When it came to Nadezhda Mandelstam, the scholar Clarence Brown might have put it best: She was a “vinegary, Brechtian, steel-hard woman of great intelligence, limitless courage, no illusions, permanent convictions and a wild sense of the absurdity of life.” Or perhaps it was the poet Seamus Heaney, who wrote of Mandelstam’s transformation into a…
Tillie Olsen can be difficult to read. The content of what she wrote isn’t the issue; her subjects could be grim, yes, but in a way that demands rather than repels attention. But Olsen’s visceral prose — her willingness to adopt a character’s perspective so fully as to surrender lucidity — can be a barrier….
In honor of International Women’s Day, we here at the Forward are taking a moment to look back at the reporting and commentary on Jewish women’s issues that graced our pages in the last year: Batya Ungar-Sargon, Opinion Editor: Can We Talk About Rape In The Holocaust? I had never thought about rape in the…
Hillary Clinton lost the United States presidency. But she may win an EGOT — an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. On the heels of the news that the former Secretary of State will make a cameo on HBO’s “Madam Secretary” is the news that Clinton and legendary Jewish filmmaker Steven Spielberg are developing a TV…
The Tapper family has more than one pundit at home. Alice Paul Tapper, the 10-years old daughter of CNN anchor Jake Tapper, just penned her first op-ed for the New York Times. Titled “I’m 10. And I Want Girls to Raise Their Hands,” the article describes the young Tapper’s efforts to get girls to speak…
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…
For the young Orthodox woman living in a community without an eruv boundary, motherhood comes with a high cost. The moment that newborn arrives, it’s goodbye to Sabbath mornings in synagogue, goodbye to afternoon social outings, and goodbye to nice dresses. Instead, say hello to living in a robe in a claustrophobic apartment for a…
When philanthropist Barbara Dobkin founded Ma’yan in 1993, her goal was to foster the women’s movement within Jewish communities. Which is exactly what Ma’yan achieved: Based out of the JCC Manhattan, the organization published an influential feminist Passover Haggadah; helped launch the Ritualwell website — offering new resources for spiritual practice — and worked with…
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