Fund List?
The Slingshot Fund’s list of 2011-12 nominees is out. Slingshot’s mission is to strengthen innovation in Jewish life by developing next-generation funders and providing resources to leverage their impact in the Jewish community. It puts out an annual list of the community’s most innovative, up-and-coming organizations. Let’s have a look at where women land on…
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Brooklyn Bus Owner Denies Segregating Women
Yacov “Jacob” Marmurstein, owner of the company that runs the quasi-public B110 bus between Williamsburg and Boro Park, is denying that patrons are segregated by gender onboard, though he appears to be the only person unclear about the longstanding practice. The B110 bus has long required women to sit in the back while men are…
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Crisis Pregnancy Centers Try Converting Jews
Crisis Pregnancy Centers, or CPCs, are problematic for many reasons. These centers, which are designed as sneaky alternatives to abortion clinics, have been shown time and again to give women misleading, medically inaccurate information and to almost always have a conservative Christian agenda. The number of CPCs far outweighs the number of places where women…
The Latest
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Jews Help African Nobel Winner Aid Women
When the announcement was made that the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize would be given to three women, including Leymah Gbowee (pronounced LAY-muh BO-wee), some Jews were particularly proud. Gbowee, an extraordinary Liberian activist and founder of Women Peace and Security Network-Africa (WIPSEN), who has been influential in mobilizing women for peace and bringing democracy to…
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Stink Bomb Welcomes Girls Back to School
The end of the long string of Jewish holidays in the fall is normally a time for relief and celebration for Israeli parents who are weary of entertaining their children during the long weeks of school vacation. But for the parents of girls at the Orot Banot school in Beit Shemesh, back to school marks…
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Women Disappearing from Jerusalem Ads
As I recently reported, Jerusalem City Councilmember Rachel Azaria lost her job and membership in the governing coalition for having gone to the High Court of Justice to oppose gender segregation in that city and to protect the equal rights of women. An online petition has begun circulating to pressure Mayor Nir Barkat into giving…
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Female Soldiers Forced Away From Torah Dancing
Simchat Torah wasn’t much of a celebration this year for a group of angry female Israeli soldiers who were furious over being segregated far from their male counterparts, and completely out of their sight line when it came time for the traditional round of dancing with the Torah that ends the holiday, known as Hakafot…
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Jerusalem’s Mayor Bending to Haredi Pressure?
Israeli blogger Hanna Beit Halachmi asks in the title of her most recent post whether Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat is good for Jewish women. For her the question is rhetorical, as she is outraged as what she perceives as the many signs that Barkat is capitulating to Haredi political pressure, especially when it comes to…
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Brooklyn Bus Flouts Discrimination Law
Every day sex-segregated buses for Hasidim roll right past my corner, ferrying people between Williamsburg and Boro Park. It never occurred to me to write about it. I’ve been writing and editing lots of Sisterhood stories about the sex segregation problems in Jerusalem and its environs, but I assumed that the bus line that I…
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Gilad Shalit’s Vulnerability, and Ours
If Israel could choose a single day to live over and over again, then Tuesday, October 18, 2011 would be a leading contender. The days preceding Gilad Shalit’s homecoming were full of stress, worry and controversy regarding the price the country would have to pay for his return, the release of more than one thousand…
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Taking Down Gilad Shalit’s Flag
On Tuesday we lowered the flag. To be exact, we completely removed it with the prayer that it will never need to be raised again. I am speaking of the foam and plastic Israeli flag that has been tied by a blue ribbon to a tree in our yard since Gilad Shalit was abducted by…
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