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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A Feminist Mohel Speaks Out
The recent ballot initiative to ban circumcision in San Francisco, which was recently dropped, ignited a hair-raising and soul-searching debate on the topic between Jews and non-Jews, and Jews and Jews alike. For some of us at the Sisterhood, one of the more confounding elements of brit milah conversation was whether we should endorse a…
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Are Female Athletes Prone to Eating Disorders?
Are even the most physically accomplished young women vulnerable to eating disorders? And does not listing their weights on sports trading cards prevent it? Or contribute to the problem? My 10-year-old daughter, Tae Kwon Do high purple belt and baseball fan, gets Sports Illustrated Kids. Before dispatching her new copy to camp, I took a…
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Israeli Female Athletes Face Discrimination
Nurit Engelmeyer is a champion bicyclist. Only 15 years old, she has already taken home a slew of medals and won this year’s National Road Bicycling championship and the Time Trial National championship, though with her shy modesty and gentle demeanor, she is the last person to let anyone know. She trains six days a…
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Ending Street Harrassment
Times Square: I walk up to the 2/3 subway stop at 42nd, and on a corner is a group of men in suits, smoking cigarettes. One asks if I have a light, and I shake my head no. The blond guy looks at me and jerks his pelvis up and down, licking his lips. Upper…
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Learning the Dance of Breast-Feeding
As a new mother who has recently adjusted to both breast-feeding and pumping, I have learned: it’s all about expectations.
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Haredi Gender Segregation Spreading Dangerously
Just when we thought that gender segregation in Israel had become endemic, it spread further. In addition to the segregated business conference that my Sisterhood colleague Allison Kaplan Sommer reported on here, three new fronts for gender segregation have opened up in Israel, each one bringing a new version of extremism to life here. The…
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The Blessings of a Clothing Swap
Like much of what’s great about New York, I ended up at my first clothing swap completely by accident after passing it by on the street. The community space where the swap was being held was a block from my apartment and inside I saw the organizer and a clump of women laying out and…
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Honeymooning at My Parents’ House
I am writing this while on my honeymoon. At my parents’ house in the Boston suburbs. Hardly the stuff of which dreams are made. I married my husband on Cape Cod, so the event felt like a wedding and actual honeymoon wrapped into one. As we journey back to New York post-nuptials, a layover at…
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Gwyneth Paltrow, Mikveh Maven?
“Girls, how would you like a honeymoon every month?” A famous question tattooed on the brains of nearly any woman who attended Jewish day school. Who can forget the opening gambit of the mikveh pitch, courtesy of the local rebbetzin, to a class of nervous, giggling 13-year-olds? It sure hooked me. I thought, “That cute…
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The ‘Friday Night Lights’ Rabbi
On the day I was to interview Rabbi Holly Cohn, the new spiritual leader at the lone congregation serving a 100-mile radius of West Texas, at Odessa’s tiny Temple Beth El, the television series “Friday Night Lights” was trending on Twitter. The story of the fictional town of Dillon, Tex., where high school football is…
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Larry David, Feminist Hero?
Larry David is a feminist. There I said it. I know, I know, that jerk? Allow me to explain. Yes he is arrogant and frequently offensive, but somewhere amid the solipsism and general buffoonery there is a man who treats women’s bodies and issues with a level of maturity, respect and a rather refreshing matter-of-factness…
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Film & TV Is there a Messianic Jew on Disney’s ‘Mickey Mouse Funhouse’?
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Culture Ye’s antisemitism is old news, but it’s time to pay attention again
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Opinion Edan Alexander’s release was the last good news we’ll get from wartime Israel
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Art How the war changed an artist’s life, his politics — and his painting
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