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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How the Term ‘Ultra-Orthodox’ Is An Overgeneralization — And Why It Matters
One of my biggest pet peeves about how the media often portrays Orthodox Jews is its use of the overarching term, “ultra-Orthodox.” The photos that accompany articles about “ultra-Orthodox” Jews are typically of women in thick stockings, short wigs and little hats pushing strollers in busy intersections in places that look like Boro Park. Men…
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The #1 Mistake You’re Making In Your Work Emails
Using emoticons in emails may yield more frowns than smiles, said a new study released by Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. “Our findings provide first-time evidence that, contrary to actual smiles, smileys do not increase perceptions of warmth and actually decrease perceptions of competence,” said Dr. Ella Glikson, a post-doctorate fellow at the BGU…
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How I Talk To My Kids About White Supremacists
Judith was a survivor of Auschwitz. When my brother and I were very young, she took care of us while our parents were at work. She told me her story over and over, long before I could fully comprehend it, and I absorbed it much as I would any other cruel and outlandish fairy tale….
The Latest
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This Amazing Project Invites The Public To Help Unlock Medieval Jewish Documents
One group of Judaica scholars is taking crowdsourcing to a new level. In a new initiative to unlock the thousands of parchment fragments from the Cairo Geniza, scholars are inviting the public to help scholars sort document fragments — all online, as part of a project by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, the Princeton Geniza…
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How A Two Thousand Year Old Remedy Cured My Daughter
“The only remedy for your baby is fresh goat’s milk,” the doctor told me. I looked at him incredulously and then put my daughter back in her stroller to hike up the hill to the old leprosy hospital, now an arts and media center in the heart of Jerusalem’s Talbiya neighborhood. My 18-month-old daughter was…
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Orthodox Survivor Of Sex Abuse Exposes Traumas In New Film
You wouldn’t believe she’s only 20. With no film schooling or experience, Baltimore native Miryam Rabinowitz has thrown herself into a film project that tells the story of sexual abuse — or rather, its lonely, complex aftermath. “Still Feeling” tells the story of Yuval Goldenberg, a young woman who was abused during her childhood in…
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A Photo-Journalist Exposes the Pain of Otherness in the Jewish Community
“I thought my infertility was definitely my fault,” she said, quietly. “Maybe I didn’t take enough care of myself, maybe this was my destiny. I felt hopeless. Everyone around me was pregnant or had kids, it seemed I was the only one just kept failing.” As I heard Abbie Sophia say this over the phone,…
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Banned from Print Media, Ultra-Orthodox Women Turn to Instagram
Orthodox women are disappearing. Over the years, Orthodox magazines and newspapers have placed a strict ban on any images of women. And ironically, this erasure has emerged at a time of the community’s increased access to a luxury lifestyle: Orthodox women, decked out in glamorous wigs and haute couture, will ultimately pick up glossy religious…
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Why I Kept My Daughters At Jewish Sleepaway Camp — After Tragic Death Of Fellow Camper
(Kveller via JTA) — The summer before she entered first grade, my oldest daughter asked me when she was going to go to sleepaway camp. I was stunned; she was too young. And why the heck would she ever want to leave us, her family? I blew off the question until the next summer, when…
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Putting The Men In ‘Menstruation’
TEL AVIV (JTA) – In a grove in northern Israel, several dozen sweaty, shirtless Israeli men circle one another other on all fours, growling like bears. They are acting out the occasionally surly stage of the menstrual cycle, just before menstruation begins. The bear is one of four “power animals” the men emulate in an…
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A New Play Tells The Story Of Mikvah-Peeping Rabbi Barry Freundel
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Rabbi Barry Freundel was the rabbi of Kesher Israel in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. He was a man of power in his synagogue, and influence in the wider modern Orthodox world. But all of that went away when he was convicted in 2015 on voyeurism charges after spying on and filming…
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