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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Bintel Brief: Shoshanna Rikon Says Not All Skeletons Should Be Left in the Closet
Dear Shoshanna, My boyfriend rarely asks me anything about past affairs, which is fine by me. But I’m wondering if I’m obliged to divulge some facts nonetheless. The problem is that one of our best couple friends includes a man with whom I had a brief affair several years ago — well before I met…
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Quantum Coincidence? Einstein Born on Pi Day
Some very clever people decided that today, March 14 (or 3.14), should be officially known to all as Pi Day, a celebration of that fascinating and maddening number that seemingly continues on randomly without end. Today is also the birthday of Albert Einstein, who was born in 1879. Random coincidence — or not? The BBC…
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Mighty Billy Crystal Has…
On the heels of a very serious brawl during one of their spring-training games, the Yankees managed to lighten the mood today by sending Billy Crystal out as their leadoff hitter against the Pirates. Crystal — who had been signed by the Yankees to a one-day contract as a 60th birthday gift — managed to…
The Latest
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‘Mugged by Reality,’ Jewish Week’s Resident Right-Winger Says ‘Let’s Talk to Hamas’
The idea of direct Israeli negotiations with Hamas — once the province of doves — has gained an unlikely advocate in The Jewish Week’s decidedly right-leaning associate editor, Jonathan Mark. In his column this week, Mark writes: I understand the right. I don’t flinch when Palestinians, even civilians, catch an IDF bullet. When Arabs say…
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Jewish Idealism vs. Zionist Realism
Ha’aretz’s Yair Sheleg gives a smart and succinct summation of what Israel’s disgruntled far-rightists, far-leftists and ultra-Orthodox fundamentally have in common: The Zionist revolution had many different enemies from the start – a coalition of ultra-Orthodox and Reform Jews and socialist revolutionaries, who had difficulty relinquishing the devotion to spiritual matters for a state like…
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Pastor Hagee Goes to Shul, Says Jesus Was a ‘Reform Rabbi’
Pastor John Hagee, the pro-Israel evangelical leader whose endorsement of John McCain recently became a contentious sideshow in the presidential race, dropped by a Los Angeles Reform synagogue for a public chat with a local rabbi. L.A. Jewish Journal “Calendar Girl” Danielle Berrin was at the Stephen S. Wise Temple’s “Forum on Critical Values” for…
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Mona Eltahawy vs. Denial
Mona Eltahawy is the real deal. Over the past several years, the New York-based Egyptian journalist has emerged as one of the most powerful and eloquent exponents of liberalism, sanity and self-reflection in the Muslim world. She’s a proud Muslim, and she doesn’t shy from criticizing the Israeli occupation, American foreign policy or anti-Muslim bigotry….
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Yid Vid: Israeli TV Makes Intermarriage Seem Funny, Grave
This is a great report from Israel’s Channel 10 on intermarriage in America. The report offers an incisive outsider’s perspective on this sensitive issue that manages to be simultaneously funny and serious and offers a thoroughly human look at an American Jewish dilemma without proffering easy answers. It was posted on YouTube late last year….
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The Jewish Burka Comes to Brooklyn
In Israel, as I noted earlier this year, a renegade group of Haredi women has taken to one-upping the already increasingly severe modesty standards of their community by donning Muslim-style burkas. The trend was apparently initiated by a female spiritual leader in the ultra-Orthodox stronghold of Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet. The fashion trend, which has…
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Why Do I Have a German Last Name? And Other Mysteries of Jewish Onomatology
This month’s Moment magazine has a fascinating article by David Zax explaining the origins of Jewish surnames. For instance, I always wondered why so many Eastern European Jews have German last names, many drawn from a fairly small set of surnames that are considered distinctively Jewish. Zax’s article offers some answers: Portraits of Emperor Joseph…
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Yid Vid: Looking for Jewish Comedians in All the Wrong Places
To borrow the words of a famous Jewish comedian: pretty, pretty, pretty good! Hat tip: L.A. Jewish Journal. (I don’t know how we got scooped on this one given the Forward’s longstanding association with a certain Jewish comedian who’s featured prominently in this video.)
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Opinion The Gaza hostage crisis could forever change how American Jews relate to Israel — but it’s not too late to fix that
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Yiddish ווידעאָ: היסטאָריקערין וויווי לאַקס באַשרײַבט געשיכטע פֿון לאָנדאָנער ייִדישער פּרעסעVIDEO: Historian Vivi Laks tells history of the London Yiddish Press
שבֿע צוקער פֿירט דעם שמועס מיט וויווי לאַקס און ביידע לייענען פֿאָר עטלעכע פֿעליעטאָנען פֿון יענע צײַטן.
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Yiddish World Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’
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