Debra Nussbaum Cohen is an award-winning journalist and the author of Celebrating Your New Jewish Daughter: Creating Jewish Ways to Welcome Baby Girls into the Covenant. Follow her on Instagram @debranc or email her at dncnews@icloud.com.
Debra Nussbaum Cohen
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen
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Life When Abortion Was Illegal
Richard Marker is an advisor to philanthropists, founder of New York University’s Academy for Grantmaking and Funder Education, and co-principal of the firm Wise Philanthropy. He is also an ordained rabbi. In 1968 and 1969, when Marker was in rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary, he worked part-time as a chaplain at Rutgers University,…
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Life One-Way Mirror Mechitzah Proposed at Kotel
As if things weren’t difficult enough for women who want to pray or be in any way connected with their loved ones’ bar mitzvahs at the Western Wall, Israel’s outgoing Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, has proposed a mechitzah with one-way glass. The current mechitzah at the Kotel is, I would guess, between eight and…
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Life Dear Abby, You Were One Impressive Gal
I am not generally a fan of the term “gal,” but what other word can be used to describe Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips, the beloved creator and author of Dear Abby, who died last week at age 94? With a legion of fans worldwide — the column is carried by 1,400 newspapers and has a…
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Life What Would Debbie Say — About Jodie?
Jodie Foster’s speech at The Golden Globe Awards Sunday night was rambling, provocative and prompted strong reactions. She seemed to come out as a lesbian, upending one of Hollywood’s oldest open secrets. And she made an ardent, funny case for respecting her privacy. Some people loved it. Others did not. Based on my Twitter and…
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Life Happy 40th, ‘Free To Be…You and Me’
A new book celebrating the 40th birthday and impact of one of the greatest cultural touchstones of 1970s American childhood, “Free to Be… You and Me,” has just been published. “When We Were Free To Be You and Me: Looking Back at a Children’s Classic and the Difference it Made,” is a rich compendium of…
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Life Is Kotel Alternative Women’s Back of the Bus?
Two leading thinkers went head to head on the next best step for Women of the Wall regarding the quest to make Judaism’s holiest site a place where women can pray any way they want — even if that means wearing a tallit or tefillin. Yossi Klein Halevi and Rabbi Rachel Beit-Halachmi, both American-born scholars…
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Life Four Women Detained at Kotel For Wearing Tallit
In what those involved are calling an escalation of the war against women who pray at Judaism’s holiest site, four women were forced away from the Kotel and detained by police Friday morning when new rules were put in place just before they arrived with Women of the Wall. The rules prohibited women from entering…
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Life Did Peeps Go Too Far with ‘Shiksa’ Ad?
Is the term shiksa as loaded as it used to be? Perhaps, since even a blogger who adopted the derisive Yiddish word meaning “non-Jewish woman” as her cooking website’s name found it an unfortunate choice when the maker of candy cane-flavored marshmallow chicks used it in an ad campaign. Then again, some may find the…
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