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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In Israel, Attempts To Remove Women From the Public Sphere
When the first gender-segregated buses appeared on the Israeli roads in 1997, I don’t think anyone could have predicted how far the phenomenon would spread. Today, not only are there gender segregated buses in many Israeli cities — and even on bus lines that go through non-Haredi neighborhoods — but there are segregated post offices,…
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Germany’s Pioneering Female Rabbis
Alina Treiger made headlines last week, when she became the first woman rabbi to be ordained in Germany in 75 years. But Treiger, 31, is not the first woman rabbi to serve in Germany since World War II. That would be Bea Wyler, who was trained and ordained at New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary during….
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What the Bush Family ‘Fetus in a Jar’ Says About the ‘Culture of Life’
By this afternoon the internet is quite beside itself — or perhaps befuddled is the better word — with the story told by George W. Bush about having to drive his mom, former First Lady Barbara Bush, to the hospital after a miscarriage. Apparently on the way she showed him the remains of the miscarriage…
The Latest
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On HuffPost, D-I-V-O-R-C-E Gets Some R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Divorce is almost always presented as a prickly topic, one that imbues it survivors with bitterness and regrets. And so when I first heard about The Huffington Post’s new section devoted to divorce, I expected ranting. But most of the contributors on the site appear to be reasonable and sincere grown-ups — a mixture of…
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Haredi Rabbi Talks ‘Kosher Feminism’
Sunday was the enormous Lubavitch Kinnus HaShluchim, replete with 3,500 of the rebbe’s emissaries in Crown Heights for Shabbos and coverage in The New York Times, of the banquet meal at Brooklyn’s cruise terminal, the only space large enough to accommodate the crowd. I write this while watching a live feed of the speakers. The…
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In Israel, Civil Marriage Is on the Horizon — But Only For a Few
L’Chaim! It’s nearly time to celebrate for the 60,000 Israelis who, until now, were unable to marry in their own country because they are not Jewish according to Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law. And thousands of Jewish couples will be extremely jealous. A new marriage registrar, expected to be approved by the Israeli government within…
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My Grandmother’s Obsession Becomes My Own
It was because of my late grandmother and her 40-year obsession with a book called “The Prophet of San Nicandro” that I was sitting at Columbia University’s Café 212, in the middle of a bone-chilling December afternoon, having coffee with professor John Davis. Davis, who holds the chair in Modern Italian History at the University…
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Rethinking That Infamous ‘Glee’ Photo Shoot
I, too, thought “uh-oh” when I saw the now infamous “Glee” photo shoot in GQ — see our earlier, related post here — nodding my head in agreement to the chorus of critiques deeming it sexist and even pornographic. But then I remembered what I used to dress like in my early 20s and realized that…
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Bill Seeks To Make Israel’s Paternity Leave More Generous
Until recently, only women in Israel received automatic parental leave following childbirth. The husband, while entitled by law to up to 6 weeks of leave, could only take off from work once the mother returned to work, and only after a period of six weeks from the birth date. But this may be about to…
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New Curriculum Highlights Work of Jewish, Female Civil Rights Activists
When we think of Jews who played a role in the Civil Rights Movement, names like Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel immediately come to mind. Few of us would name Judith Frieze Wright, Heather Tobis Booth or Beatrice “Buddy” Mayer. A free, new online curriculum called “Living the Legacy,” written by…
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Books Our Rack: Yeshiva Girl YA; Bios of Bernhardt, Alcott
NON-FICTION In “Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt Robert Gottlieb,” Robert Gottlieb trims away the fat from the storied life of the legendary actress, who was born Jewish and who was later baptized a Roman Catholic. Gottlieb presents a peppy and concise biography rooted in facts and recorded accounts. The book, the debut title in…
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