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
-
Bringing Women Into the Fundraising, Grant-Making Folds
A recent article about evolving trends in Jewish philanthropy offered a fleeting yet stinging portrait of women and money in the Jewish community. An article entitled, “For the Perplexed: A Guide to Jewish Giving” in a recent issue of The Jewish Week opened with the following: A middle-aged professional in the Jewish communal world, Ari…
-
Thoroughly Modern Mikveh?
Given that rabbinic laws of family purity alternately repel and fascinate me, I recently decided to confront my prejudice and attended a panel discussion on “Exploring Contemporary Understandings of Niddah” at last week’s Mayyim Hayyim conference on all things mikveh. While I’m offended by the idea of clean and dirty or pure and impure when…
-
The Women of Pop — and Their Once-Shocking Art
While walking through “Seductive Subversion,” the Brooklyn Museum’s new exhibition on female Pop artists between 1958 – 1968, I was interrupted by a family of tourists who burst into the gallery and made a beeline for “Accumulation, No. 1,” a soft sculpture piece by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama featuring a white armchair covered with fabric…
The Latest
-
Komen Founder Discusses Her Three Decades of Fighting Breast Cancer
Sometimes it seems as if October has always been Breast Cancer Awareness Month, with pink ribbons and fundraising events everywhere, but it was not at all the case three decades ago, when the words “breast cancer” weren’t uttered outside a hospital room and the norm for a woman being biopsied, if she was found to…
-
Protesters of Extreme Gender Segregation Report Personal Threats
The violence in Mea Shearim coming from proponents of public gender segregation has apparently started to get personal. Several activists who have been particularly vocal or public in their opposition to gender segregation say they have been threatened and stalked by gender-segregation fanatics in Jerusalem. Avital Livny, the Volunteer Coordinator for the organization Yisrael Hofshit…
-
Training Mikveh Ladies — and Other Lessons in Immersion
The staff at Mayyim Hayyim: Living Waters Community Mikveh loves to think up catchy program titles having to do with — what else — water. Their latest wordplay, “Gathering the Waters: Ancient Ritual, Open Access and New Meaning,” was a spectacular, bustling conference, held earlier this week and dedicated to all things mikveh. Mayyim Hayyim…
-
Getting Ahead on ‘Boss’s Day’
Today is Boss’s Day. What, you say, isn’t every day Boss’s Day? Well, sort of. In this Q&A, Lilit Marcus, an editor at the women’s site The Gloss and the author of the “Save the Assistants: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Workplace,” explains how ambitious working women should (and shouldn’t) mark the…
-
The Fruit of ‘Franzenfreude’
The National Book Award finalists were announced yesterday. And for the first time ever, 13 of the 20 finalists were female. They included Lionel Shriver, (acclaimed Jewish novelist) Nicole Krauss, and most wonderfully, alternative punk rocker Patti Smith for her recently published memoir. Jonathan Franzen, subject of so much acclaim and backlash in recent weeks,…
-
For Teenage Girls, Lessons in Money Management
It never ceases to surprise me when I meet other women, most of them women who have or have had professional careers, who let their husbands take care of every detail of their family’s financial life. I guess feeling compelled to have control (and share decision-making with my husband) over my and my family’s financial…
-
A New Reason To Make ‘Infertility Aliyah’: Free Egg-Freezing
It’s no secret that Israel is a fabulous country to live in if you happen to be struggling with infertility. Not only is health care considered a right, not a privilege, but so is childbearing. The universal government-funded health care, package covers fertility treatments for women until they produce two children. Israeli women take full…
-
‘The Social Network’ on the Lore of Jewish Men and Asian Women
Sarah Seltzer came away from watching “The Social Network,” the movie about the founding of Facebook, peeved about its (non)portrayal of women. In her post, “The (Male-Only) Social Network,” she quoted Maya Dusenbery about “the wall of giggle and boobs that composes the film’s background.” I, too, came away miffed about this, but also thinking…
Explore
Most Popular
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Is there a messianic Jew on Disney’s Mickey Mouse Funhouse?
-
Culture Ye’s antisemitism is old news, but it’s time to pay attention again
-
Opinion Edan Alexander’s release was the last good news we’ll get from wartime Israel
-
Art How the war changed an artist’s life, his politics — and his painting
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
