Irene Katz Connelly is a staff writer at the Forward. You can contact her at connelly@forward.com. Follow her on Twitter at @katz_conn.
Irene Katz Connelly
By Irene Katz Connelly
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The Schmooze Drop everything and read this romance novel about Reform Judaism
When romance author Rosie Danan first conceived of an affair between a rabbi and a former sex worker, she took the idea to her aunt — who was very much against it. “You can’t,” Danan recalled her aunt saying. “It’s just not realistic.” To settle the matter, she fired off an email to the family’s…
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Culture ‘Let him fade into the woodwork’ — Madoff’s victims respond to his passing
Bernie Madoff is survived by his wife, Ruth — and the thousands of people whose lives he upended. The effect of the disgraced financier’s machinations rippled. Jewish non-profits reeled when the Ponzi scheme came tumbling down. Fortunes and more modest savings were lost, and so were the jobs of many who worked for Jewish institutions. Victims…
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Culture They couldn’t find any books on Ashkenazi herbs — so they wrote one
Deatra Cohen was studying to become an herbalist when her teacher assigned what seemed like a straightforward task: researching and reporting on the herbal cures and practices of her own culture. But the project was anything but simple. A retired librarian, Cohen was adept at navigating databases and combing through archives. But she could find…
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The Schmooze The Jewish Netflix show you haven’t heard about yet
“Family Business,” Netflix’s latest and most valiant stab at the Jewish sitcom, is many things. It’s a sort-of-kind-of compelling portrait of a family in crisis. It’s a confused comment on the current state of French Jewry. It is, depending on how you look at it, an argument for or against the legalization of marijuana. But…
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Culture At the Jewish Museum, the midcentury feels very, very modern
I arrived at “Modern Look,” the Jewish Museum’s newest exhibit, ready for what it promised: a bird’s-eye view of midcentury magazine photography. But I was preoccupied, as I have been for weeks, with a very different media moment. The recent documentary “Framing Britney Spears,” which showed how exploitative coverage eroded the singer’s mental health, has…
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The Schmooze Here’s what inspired Lena Dunham’s new plus-sized fashion line
Lena Dunham wants everyone deserves a good miniskirt — not just thin women. The actress-slash-writer-slash-director has spent years in search of short skirts that fit her body, mostly to no avail. “I can’t wear it because I’m basically showing what my mother would refer to as my pupik,” she quipped to the New York Times….
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Culture The New York Bagel Experience is not for hipsters
As recent transplants to this fair city of New York, we have plenty to learn about bagels. We haven’t had a chance to develop brand loyalties and identify establishments we love — or simply refuse to patronize. We don’t have firm feelings about the Montreal bagel. We can’t yet bring ourselves to speak unironically of…
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Culture What would Paul Celan think of Zoombombing?
Pierre Joris didn’t even get a chance to speak before the swastika appeared on the Zoom. A prolific poet, essayist and translator, Joris was slated to give a virtual lecture through Princeton University on the poet Paul Celan, whose work he has studied and translated for decades. He’d prepared to discuss his two newest translations…
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