Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

13 Stories That Rattled the Shtetlsphere in 2013

We’ve got all the Jewish names that lit up 2013, for better or worse — and everything in between.

There’s Titi Aynaw, the trailblazing first black Miss Israel who parlayed her pageant win into a “dream date” with President Barack Obama.

You might not recognize Jake Davidson’s name but the day school kid from Los Angeles showed serious chutzpah by creating a YouTube video asking curvy supermodel Kate Upton to his prom.

James Deen was already a household name (in some households, at least). The nicest Jewish boy in porn made a play for mainstream success.

Mia Farrow’s son, Ronan Farrow, made headlines when he scored an MSNBC talk show gig. Even more intriguing was his mom’s revelation that Woody Allen might not be his real dad.

Fashion bad boy John Galliano tried and failed to make amends for his anti-Semitic past. And the royal baby Prince George — well, we found a Jewish angle on him, too.

What happens in Vegas is supposed to stay there, but Sam Horowitz changed all that. The kid made national headlines with his glitzy bar mitzvah on the Strip.

Mila Kunis showed us just how sexy Jewish can be, while Sarah Silverman stuck with the faith, even though she wore a crucifix.

A dude named Ari Mandel nearly made $100,000 selling a Jewish slice of heaven on eBay.

A Jewish congressman thought a bikini model was his long-lost love child. The truth turned out to be a little less dramatic.

Anthony Weiner’s comeback burned out amid more lurid revelations about sexting — and the profoundly un-Jewish screen name of Carlos Danger.

And Justin Bieber took some heat for suggesting Anne Frank would’ve been a fan. What’s wrong with that?

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version