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Israel News What books should Jared Kushner have read about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
White House senior advisor Jared Kushner was widely mocked after telling Sky News Arabia that he was qualified to propose a new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan because he had “read 25 books” about the conflict. While the White House refused to tell the Forward what those books were, our reporting uncovered four of them. But it…
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Culture The history of Hasidism: A New History by those who wrote it
Editor’s Note: In 2018, the Forward published this essay raising concerns about female representation in Jewish Studies, focused on a 2017 book about Hasidism. One of its authors responded this month with a broader critique of diversity in the field. The original critics then had another take, and now more of the authors are responding….
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Culture Discovering Louisa May Alcott’s Jewish history on Portuguese tour
Louisa May Alcott was often told as a child that her dark hair and dark eyes came from her Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Her mother, Abigail May Alcott, who had similar coloring, had learned this from her father, Joseph May, a late 18th-century Boston businessman whose Portuguese Jewish ancestors immigrated to Sussex, England, just before 1500….
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Fast Forward Jewish Groups Try To Silence Storytime Reading Of ‘P Is For Palestine’
Jewish groups have issued a legal threat against a public library in New Jersey if librarians proceed with a public reading of a book called “P is for Palestine,” the Bridgewater Courier News reported Monday. The two groups – the Central Jersey Jewish Public Affairs Committee and the Zachor Legal Institute, a legal group that…
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Culture The Dangers Of Female Pleasure – And Rage. A Q&A With Jennifer Weiner
Jennifer Weiner, best-selling novelist, has been known to be outspoken about inequalities in publishing and in the consideration of women’s work. This is what Weiner told me she wants her obituary to read when we caught up last week. And unlike the obit your favorite male novelist is probably composing for himself, Weiner’s is 100%…
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Fast Forward Publisher Drops ‘How They Rule The World’ Book After Being Told It Had Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories
(JTA) — A major British publisher ceased producing copies of a Spanish author book, which critics said contains anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Penguin Random House UK on Thursday announced it would no longer print and ship Pedro Baños’ “How They Rule the World: The 22 Secret Strategies of Global Power,” which was published in English in…
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Culture Behind The Backlash: Ava Duvernay’s Central Park Five Series Prompts Anger At Linda Fairstein
In the days following the release of Netflix’s four-part series “When They See Us,” a call for justice swept the internet. The series, director Ava DuVernay’s dramatization of the infamous wrongful conviction of five black and Latino teens for the 1989 rape of a female jogger in Central Park, spawned a widespread demand that Linda…
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The Schmooze Shavuot, The Jewish Festival Of Sex, Books And Cheese Is Upon Us. Let’s Rage.
The ancient harvest festival of Shavuot, which begins this Saturday at sunset, is an all-night bacchanal of reading, arguing, and cheese. It’s a celebration of a lot of things: the grain harvest season, God’s giving of the Torah to the people of Israel, and the right to eat dairy. On Shavuot, we read the Book…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Justin Trudeau condemns antisemitism after Montreal pro-Palestinian protest where Netanyahu is burned in effigy
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Culture There aren’t Jewish fighters in Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator II.’ But what about in ancient Rome?
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Fast Forward Three arrested in murder of rabbi in United Arab Emirates; Israel denounces ‘despicable antisemitic act’
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News Trump promised peace in the Middle East. Will his 2020 plan be the blueprint?
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