Elissa Strauss has written for the Forward over a number of years. She is a regular contributor to CNN, whose work has been published in a number of publications including The New York Times, Glamour, ELLE, and Longreads.
Elissa Strauss
By Elissa Strauss
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Life The Sad Lesson of Bar Rafaeli’s Pole-Dancing Ad
Bar Rafaeli in a commercial for Carolina Lemke / Copyright: Youtube In a recent commercial for an Israeli fashion eyewear company Carolina Lemke, Bar Rafaeli is featured bespectacled and pole-dancing in a dream sequence inside of a subway car, across from a leather-clad man who is checking her out. The Israeli model writhes her away…
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Opinion Modesty Is the New Black
Fashion is a tricky one for feminists. There are two poles to navigate, each with deep roots in thousands of years of patriarchy, and few of us make it through uncompromised. On one side we feel the pressure to dress sexy and look attractive, and on the other, a pressure to cover-up, because it is…
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Opinion Sexual Assault and Double Standards
Imagine we learned that 20% of Jews who attend college will experience an anti-Semitic assault by the time they are seniors. We’re talking about nice Jewish girls and boys who are just looking to have a regular college experience, including late-night trips home from the library and from drinking a little too much with friends…
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The Schmooze Joan Rivers’ Most Jewish Comedy Moments
Getty Images In the world of brassy, chutzpadik funny ladies, nobody has done it better and longer than Joan Rivers. The lady is a legend, a trailblazer, who made way for the candid, feminist humor of women like Sarah Silverman and Amy Schumer and a whole generation of female comics who have the courage to…
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Life On Instagram, Modest Fashion Goes Interfaith
Mimi Hecht and Mushky Notik / Courtesy of MIMU MAXI We are living in an age of unprecedented democratization. Of fashion. Thanks to the rise of chains like Zara and H&M, which offer fresh-from-the-runway styles at ordinary-people prices, and to the emergence of social media, which gives every aspiring Anna Wintour an outlet, the fashionista…
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Life The Ashkenazi-Friendly Beauty Revolution
Sarah Silverman sports wavy hair and pale skin at the 66th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards on August 25, 2014 // Copyright Getty Images It’s over. The tyranny of the straight-haired, button nosed, tan-skinned girl has ended. Jewesses rejoice. Things might never be the same. In the style section of the New York Times, writer Marissa…
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Opinion If Maimonides Met Warby Parker
Actress Blake Lively recently launched a website called Preserve, which aims to promote an artisanal lifestyle through the posting of recipes, craft projects and style profiles, and to sell a variety of food and clothing items. Because Preserve genuinely desires “to give back to those with fewer opportunities but just as much heart and soul…
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Life When Atheists Talk About Rape
Richard Dawkins / Getty Images Earlier this week prominent atheist Richard Dawkins said some pretty insensitive comments about sexual assault on Twitter. “Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of date rape, go away and learn how to think.” This was a follow-up line to an…
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