On Monday, the government of Israel announced that it found a solution to a problem that has long plagued Orthodox women. A new bill purports to help agunoth, or women who haven’t received a religious bill of divorce (known as a get) from their husbands. This means that they are chained to these husbands (agunah…
Recently, there’s been a lot of debate about the value of the personal essay – especially the women’s personal essay – a genre which has taken over online media publications with vigor in the last decade. Jia Tolentino, in her New Yorker essay in May, “The Personal Essay Boom Is Over”, wrote about the increasing…
Recently the Palestinian Freedom Theater had its U.S. Premiere of the play “The Siege” at NYU’s Skirball Center. Almost immediately, members of the Jewish leadership and right wing pro-Israel groups came out against the play, claiming it is “one sided”. And they are right. The play is one sided. It represents the Palestinian side of…
AIPAC may have secretly written your rabbi’s sermon. Each week, the pro-Israel lobby the American Israel Public Affairs Committee sends out two prewritten sermons to rabbis across the United States, pushing AIPAC’s legislative agenda and its policy goals. And each week, AIPAC reminds rabbis that they shouldn’t tell congregants where they got the pre-written texts….
Earlier this month, Stephen Walt marked the 10th anniversary of his and John Mearsheimer’s book, “The Israel Lobby,” with a column in the Forward. In it, he restated his thesis that “unconditional U.S. support for Israel — the so-called ‘special relationship’ — is not explained by U.S. strategic interests or by shared values, as is…
This is the fifth in a series of essays examining Bar and Bat Mitzvahs in America. On March 25, 1978, the day after my bat mitzvah, I announced to my parents that I was done with Judaism and would never again set foot in a synagogue. Some of my disgust with Hebrew school was no…
A #MeToo Facebook post has bared a 5-year-old sexual misconduct scandal at a prestigious New York City Modern Orthodox high school, in which a female staff member allegedly engaged in sexual activity with a male sophomore. A recent graduate of SAR High School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx brought the case to public…
I am a Jew. I’m certainly not going to win any awards for “World’s Best” anytime soon. But this is the religion and culture I have identified with for the entirety of my life. At the same time, I feel zero attachment whatsoever to the state of Israel. Nil. When I hear news related to…
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