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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In Israel, Fighting For Women’s Political Representation
Wonder Woman Gal Gadot may be the Israeli superhero du jour, but radical empowerment is far from reality for many Israeli women. Out of 256 municipal councils in Israel, just six are headed by a woman mayor. Overall, a mere 15 percent of municipal council members are women, and dozens of councils have no women…
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Exploring Marriage Through Memoir: Q&A With Dani Shapiro
“Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage” is Dani Shapiro’s retrospective, deeply meditative account of her 18-year marriage to her husband, whom she simply calls M. Told in poetic fragments, the book shuffles chronology as easily as a deck of cards. It also deftly intersperses entries from the journal Shapiro kept on her honeymoon with quotes from various…
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Should Hasidic Moms Have A Dress Code?
Who among us would disagree with the suggestion that we “unite to show our children that there is another way”? Out of context, this suggestion seems as if it might relate to climate change, say. Or just something like basic human decency. Sam Kestenbaum reports that a Hasidic girls school in Crown Heights, Bnos Menachem,…
The Latest
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A Critic Discussed Gal Gadot’s ‘Breed.’ Controversy Ensued.
If you write an article that causes controversy, but that you hadn’t intended to have that effect, you have two options. The first is to wait the requisite three minutes until whoever was outraged has forgotten about whatever you wrote and moved on to the next thing. The other? To respond to the criticism. The…
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When Secular Jewish Women Wear Long Skirts, Confusion Ensues
Sometimes a maxi skirt is just a maxi skirt. Over at The Cut, Lilit Marcus describes a very specific fashion and identity conundrum: because she’s got a “Hebrew name” and is “drawn to things that might get defined as conservative — below-the-knee dresses, cardigans buttoned all the way up, tights in nearly every color of…
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Lena Dunham’s For Corbyn. Blessing Or Curse?
Lena Dunham, the woman widely (if unfairly) blamed for dooming Hillary Clinton’s candidacy with her enthusiastic support, has just gotten behind… Jeremy Corbyn, of the British Labour Party. From her Instagram: “With Jeremy Corbyn you have a chance at a fair and just leader who will temper the fascism and darkness of our current American…
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Debut Jewish Novel Has Appalachian Roots And Sephardic Influence
A poet, translator and fiction writer, Idra Novey honors all those genres in her first novel, “Ways to Disappear.” “This novel,” she told me in a recent conversation, “is a stewing pot in which I threw in poetry and translation in the same book. I put a lid on it and turned up the heat,…
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‘Wonder Woman’ Is Not An Op-Ed
Christina Cauterucci is getting some pushback for a Slate piece with the headline, “I Wish ‘Wonder Woman’ Were as Feminist as It Thinks It Is.” In it, Cauterucci argues that “whatever chance ‘Wonder Woman’ had of being some kind of feminist antidote to the overabundance of superhero movies made by and for bros was blown…
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How Powerful Is Ivanka Trump?
Yes, the CNN declaration that Ivanka Trump is “America’s most powerful Jewish woman” drew eye-rolls. (My favorite response was Emily Nussbaum’s: “The Nanny in reruns is a more powerful Jewish woman than Ivanka Trump.”) But… isn’t she? For the past several months, I’ve been Ivanka-ing it up a storm for the Sisterhood, not because I…
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Hillary Clinton
Why, in May 2017, with the 2016 elections ever further behind us, did the National Review publish a story calling out Hillary Clinton for being a “sad, unemployed, 69-year-old lady”? Put another way: Why is The Hillary Conversation still ongoing? Why is so much energy — from the right, but also from the internally-critical left,…
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Students (And A Parent) Protest School Dress Code Sexism
As the weather gets warmer, school dress codes once again get put to the test. Even secular schools, even public schools, will often have skirt-length requirements. While rules themselves may be gender-neutral, we live in a society that sexualizes women’s and girls’ bodies. Outfits designed for women and girls tend to be revealing in ways…
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