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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Henri Bendel’s Is Closing. For Many American Jews, It’s The End Of An Era.
After 123 years in business, Henri Bendel’s announced last Friday, September 14, that it will be shuttering its doors and going out of business. The closing of Bendel’s wasn’t entirely unexpected — brick-and-mortar retail had been struggling against the onslaught of ecommerce, and Bendel’s struggled with finding its niche among other luxury retailers. It’s fitting…
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It’s Time For The Orthodox Community To Start Talking About Climate Change
I found my soul in the depths of Prospect Park. I wasn’t really looking for it, per se, but it found me. You see, I had been struggling with finding ways to counteract the mind-numbing effects of my digital habits (Instagram! Twitter! Facebook! Netflix! Email!) and found the solution in nature. In less than ten…
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I Don’t Believe In Prayer — Yet I Say ‘Yizkor’ Every Year
Like many families, I go into the Jewish holiday season with some sense of sorrow and regret. There is nothing sad about these holidays themselves — even Yom Kippur, a day of fasting and forgiveness is pervaded with a sense of hopefulness and expectation that God will forgive us and inscribe us in the “book…
The Latest
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Meet The Father-Daughter Rabbi Duo Leading Yom Kippur Together
Arnie Gluck has served the congregation Temple Beth-El of Hillsborough, New Jersey, for 28 years. Sarah Gluck, who is married to Rabbi Gluck, is in her 18th year as the synagogue’s director of education. Shira, the couple’s younger daughter, is in her final year of study at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College, where she…
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The ‘Other Shidduch Crisis’: Dating While Convert
For regular consumers of Jewish news, the phrase “shidduch crisis” needs no explanation — the phenomenon of Orthodox singles, usually women, facing difficulties finding suitable spouses. But for converts, the struggle of finding a mate takes a strikingly different form, and goes to the very heart of one of the Jewish community’s most important obligations….
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Celebrating The High Holidays — While Deployed In Afghanistan
Children’s grape juice boxes. Swedish gummy fish. Honey sticks. Dried apples. Pomegranate candies. A kazoo. You Tube and WhatsApp. And relying on the sun’s rays to heat up a holiday meal wrapped in tin foil. Sometimes celebrating Rosh Hashanah can take on MacGyver-like proportions for American Jewish servicemen and women on military deployment. While the…
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Here’s How American Jews Ought To Engage With Israelis
Rachel Cowan first came to Israel in the mid-1960’s with her then-new husband, the journalist Paul Cowan. She was not Jewish at the time. She and Paul were freshly acquainted with the harsh reality of the American South, where they were volunteering then. And as they toured and volunteered in Israel, they witnessed the poverty…
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The Atonement Prayers We Should All Say, In The #MeToo Era
As the Days of Awe roll around, we find ourselves repeating two traditional confession prayers — Al Chet and Ashamnu — many times throughout Selichot (penitential prayers) and Yom Kippur. What makes this year different from other years? This year, we enter the High Holiday season with the painful memories of #MeToo, fresh wounds of…
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He Walks 15 Miles Home Every 9/11 — As He Did In 2001
Since 1989, Port Authority engineer Shlomo Yadoo and his team were tasked with maintaining the structural integrity of Manhattan’s World Trade Center complex. Structural failures occurred, however, on September 11th, 2001 that he — nor anyone — could never have anticipated. From his current office high up at 4 World Trade Center, Yadoo and I…
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Forgiving An Ex — While Co-Parenting With Him
I’ve co-parented with a husband I loved, a husband with whom I was miserable but who was on the same parental page as me, and an ex-husband who was my good friend. Now, for the first time, I am co-parenting with an ex-husband with whom I have an acrimonious relationship and who has increasingly divergent ideas from my…
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Past A Fearful Gate: Facing The High Holidays After A Child’s Suicide
Five years ago, I was dreading the High Holidays that I used to cherish. I didn’t need the shofar as a wake-up call to remembrance and reassessment, or a month of preparation for searching my soul; I’d been doing that daily since my younger son, Noah, took his life in March. My sense of guilt…
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