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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Mad About ‘Mad’ Woman Maggie Siff
This summer, I wrote for the Sisterhood about how much I loved the character Rachel Menken on “Mad Men,” a strong-willed Jewish woman who may or may not have been anti-hero Don Draper’s soulmate. Even though she vanished after the second season, she remains on the minds of many viewers as the woman who may…
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Help! My Fiancé’s Parents Are Insisting on a Prenup
Dear Bintel Brief: I just got engaged to the man of my dreams. He is five years older than I am, and he comes from a family of means. He also earns a much higher salary than I do. My fiancé recently told me that his parents, whom I adore, want me to sign a…
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Zamenhof Days: December 15 and the Polish Jewish inventor of Esperanto
What are you doing on Zamenhof Day? To the uninitiated, that means December 15, the birthday of Ludwik Łazarz Zamenhof (born Eliezer Samenhof in 1859) a Polish Jewish ophthalmologist and inventor of Esperanto, the most popular constructed language ever. Although opinions differ widely on how many people actually speak it today Wikipedia quotes the Universal…
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Tiananmen Square: Testifying to a Miracle of Liberation
It may be a light unto a whole different set of nations but in the capital of China the Hanukkah lights are shining bright. At the Zhengyang archery tower at the south end of Tiananmen Square, Beijing, a (very large) Hanukkiah is being lit to commemorate another people at another time who threw off the…
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Sean Penn and Neve Campbell Eating Latkes?
The New York Daily News has provided a photo call of 50 (actually a few more) who they claim will be lighting the candles for Hanukkah this year. After Adam Sandler’s outing of Jewish celebrities in his Hanukkah Song it didn’t seem as though there were many left to find, but the Big Apple tabloid…
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Oren: Israel Is Part of God’s Plan
A fierce attack on J Street wasn’t the only notable element of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s address to the biennial convention of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism earlier in the week. During the prepared portion of his remarks, Oren issued a surprising proclamation of a personal belief in a divine plan behind the creation…
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New Israeli Hotline Opening for Complaints About Sex Segregation
In response to haredi efforts in Israel to increasingly segregate public areas by gender – the latest move is to make psychiatric hospitals single-sex only, which you can read more about in the Forward’s article here, an Israeli feminist organization is setting up a hotline for women to call to file complaints about discrimination or…
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Jews and the ‘Bo-tax’
The Slate folks recently had an online spat about Congress’s idea to help cover the cost of health care with a 5% tax on elective cosmetic surgery. On the main site Christopher Beam argued against the tax, using studies to show that, despite assumptions that this would only affect the rich, one-third of the people…
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YouTube — The World’s Direct Line to Technophile Peres
“Greetz from US Peres! Good luck mr. president!” writes PivotStorm, a US bank clerk with a penchant for using the F-word. Kigbfre, a woman whose comment is accompanied by a picture of her showing cleavage, posts: “Hello, I like your video.” YouTube users have found what political lobbyists across Israel are dying for — a…
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‘Don’t Call Me — or Chelsea — a Shiksa’
The recent conversion to Judaism and subsequent marriage of Ivanka Trump to Jared Kushner, and Chelsea Clinton’s even more recent engagement to Marc Mezvinsky have newspapers, magazines and blogs discussing the impact these relationships have on society and on the families involved. In this Daily Beast essay, Samuel P. Jacobs touts Ivanka Trump’s, and presumably…
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Discovering Roman-Jewish Cuisine
What would New York City be without its bagels and pizza? Jewish and Italian cuisines have given this city its most famous culinary staples. This Sunday, the Forward’s food columnist, Leah Koenig, will discuss the intersection of these two food cultures. As it turns out, Rome is one of the oldest continuous Jewish settlements in…
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