Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a former editor of the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, “The Perils of ‘Privilege,’” was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy
By Phoebe Maltz Bovy
-
Life Be Careful When Labeling Social-Justice Concerns ‘Bourgeois’
In an important piece in the Stranger, Dan Savage pushes back against the notion — recently resurfaced, Savage notes, in the New Yorker — that same-sex marriage was and is, in effect, a first-world problem, of interest only to wealthy gay white men, not to the LGBTQ community more generally. As Savage explains, marriage rights…
-
Life What’s a Nice Jewish Girl Like Julia Hahn Doing in Steve Bannon’s White House?
In the New Yorker, Andrew Marantz reports on (but is unable to directly reach) one Julia Hahn, Steve Bannon’s Breitbart-writer protégée and now a special assistant to Donald Trump, the one who’s technically the president. Hahn, whom a friend describes to Marantz as a “sweet Jewish girl from California,” is 25 and, according to known…
-
Life Can a Personal Essay be Honest and Self-Aware?
What does the ideal personal essay look like? “Honest” comes to mind. Also: “self-aware.” The ideal personal essay is extremely honest and impeccably self-aware. Or is it? What if those two goals are mutually exclusive? While a personal essay can be both of those things, and the great ones are both, something happens when the…
-
Life British Judge Forbids Transgender Ultra-Orthodox Mom from Contact With Her Children
In the New Statesman, Etan Smallman reports on an tragic — and evidently unprecedented* — case in Manchester, England. A judge, Peter Jackson, ruled that a trans woman parent cannot see her five children because her estranged wife is part of the Haredi community there, and the family might be ostracized if a second mother,…
-
Life Today We Are All Ma’ams: A Call for Old Lady Feminism
In an easily-overlooked story, Nebraska state senator Bill Kintner, a Republican, resigned after retweeting a photo of Women’s March protestors bearing anti-sexual-assault placards. “Ladies, I think you’re safe,” went the accompanying text, a reference to… gee, I wonder what might have been being referenced here? The point was that the protestors in question (who are,…
-
Life Young Jewish Woman Questions Trump’s Supreme Court Pick
On Bustle, Leanne Gale, who is (her words) “a young Jewish feminist organizer,” explains why her identity and family history have led her to oppose Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch: “[A]s a Jewish woman, I see him as a direct threat to my bodily autonomy and religious liberty. Gorsuch is known to be anti-choice, and…
-
Life ‘White Privilege’ Essay Contest Criticized for Wrong Reasons
Updated February 3, after the Forward had spoken directly with Bari Reiner. I hoped not. Really I did. I hoped, when I saw that a woman named Bari Reiner had told an Associated Press journalist that she found it offensive to have “white privilege” as the topic of an essay contest in her Connecticut town,…
-
Life Trailblazing Initiative Focuses on Jewish Intermarriage
I just read with interest that Hebrew College, in Massachusetts, has introduced “the first-ever graduate school of Jewish Education to establish a specialization in our Master’s Degree program and a standalone graduate certificate in Interfaith Families Jewish Engagement.” IFJE’s director is Keren McGinity, who also — full if not especially scandalous disclosure — edited an…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
- 2
Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
- 3
Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
- 4
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
-
Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
-
Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
-
Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
-
Sports Texas A&M’s Sam Salz cherishes his first taste of DI college football — and the opportunity to inspire fellow Orthodox Jews
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
