Gabrielle Birkner
By Gabrielle Birkner
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Culture Designing a Kosher Sukkah
Most contemporary sukkahs, with their snap-together frames, their plastic tarp walls and their bamboo mat schach, or roofing material, bear little resemblance to the high-concept huts that went up over the weekend in New York’s Union Square. The booths erected in the downtown park — winning entries in the Sukkah City design competition — might…
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Life Prime Ribs: Haredi Women in High-Tech; Artificial Ovaries
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s eldest daughter, Adina Bar Shalom, is helping to train Haredi women for jobs in Israel’s high-tech sector. Meanwhile, secular Israeli women have a higher rate of workforce participation than do women in any other developed country, Haaretz reports. In a discovery that could help women undergoing cancer treatment preserve their fertility, scientists…
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Life Prime Ribs: Prosecution for Hoffman?; Soap Opera Politics; ‘Birth Rape’
Jerusalem police are recommending prosecution for Anat Hoffman, the Women of the Wall leader who was arrested in July while carrying a Torah in the Western Wall plaza. Read The Sisterhood’s interview with Hoffman — her first following the arrest — here and view our slideshow of women around the world holding or reading from…
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Life Prime Ribs: BRCA News; Frum Fashion Show; ‘Calendar Women’
Prime Ribs From the Week’s News: • There were no mini-skirts or corsets — or men — at this recent Jerusalem fashion show, featuring tsnius clothing for observant Jewish women. • The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles this summer launched a blog all about mah jongg — the tile game that has long been a…
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Life Q&A: Barbara Zakheim on Surveying America’s Agunot
While the Jewish community has long wrung its collective hands over the plight of agunot — “chained” women, stuck in unwanted marriages because their husbands refuse to provide them with Jewish divorce papers — little is known about who and how numerous these women are. That is why Barbara Zakheim, founder of the Jewish Coalition…
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Life Video: ‘3 Alicias 3’
For those of you weren’t there to hear the breathtaking performances by poet Alicia Ostriker, klezmer fiddler Alicia Svigals and violin-wielding songstress Alicia Jo Rabins — who played solo and as a trio at the yesterday’s Forward-sponsored “3 Alicias 3” — here’s a taste of what you missed:
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Life Digest: A New ‘Morning-After’ Pill; Ruth Gruber Documentary
The Sisterhood Digest: According to protocols from former Israeli President Moshe Katzav’s recent trial for rape and other sex crimes, Katsav “saw women that were subordinate to him as a reserve from which he chose sexual objects,”. The defense has called the accusations “blood libel.” A verdict in the case is expected this fall. A…
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Life Alicia-Fest Is Around the Corner
Free tickets are still available for “3 Alicias 3” — an evening of performances by composer and klezmer fiddler Alicia Svigals, poet and critic Alicia Ostriker and singer, songwriter and violinist Alicia Jo Rabins, who plays with the bands Golem and Girls in Trouble. The Forward is sponsoring “3 Alicias 3,” alongside Manhattan’s Sixth Street…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
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Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
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Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
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Sports Texas A&M’s Sam Salz cherishes his first taste of DI college football — and the opportunity to inspire fellow Orthodox Jews
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