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News Girls Are the Lucky Ones
I always knew I was lucky to be a girl. This, despite being told that I was not. In the ultra-Orthodox world where I grew up, the boys are the exalted ones. Superiority belongs to the men, who learn the holy Torah. Still. I always knew I was lucky to be a girl. We were…
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Fast Forward Bibi: We Still Want Peace
Israel remains committed to a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, despite worries among the Jewish state’s European allies over its plans to build more settlements. “We remain committed to a negotiated settlement between us and our Palestinian neighbours,” Netanyahu said during a visit to Prague. “That solution is…
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Fast Forward Israel Begins Planning Work on ‘E1’ Settlement
Israel moved forward on Wednesday with plans to build some 3,000 settler homes in one of the most sensitive areas of the occupied West Bank, in defiance of international protests. A Defence Ministry official said architects and contractors appeared before a subcommittee of the military-run Civil Administration in the West Bank and registered their plans…
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Fast Forward ‘Ai Weiwei’ and 2 Israel Films Make Oscars List
Two Israeli films are on the Academy Awards’ short list for the best documentary category, along with one created by a 2012 Forward 50 selection. “5 Broken Cameras,” directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi; and “The Gatekeepers,” directed by Dror Moreh, were among the 15 finalists culled from 126 films in the best documentary…
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Opinion Two States and E1
Let’s put aside for the moment the international condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement of plans to build in the area known as the E1 — a block of desolate land bordered by East Jerusalem on the west and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim on the east. Let’s put aside, too, the timing…
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News What a Long, Strange Shabbat It’s Been
As a gentle snow fell on the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center last Friday evening, some 85 people gathered inside a wooden lodge to welcome Shabbat – half in a meditation circle in which Grateful Dead lyrics served as a kind of mantra, the other in a more “traditional” service where the Lecha Dodi prayer…
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Fast Forward Duke’s Jewish Life Center Is Vandalized
The sign for a Jewish center at Duke University was vandalized, the campus student newspaper reported. The Freeman Center for Jewish Life reported the graffiti to Duke Police on Sunday afternoon, the Duke Chronicle reported. The words Jewish in Freeman Center for Jewish Life and Rubinstein in Rubenstein-Silvers Hillel were crossed out with blue spray-paint….
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Opinion Jews Keep Head in Sand on ‘E1’ Settlements
Overwhelming silence. That’s been the public stance of the leaders of most major American Jewish institutions since the Israeli government announced that they were reactivating plans to construct a new settlement in the area of East Jerusalem known as E1. This absence of public response represents a missed opportunity for leadership on an issue that…
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Opinion Who’s responsible for deadly antisemitism? Everyone will hate the answer
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Antisemitism Decoded The antisemites are enjoying themselves
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Fast Forward UCLA student government condemns campus Hillel for hosting former hostage
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Film & TV Remembering Siskel and Ebert’s great debate: Mel Brooks or Woody Allen?
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward 200+ Bnei Menashe immigrate to Israel from India, the first to make the journey in years
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Yiddish װאָס קען מען זיך אָפּלערנען פֿון מאָלי קראַבעפּלס בוך װעגן „בונד“?What can we learn from Molly Crabapple’s book about the Bund?
דאָס בוך איז גרונטיק געפֿאָרשט, לעבעדיק אָנגעשריבן — אָבער אידעאָלאָגיש באַפֿאַרבט
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Sports Today’s American Jews finally have their era’s Sandy Koufax
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Fast Forward Netanyahu reveals prostate cancer treatment, says he hid diagnosis during Iran war