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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How Did We Get From Betty Ford to Marcus Bachmann?
In Curtis Sittenfield’s novel “American Wife,” Laura Bush is re-imagined as Alice, a sympathetic and fairly liberal librarian, traumatized by accidentally causing the death of her high school crush in a car accident, suffering through a secret abortion and later swept off her feet by her cowboy politician husband. Throughout her loyal marriage to this…
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Be Ima — The Bima Can Wait
I don’t have time to write this blog because I have an infant on my lap. But I am driven to write because I do not hear my voice represented in the discussions about motherhood and the rabbinate. Recently Rabbi Jill Levy, who was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, wrote on The Sisterhood about…
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The Pregnancy Lessons That Prepared Me for Parenthood
“Parenthood is the ultimate on-the-job learning experience,” my father commented a few months ago. “You simply can’t learn to be a parent without doing it.” I believe that. Having recently experienced baby boot camp, I have learned a ton. Now, as the mother of an infant, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on some…
The Latest
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How Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Breaks the ‘Girl Executive’ Mold
The lead story in the current issue of The New Yorker is a compelling profile of Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. Ken Auletta wrote the wide-ranging piece on Sandberg, who is Jewish, and includes a bit about her recent speech to the women graduating from Barnard College, which also got attention in Elissa Strauss’…
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The Jewish ‘Crisis Pregnancy’ Center’s First Year
About a year ago, Washington Jewish Week reported on a new crisis pregnancy center (CPC) called In Shifra’s Arms. Unlike the vast majority of CPCs, which are typically funded and run by Christian organizations or churches, In Shifra’s Arms strives to serve women in the Jewish community. I expressed my concerns about In Shifra’s Arms…
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Keeping Young Women Hidden — at the Expense of Their Bodies
Despite my earlier post, it now appears that Rabbi Yizhak Silberstein did support the idea that a girl whose mother refused to buy her “religious clothes” should cut her legs in order to force the mother’s hand. An apparent recording of the rabbi’s discussion of this topic surfaced on the Internet today, in which he…
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Speed-Dating My Way to My Daughter’s Pediatrician
How does a mother-to-be choose a pediatrician for her baby-to-be? My mother recently reminded me of her awful experience with my first pediatrician, when she became a first-time mother. Underslept and anxious, my mother had some difficulty with breastfeeding, as happens to so many new mothers. I gained no weight during that first month, which…
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Our Rack: Raising a Hyperlexic Child; Crying at Work; ‘Jerusalem Maiden’
The Sisterhood’s Suggested Summer Reads: NON-FICTION In “The Anti-Romantic Child: A Story of Unexpected Joy,” Priscilla Gilman examines the process of parenting her son Benjamin, who at a young age was diagnosed as hyperlexic, a disorder marked by high intelligence but difficulty with social skills. Gilman, also a Wordsworth scholar, looks at the poet’s work…
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Reversing Israel’s Chronic Underrepresentation of Women in Politics
The City of Modi’in, Israel may yet see 50% female representation on its city council in the next election. Mayor Haim Bibas, speaking recently at an evening dedicated to women in leadership, said that he personally hopes to see women as fully equals in the local party lists in 2013. “We need to hold Mayor…
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Did a Rabbi Permit Self-Mutilation To Promote ‘Modesty’?
Ynet has a troubling story about a high-profile rabbi in Israel who gave advice to a young woman to cut her own legs in order to stay religious. The story, if it’s true, conflates male religious authority, extreme body cover and self-mutilation, and brings the discussions of the female body in Judaism to a whole…
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A Mother’s Meditation on the Pleasure of Solitude
I am enjoying the ultimate luxury vacation. Am I in a villa on the mountainous shores of Lake Como? No. Wading into startlingly clear turquoise waters in the Caribbean? Nope. In a south Tel Aviv boutique hotel in newly hip Neve Tzedek? I wish. I am simply… in my house… quiet and alone. My husband…
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