This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish women and women’s issues.
Women
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Fast Forward Divided Israeli Town Ordered To Take Down Ultra-Orthodox ‘Modesty’ Signs
A group of Beit Shemesh women fighting to remove “modesty signs” plastered around their city won a key battle in court. The Jerusalem District Court gave Beit Shemesh Mayor Moshe Abutbul three weeks to remove the illegal signs and to act more vigilantly against offenders. Some of the signs instruct women how to dress, requiring…
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Opinion From Generation to Generation
I recall sitting on the bed next to my mother during her final days, watching the Senate confirmation hearing of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. My mom commented how happy she was that she had lived to see women in such positions of power and respect, as well as how relieved she was that in her lifetime…
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Opinion Remembering My Abortion Every Yom Kippur
My cisgender male partner of seven years and I had sex, and the condom we were using for safer sex and birth control broke. Within the hour, we called our friend who was a nurse practitioner at the Feminist Women’s Health Clinic and got a prescription for Plan B (a prescription was needed at that…
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Opinion Silent No More, Forward Readers Tell Their Abortion Stories
Inspired by the moving teen abortion tale of 1960s Chicago, told by Larry Cohler-Esses in these pages in May, many readers wrote in to tell us how the story resonated with their own experiences. So we decided to throw open our pages to share readers’ stories of the abortions in their lives. We received dozens…
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Life At Edit-A-Thon, Expanding Wikipedia’s Offerings on Jewish Women
If the names Asnat Barazani, Devorà Ascarelli, and Clarice Baright don’t ring a bell for you, you’re not alone. The Center for Jewish History is setting out to change that. Barazani, a 17th-century scholar in Kurdistan, Ascarelli, a 16th-centrury poet who may have been the first Jewish women to ever have her work published, and…
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Life Reform Women Rabbis Celebrate Getting Exact Same Title as Men — After 44 Years
JTA — Since 1972, when the Reform movement ordained its first female rabbi, more than 700 others have joined her ranks in that denomination alone. But a surprise awaited them, though few seemed to notice: The language on their ordination certificates was markedly different than that of their male colleagues. Men were referred to by…
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Opinion Those Rapping Bais Yaakov Girls Are Not Weird — Or Even Surprising
Jewish media outlets were surprised and delighted by a recent viral video of two Bais Yaakov girls rapping about Dor Yesharim, a genetic testing organization. I was delighted, too. Surprised? Not at all. While there was nothing shocking to me about two Orthodox teenage girls rapping, the responses to the video have been both surprising…
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Life Abortion Stories: We Want to Hear from You
Last week, our own Larry Cohler-Esses shared his story of helping a close friend obtain an abortion in 1969, when it was still illegal and dangerous to do so. When Larry interviewed his friend decades later, she told him that “the experience for me was just an experience…I don’t believe it was life altering. I…
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Culture ‘The Pitt’ tackled the trauma of the Tree of Life attack. Here’s how survivors of the synagogue shooting reacted to the episode.
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Fast Forward After Minneapolis shooting, local Jewish service channels a city’s grief and resolve
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News Why Josh Shapiro’s memoir could complicate a presidential run
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Antisemitism Decoded How an ‘all-American boy’ became a Mississippi synagogue arson suspect
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion The Nazis massacred innocents when their regime was crumbling. What does that say about Minneapolis?
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News Orthodox Jewish groups have been quiet about ICE. This Minneapolis rabbi wasn’t.
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Culture Stories of ghosts, grief and Shabbat gladness win top prizes in Jewish children’s literature
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Fast Forward NJ church deletes video of pageant featuring antisemitic character but says critics took it ‘out of context’
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