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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‘Today You Are … Still a Child’: Why 13 Is Too Young For Bar/Bat Mitzvah
We learned from the cover story of the past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine that there is a debate raging in developmental psychology and neuropsychology circles as to whether there is a new stage in human development called “emergent adulthood.” Some might call it “prolonged adolescence,” but apparently, a lot of people are asking a…
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‘Balebuste’ Means Homemaker — Not Cleaning Lady
I’m interested that Debra and Elana chose to focus on the housecleaning dimension of the balebuste role that Elissa describes aspiring to in her youth. I thought balebuste meant homemaker, not cleaning lady. Working at a marriage for many years, and watching it grow and change while raising children gives Debra and Elana different perspective….
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‘Heroines’ Project Gives Sex Assault Victims a Chance to Show Their Faces
Usually, they aren’t given a name. They make do with an initial. If a newspaper publishes a photo of them on the way to or from the courthouse, it is blurred, blotted out with enlarged pixels. As though they were the ones who had done something wrong. The identities of women who go through sexual…
The Latest
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On Jonathan Franzen, the Times’ Book Review, and Why Women’s Fiction Gets Short Shrift
Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, “Freedom,” arrives this week with considerable fanfare, but also a little bit of backlash. Although the author is not a Jew, one of his characters is, and he has a place in the cool crowd of literary writers than includes many Jewish writers such as Michael Chabon, Jonathan Safran-Foer and more…
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Slideshow: Women of the Wall’s Photo Campaign
In attempt to counter those who accuse them of being extremists, Women of the Wall — composed of women who gather once a month for a prayer service at the Western Wall — recently asked women around the world to send in photographs of themselves reading from or holding a Torah. The campaign’s goal: Get…
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On Co-opting the Word ‘Girl’
“Hey Gurrrlll, how you doin’?” Part Brooklyn homegirl, part Wendy Williams, it’s the way I’ve lately greeted my nearest and dearest girlfriends. I’m going for affectionate and ironic — what with it coming out of the mouth of a white woman edging into middle age, even if as a naturalized citizen of Brooklyn I can…
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Digest: A New ‘Morning-After’ Pill; Ruth Gruber Documentary
The Sisterhood Digest: According to protocols from former Israeli President Moshe Katzav’s recent trial for rape and other sex crimes, Katsav “saw women that were subordinate to him as a reserve from which he chose sexual objects,”. The defense has called the accusations “blood libel.” A verdict in the case is expected this fall. A…
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Alicia-Fest Is Around the Corner
Free tickets are still available for “3 Alicias 3” — an evening of performances by composer and klezmer fiddler Alicia Svigals, poet and critic Alicia Ostriker and singer, songwriter and violinist Alicia Jo Rabins, who plays with the bands Golem and Girls in Trouble. The Forward is sponsoring “3 Alicias 3,” alongside Manhattan’s Sixth Street…
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Memo to My Male Colleagues: Don’t Call Me ‘Girl’
I think if I live to be a 150, I’ll still be called “girl” by my Israeli male colleagues. The term is still alive and kicking in the Israeli workforce. A reporter friend of mine once told me that years ago, when she interviewed Ehud Olmert — certainly not the most savory of characters, but…
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Our Rack: Cooking for Picasso; Mother-Nanny Relations
What’s on ‘Our Rack’: NONFICTION “97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement” (Smithsonian) by Jane Ziegelman looks at the eating habits of five immigrant families living in New York’s Lower East Side between 1863 and 1935. Relying on census date, cookbooks from the era and newspaper clippings, Ziegelman…
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The Problem With ‘Balebuste’
August is my time for cleaning house. Before the start of the new school year and the next winter season, I like to clear out piles of old things, papers that are no longer relevant, clothes that will never be worn again in this house, projects completed or abandoned. It’s a spiritual as much as…
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