Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish women and women’s issues.
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Life The Least Pleasurable Sin
This is the first in a Sisterhood series on women, apologizing and Yom Kippur. Forget your bat mitzvah, learning to drive and losing your virginity: College graduation is the one moment that truly signifies your entrance into the “real world.” Now you’re actually a grown-up, and it’s going to be a bumpy ride. At least,…
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Life What’s A South African Woman To Do?
When South African women marched against the discriminatory laws of Apartheid in 1956, their rally cry — “Wathinta umfazi, wathinta imbokotho” (you strike a woman, you strike a rock) — represented the courage and bravery of everyday citizens. With the dawn of South Africa’s democratic dispensation nearly two decades ago, my country is in the…
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Life Hope for Women Going to Mikvah
Going to mikvah, particularly if you’re not Orthodox, can be complicated. But nowhere is it more complicated than in Israel, where women are required to establish that they are married or will soon be, and have taken a rabbinically-sanctioned pre-marital education course. If you want to immerse in a mikvah for any reason other than…
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Life What’s the Point of Girlfriends?
I think it’s important, before going any further, to level with you about what I did last weekend. I watched “Bridezillas.” A lot. If you’re not familiar with this show (and if you’re not, I don’t suggest rushing about trying to remedy that), it’s marketed as a program about spoiled, bitchy, selfish, insane women who…
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News Gender Segregation Hits Israel Airwaves
As on talk radio everywhere, the announcers on Israel’s Radio Kol Barama are constantly urging listeners to call in — so long as they’re the correct gender. The most popular religious radio station in Israel, Kol Barama, a biblical phrase that in colloquial Hebrew today means “quality voice,” took to the airwaves three years ago…
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Breaking News Men-Only Show Sparks Boycott Call
Jewish pluralism and women’s rights groups are up in arms over a series of presentations featuring only men to be held at the Israeli town of Petah Tikva’s municipal cultural center. In a letter to Petah Tikva’s Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon, the groups said they would boycott the center unless he ensured that women appear in…
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Life Shhh, I Want Children
I love babies. I love their little hands, their puffy velvety cheeks, their quizzical expressions. I love to buy them tiny clothes. I have been known, upon seeing a baby, to squeal aloud. And babies love me. They stare at me over their mothers’ shoulders, their round eyes fixed on mine. They gaze at me…
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Life What’s Up With All the Rape Jokes?
Everybody’s talking about rape. From Daniel Tosh to Todd Akin, it’s all the rhetorical rage. While rape jokes may be more pervasive than ever these days, I think it’s fair to say that we’ve grown weary of arguments about rape humor — especially since the current political rhetoric regarding women’s bodies gives us something deeper…
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