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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Breaking Up With My Hebrew School Carpool
Dear Bintel Brief: Last year and this, we had a Hebrew school carpool with another family — old friends of ours. This year, parents of a boy in the area offered to participate and, hoping to have to do the driving every third week instead of second, we all agreed. Problem is, their son is…
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Julianna Margulies: Jewess or Just Jew-ish?
My current favorite (Jewish) actress is Julianna Margulies, whose return to the small screen as Alicia Florrick in “The Good Wife” has re-introduced her to the American viewing public. I’ve been thinking she’s Jewish but this Web site claims that she was raised Catholic. Say it ain’t so! (It’s all part of my irrational pride…
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Parents Gone Wild: Babies in Bars
Here’s what I want to know: when did parenting become entitlement to impose young children on people around you in places which were, not long ago, understood to be adult spaces? A mom recently posted on a local listserv, called Park Slope Parents, that she’s offended by a neighborhood pub with a sign on its…
The Latest
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Hamas Takes Revenge on Jewby Doo, Chez Jon Stewart
Showing, apparently, the audacity to hate, Hamas are still producing virulently antisemitic children’s cartoons. In the face of crass hypocritical vitriol that is geopolitically and socially destructive the Daily Show had no real option but to set Dr. Bagelman (erstwhile producer of Jewby Doo) on to introduce them. The whole sequence is unbelievable but the…
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Oscar Nominations Aside, ‘An Education’ Makes Me Cringe
This week’s Oscar nominations have been kind to the Nick Hornby penned film “An Education,” which netted honors for acting, writing, and even Best Picture. The film tells the story of a bright middle-class schoolgirl in a humdrum town in mid-century Britain, who falls into an affair with a cultured, attractive and winning older man…
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From Russia, With No Love
Well, there go my plans of drinking vodka in St. Petersburg this month with Natan Sharansky and the rest of the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors…The quasi-governmental body in charge of Jewish immigration to Israel announced yesterday that its plans to hold one of its board meetings in the canal-lined city (Peter the Great’s window…
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Idea #4: Orthodox Feminist Day Schools
Feminism has no doubt transformed Orthodoxy over the past three decades. Women have gone from begging to hold a Torah on Simchat Torah to holding their own services, to creating partnership synagogues in which women take active roles alongside men in running the service. It’s not only about women learning Talmud, but also about being…
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Jewish Women Watching Points Finger at ‘Jewish Racist Voices’
Nearly 2,000 people in New York State recently received an unusual bookmark in the mail, from a mysterious group that calls itself Jewish Women Watching. The bookmark, which can be seen here, calls attention to what it calls “Jewish racist voices” by pointing to the difference in response by Jews to the creation of two…
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Jami Attenberg on Jewish Identity and the Heartland
Jami Attenberg’s new novel “The Melting Season” (Riverhead, 2010) is about a young Nebraska woman who leaves her husband and small town for Las Vegas with a suitcase filled with cash. On the road she meets a very un-small town Nebraska cast of characters — including a cross-dressing Prince impersonator and a cancer-surviving flamboyant woman…
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In Israel, Women Still Relegated to Back of the Bus
Israeli politicians love reports. They love commissioning them. They love pontificating over them. Oh, but when it comes to taking notice of them, that’s another matter. Over the last decade Israel’s busses have become highly controversial. A committee of haredi rabbis has been working hard to make as many bus lines as it can separate-gender….
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‘28 Days, 28 Ideas’: A Better Future for Jewish Women and Girls
The Sisterhood blog began in 2009 with an idea to create a forum where Jewish women — from across ideological and denominational spectrums, in different cities and stages of life — could come together to discuss the issues impacting their lives. We’re enormously proud of how the conversation has taken shape, and the unlikely common ground…
Most Popular
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
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Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
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News Why Zohran Mamdani believes he’ll win over Jewish voters, as Israel critic surges to second behind Cuomo in NYC mayoral race
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward A Jewish nonprofit may have accidentally caused Michigan to drop charges against pro-Palestinian activists
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Culture For Christian nationalists, Trump’s pope picture isn’t a joke
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Opinion Is Israel really going to reoccupy Gaza? Ask Trump
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Yiddish World A photo of my bubbe when Jewish stores still had Yiddish signs
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