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Opinion Ukraine’s Reform Rabbi Cheers Protest’s Victory
A man stands beside a military oven in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine. / Getty Images Over the weekend, the Forward contacted Ukraine’s chief Reform rabbi, Alexander Dukhovny, to ask him about how he felt seeing the months of protests on Kiev’s central square lead to a clear resolution in the president’s ouster. This is…
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The Schmooze Jewish Comedy Mourns Harold Ramis
RIP Egon Spengler. Jewish actor, writer and director Harold Ramis, known for “Ghostbusters,” and “Stripes,” and “Groundhog Day,”has died. He was 69 years old. News of his death rattled Hollywood, with many colleagues, friends and admirers taking to Twitter to share their shock and grief, and pay tribute to his work. Deeply saddened to hear…
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The Schmooze When ScarJo Dated Your Boyfriend, Lena Dunham Edition
(JTA) — Lena Dunham was trolling the Internet when she stumbled upon a shot of her boyfriend with his ex-girlfriend. Relatable, right? Well, yeah, except for that her boyfriend, Jewish rock guitarist Jack Antonoff, used to date Scarlett Johansson. It seems Dunham was perusing a little obsession of hers, a Tumblr blog called “Old Loves,” when…
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Life Jewish Moms Responsible for Making More Jews
Ah, Jewish continuity. We want it. We need it. We have to have it. And yet, we have no idea how. Well, 72-year-old social work professor and former Evangelical Christian Venn Bengston has a few tips for us. He spent the last 50 years studying families and faith, with a focus on how how religion…
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Life ‘Broad City’ Lady Stoners a Feminist Triumph
I love the pot-puffing Jewish broads of Broad City (both of whom the Forward recently interviewed about their very raunchy new Comedy Central show.) The show’s protagonists are “Abbi” (left in the photo) and “Ilana” (right), heightened versions of their creators Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer. These gals are not “strong female characters” in the…
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Opinion Don’t Call Us ‘Ultra-Orthodox’
My religious group is routinely referred to by a pejorative. That the name we are called is negative in only an indirect way doesn’t alter the fact that it is disparaging. It telegraphs a subconscious bias (and may well spawn from the same). I’m not quite Howard Beale-mad about the subtle slur, but I’m peeved…
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Opinion The Disappearing Places of Our Jewish Past in the Old Country
I was born in a city in eastern Slovakia, called Bardejov. When I was growing up, we Jews made up nearly a third of the city. We had synagogues, schools, a number of communal organizations, even a couple of Hebrew publishing houses. Then came the Holocaust. Only several hundred of us survived. Some of us…
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News Bitcoin’s Jewish Whiz Kid
Before the late-January arrest of Charlie Shrem, the yeshiva-educated mastermind behind the online commerce site BitInstant, I hadn’t made a Jewish connection with Bitcoin. A digital currency that’s not regulated or backed by any government or central bank, and whose value depends on demand, Bitcoin has been all over the business and technology pages, but…
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Opinion The Iran war ended terribly for the US, and even worse for Israel
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Film & TV In ‘Disclosure Day,’ Steven Spielberg finds himself at odds with Jewish thought about aliens
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Opinion Cultural boycotts of Israel just reached peak absurdity
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News New Jewish-Arab political party debuts in Israel, aiming to topple Netanyahu
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Fast Forward Mamdani calls AIPAC ‘monsters’ in rally ahead of NY primaries
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Fast Forward Jewish groups push back against Trump’s Iran deal — but more quietly so far than in 2015
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News Who is Gadi Eisenkot, the Israeli politician who could dethrone Netanyahu?
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Culture My father was my hero and, when he was dying, I wrote this song for him