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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Rabbi Organizes Jailhouse Bar Mitzvah
Themed Bar Mitzvahs are nothing new, but a jailhouse rocks theme? Perhaps, only in New York. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered an investigation into a rather unusual coming of age ceremony, the New York Post reported. Late last year, Tuvia Stern, an orthodox fraudster who was busted in 1989 for a scam…
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When Your Doorman Goes Missing in Action
Dear Bintel Brief, I live a doorman apartment building. One of the night doormen, while a nice, friendly person, often seems bored by his job. The other night, I arrived home expecting an important package, but the doorman was nowhere to be found. Several other residents, and a few visitors, were standing in the lobby…
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Jews Fasting for Non-Jews
I do not like to fast. I mean, I get nervous if there’s no granola bar or other ready source of sustenance on my person at all times. Seriously. When I do fast, success is more a matter of psychological than physical will power, less a matter of denying the urge to satiate my hunger…
The Latest
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Rabbinic Ruling to Deter Nosey Teachers
Sometimes they contain gossip, sometimes they are romantic messages, and other times they are nasty jokes at the expense of the teacher. There can’t be a classroom in the world where kids don’t pass notes to each other during lessons. When teachers see this happening, they tend to seize the notes, read them, and if…
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Peres Recommending To Expunge Lawless Settlers’ Records
This newspaper has written a lot in recent months about the upturn in lawless conduct by settlers. In this context, you may think that the state would take a zero tolerance policy towards such actions. But it seems that a very different approach is being taken. The upturn in settler lawlessness, or more correctly lawlessness…
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Oldest First-Time Jewish Mother
According to a story on the religious website Vos Iz Neias (What’s News?), a 60-year-old woman in Kfar Chabad, Israel, gave birth to her first child earlier this month. Oy. Now, this couple had been trying to conceive, and undergoing fertility treatments, for 40 years. That’s a long time to put your body and soul…
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Messinger Fasting for Darfur
Most of us are accustomed to fasting only on Yom Kippur. But Ruth Messinger president of the American Jewish World Service, is taking on a two-day fast on June 15th and 16th, in order to bring more attention to the plight of the millions of victims of the deadly violence in Darfur. She is joining…
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Rabbis Without Borders Inaugural Meeting this Month
Rabbis Without Borders, an initiative to make Jewish wisdom accessible to a wider audience by creating a network of interdenominational religious leaders, meets for the first time this month. The program, started by the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL) will host the principle investigator of the 2001 American Religious Identification survey, Professor…
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Ahmadinejad Look-Alikes and Iranian Elections
Fuel for Truth, the self-proclaimed “Special Forces of Israel advocacy,” held a sparsely-attended rally in Times Square yesterday featuring an Ahmadinejad look-alike competition in an apparent effort to convince Iranians to oust their President in today’s elections. The rally featured a DJ, a Green Beret, a rapper, jeweler/donors, and lots of vitriol against what was…
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Israeli Youth Out Younger, Haredi Fertility Treatments
Tel Aviv’s 11th annual municipality-funded Gay Pride Parade took place today. Timed to coincide with this, research was released showing that Israeli homosexuals are coming out of the closet younger. At the end of the 1990s the average age was 22; now it is 16. The research was carried out by Guy Shilo, a recently-graduated…
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Rev. Wright: Oops, I Meant ‘Zionists’
Real Clear Politics reports: Reverend Jeremiah Wright corrected his comments in which he said “Jews” were not allowing him to speak with President Obama. Wright says he “misspoke” and it is actually the “Zionists” who are preventing him from talking with the President. It was Martin Luther King Jr. who wrote: “When people criticize Zionism,…
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