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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Adam Schonbrun: Poet from Tzfat
If you think that everyone, living in the Nothern Israeli town of Tzfat is either an ecstatic kabbalist wrapped in hippie scarves or painter with a blowing glass gallery — or a combination of both — you’re not too far from the truth. Yet, among these characters, there lives a completely different sort of a…
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French Comic, Dieudonné, on Trial for Inciting Racial Hatred
French comedian Dieudonné, who went on trial this week accused of using antisemitic racial insults, claims that the offending section of the performance was only a joke: “l’attentat humouristique” (“humorous attack”). The charge, as previously reported by the Forward, was brought after an incident that took place during Dieudonné’s performance in Le Zenith Theater, Paris,…
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Kapparot and the Vegetarian
As the Bintel Blog reported the kapparot ceremony, during which sins are symbolically transferred to money or a bird ahead of Yom Kippur, has been causing some controversy in the U.Sm. Likewise here in Israel. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Tel Aviv-Jaffa is campaigning hard against those who perform the ceremony…
The Latest
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Leonard Cohen, Playful at All Ages
Today is Leonard’ Cohen’s much-anticipated, somewhat controversial Tel Aviv performance. So much anticipated, in fact, that Cohen seems to have employed a decoy version of himself in order to avoid the enthusiasms of the Israeli paparazzi at Ben Gurion airport. In honor not so much of Cohen’s Israel appearance as the singer’s 75th birthday, the…
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The Case Against Swinging Chickens
During the kapparot ceremony, a custom practiced primarily in the Haredi community before Yom Kippur, sins are shifted to chickens, which a holder swings above his head three times. The meat is then to be donated to the poor. After learning that the custom can cause pain to chickens, and even injuries to their bones…
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American Women — Less Happy or Just More Stressed Because of Good Choices?
Maureen Dowd’s recent New York Times op-ed, “Blue is the New Black,” is interesting, but presents some things as facts which seem inaccurate to me, perhaps by dint of their being over-simplified. Dowd writes of recent studies that indicate that women are growing increasingly unhappy despite the fact that there are more choices and opportunities…
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Avast Me Hearties It’s Rosh Hashanah
For reasons best known to the buccaneering community, September 19, 2009, also known as Rosh Hashanah, was declared International Talk Like A Pirate Day by the Talk Like a Pirate Webpage. They celebrated the Jewish New Year in a variety of ways, but with fewer apples, pomegranates or black-eyed peas than usually eaten by my…
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Orthodoxy’s Troubling Double Standards for Women
I had a jarring conversation with a young woman last week. In a discussion about the challenges women face in Orthodoxy, she turned to me with a cheeky smile and declared, “I am not a feminist.” She described her perceptions of Shira Hadasha, the pioneering partnership synagogue in Jerusalem where men and women share certain…
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Domestic Abuse: ‘A Pre-Existing Condition’
Last Friday, Michelle Obama spoke to leaders of several women’s groups arguing that “overhauling the nation’s health care system was of critical importance to women and part of ‘the next step’ in their long quest to assure full opportunity and equality.” With healthcare reform at the forefront, it is becoming more and more obvious that…
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Robert Frank and his Frankly American Photographs
The Zurich-born Swiss Jewish photographer Robert Frank, 84, is being celebrated in two New York exhibits, Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans which runs from September 22 to January 3, 2010 at the Metropolitan Museum as well as a smaller show at the Robert Mann Gallery in Chelsea. Marking the 50th anniversary of the publication…
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Westboro Baptist Ready in Case of Prejudice-Induced Whiplash?
Today’s Long Island section of Newsday features the wonderfully-titled “Great Neck braces for Hate Group Rally.” We are living in PC times indeed.
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