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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Tradition and Economics of a Dried Fruit Tu B’Shvat
This Saturday is Tu B’Shvat, the so-called New Year for the Trees and everywhere you look in Israel people are trying to sell you dried fruit for the festival. There’s one obvious question. Why? The shelves in every supermarket are brimming with scrumptious fresh fruit. Israel is famous for its oranges and the season is…
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Asking for Maternity Leave and Childcare — Not for Permission
Okay, I’m jumping back in the ring. When I wrote recently about feeling like a bad feminist for wanting to stay home with my newborn daughter, I didn’t expect quite the response I got. Elana, while I do take issue with some of what you have to say, you’re spot on that women should stop…
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Senator-Elect Scott Brown Channels His Inner Jewish Mother
Dear Ayla and Arianna Brown: I have an explanation for your father’s election night announcement that you are both “available” to meet men: He was simply channeling his inner Jewish mother. Ladies, your dad probably just wants you to be happy, healthy and, in the not-too-distant future, married (as long as it’s to to a…
The Latest
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Why We Need To Expect More of Men
There is hardly a topic that gets people quite as wound up as women’s home-work decisions. Many a Shabbat lunch has turned explosive when a strong view was deemed condescending, insensitive, or (dare I say it?) sexist. I confess to having been a copious part of this phenomenon over the years, occasionally accused of being,…
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SGM Seeks SJF (To Upend His Pesky Jewish Stereotypes)
Dating and parks, I’ve once learned, share a common trait. We’re supposed to leave both — romantic partners and pastoral places, that is — better than we found them. I was thinking about that this past week when an email popped into my inbox from a dating site to which I subscribe. Now it’s not…
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Digest: Virtual Plastic Surgery and a Bar Refaeli Boycott
The Sisterhood Digest: • The recently released results of an Orthodox Union survey seem to indicate that Orthodox Jewish women have happier marriages than married women in the general U.S. population. Some 74% of women responding to the O.U.’s online poll characterized their marriages as “excellent/very good.” Compare that to the National Marriage Project 2009…
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Going Mormon for Modesty
I’m going Mormon. After all, I do love watching “Big Love,” and I can’t deny the appeal of having a “sister-wife” who wouldn’t mind doing the laundry for everyone in the family. But mainstream Mormons no longer practice polygamy — it’s been against official church policy for more than a century — so the “sister-wife” situation…
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The Choices and Ambivalence Are Real, Not Artificial
Dear Elana: I usually love your point of view, and always enjoy your writing. But, wow, do I disagree with your most recent Sisterhood post, “What Makes us Bad Feminists? Kvetching About Artificial Choices.” My friend, I was surprised to see you use such derisive language when you decried the “pseudo-crises” of “Should I work?”…
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What Makes Us Bad Feminists? Kvetching About Artificial Choices
As I was driving my daughter to school for an afternoon exam, I received a work call about a knotty issue that left me with a lot of explaining to do about power, money and some complexities of office politics. This is my life, I thought. Though I’ve long since abandoned any hope of being…
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The ‘Mitzvah Girls’ of Borough Park
Fordham anthropology professor Ayala Fader is the author of “Mitzvah Girls: Bringing Up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn” (Princeton University Press, 2009), which has just been named the winner of the Jewish Book Council’s 2009 Barbara Dobkin Award in Women’s Studies. The Sisterhood’s Rebecca Honig Friedman recently interviewed Fader about her fieldwork…
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Israelis and Immigrants: A Love-Hate Relationship
What do Israelis think about immigrants? A new survey, commissioned by the Immigration and Absorption Ministry, reveals something of a love-hate relationship. The majority of the population — some 73% — thinks that immigration is vital for the state. This is presumably primarily due to what many Israelis consider the need to boost the Jewish…
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