jewishbloggers
Blogs
As much as I love the whole Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Ben Stiller, Judd Aptaow schlemiel genre I always shudder a bit when finding out, again and again, that their co-star is a semi-serious perky blond. Read More »
Jewesses With Attitude 
The mission of the Jewish Women's Archive (JWA) is to uncover, chronicle, and transmit to a broad public the rich history of American Jewish women.
visit | tweet
Groundbreaking tampon ads still can’t use the word “vagina”
A new advertising campaign by U for Kotex had done what no menstrual product company has done before—create an ad that is not only straightforward about menstruation, but also pokes fun at its own history of vague and sanitized ads. Both reasons make this ad campaign groundbreaking, but for some reason, you still can’t say “vagina” on TV. Read More »
Is Leo DiCaprio “bad for the Jews?”
Why have an American actor and Israeli model become hot topics for the Jewish press ? Lehava, a Jewish organization created to prevent assimilation, recently sent a letter to Bar Refaeli, a prominent Israeli supermodel, not to marry DiCaprio because it would be bad for Judaism. Read More »
Expanding Bat Mitzvah
On this day in 1922 , Judith Kaplan –daughter of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan , the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism–was called to the Torah in what is known as the first bat mitzvah ceremony in America. Read More »
Celebrating the “Old-New”
When a people have been around as long as the Jews, they have to be pretty good at renewing and re-imagining traditions in ways that feel authentic and also relevant. Read More »
Who’s your Rabba?
Raised as a Reform Jew by an ardent feminist, it was drilled into me that I could grow up to be anything I wanted. An astronaut, a doctor, the President — whatever (though I’m sure an underemployed freelance writer slacker mom wasn’t what my highly accomplished mother had in mind. Read More »
Not your grandmother’s Hadassah
In honor of Women’s History Month, Twin Cities Jewfolk is posting a series of guest posts by members of their local chapters of Hadassah and the National Council of Jewish Women. This week’s post is by Joanna Lowinger, Communications Coordinator for Hadassah’s Upper Midwest Region . Read More »
Younger Women To Headline JOFA Conference (on The Sisterhood)
It’s been three years since JOFA’s last national conference in New York, which may explain the seam-bursting program, with more 50 different sessions in the less than 24 hours. Read More »
This Week in History – March 15, 2010
Are all of you aware of This Week in History , JWA’s incredible calendar of events in Jewish women’s history? We try to make it as accessible as possible. Read More »
Glee and the myth of the ‘nice Jewish girl’
The show that is characterizing the American high school experience is no longer Beverly Hills 90210. It is not One Tree Hill, The OC, Dawson’s Creek, or any other television series that is comprised of a homogeneous group of blonde, white, and Read More »
“Good job women” and other Women’s History Month sentiments
Don’t miss Renee Ghert-Zand’s piece about JWA’s On the Map project As a part of “Plan A ,” the campaign for comprehensive sex education, NCJW released a new factsheet on comprehensive sex ed’s critical role in preventing and Read More »
Play a role in mapping Jewish women’s history
There exists no guide to physical landmarks in Jewish women’s history–until now. Yesterday was an exciting day at the Jewish Women’s Archive because yesterday we literally put Jewish women “on the map.” A user-generated map hosted on jwa. Read More »
Shared birthday, connected lives
I remember precisely where I was in the Glenn G. Bartle library—what part of the stacks, which corner, what bench—when I realized that Lillian Wald and I shared the same birthday, on March 10th. I was a junior at State University of New York at Binghamton, enrolled in a U.S. Read More »
Tefillin Barbie’s new career
“You know Barbie’s getting a new job ,” says my friend Mimi to me. “People can vote for her new career. Read More »
Babe Ruth
Ruth Mosko Handler made two fortunes from plastic boobs. First as the women who single handedly brought Barbie into our world . (Makes me think of Sophacles saying, “Nothing vast enters the lives of mortals without a curse.”) And secondly, as a breast cancer survivor who created a prosthetic breast company. Thank you Ruth! What a powerhouse. Read More »
Happy International Women’s Day
One hundred years ago, the German socialist Clara Zetkin originated International Women’s Day to coordinate women’s demands around the world. Read More »
A big fish in a small, Canadian town
This piece was written as a part of JWA’s discussion of the significance of physical places and spaces in Jewish women’s history. Share your stories with us as we get ready to put Jewish women “On the Map. Read More »
AdDRESSING Women’s Lives on display
Recently, Ethan Grossman, a student at the Weber Jewish Community High School, wrote a moving piece for Jewesses with Attitude about participating in the adDRESSING Women’s Lives project. Read More »
Esther: Nice Jewish Girl, Married to a Goy?
This past weekend was Purim, and amidst the celebrating and partying one thing stood out in my mind that most people tend to ignore: the fact that the feminine hero of the story, Esther, is intermarried. Read More »
Rabba Hurwitz NOT Rejected From International Rabbinic Fellowship
Rabba Sara Hurwitz was never denied membership in the Rabbinic International Fellowship, contrary to the assertions of a recent NY Jewish Week article . Rabbi Marc D. Angel, the co-founder of the IRF, confirmed via email that the Jewish Week article got it wrong, and that the IRF will “quite likely” accept women in the near future. Read More »
“Some of These Days”
Ninety-nine years ago today , Sophie Tucker, the “last of the red hot mamas,” recorded “Some of These Days,” which would become one of her signature songs. Sophie Tucker , the iconic Jewish American vaudeville and cinema star, is one of the women featured in Making Trouble , JWA’s film about funny Jewish women. Read More »
Putting Jewish Women On the Map
Today marks the beginning of Women’s History Month . The official theme of Women’s History Month 2010 is “Writing Women Back into History,” which I find somewhat amusing since that is the official theme of every day at the Jewish Women’s Archive . Read More »
Purim, International Agunah Day, and more – Link Roundup
On Purim: read more Read More »
Queen Esther’s Agunah Story
You can learn an incredible amount about different people from language. There are, for example, 27 words for “moustache” in Albanian – including a word for what English-speakers would call “no moustache.” It seems that in Albania, moustaches are pretty important. Read More »
Gendering at Birth: the Bris and the Baby Naming
I consider myself fortunate to take Gender Studies as my English literature class during my final semester of high school. Read More »
Jews and the Civil Rights Movement: What we’re really talking about
In 1964, Elaine DeLott Baker left her white working-class Jewish family in Massachusetts and her scholarship at Radcliffe to go to Mississippi, where she spent a year working with SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). Read More »
What Queen Esther can teach us about intermarriage
I wrote this about the Persian Queen Esther just before Purim , the year my son’s father and I got divorced. When Esther first married the PersianKing Ahaseurus , he did not know she was Jewish. Read More »
Vashti is not a failure; Esther is not a bad feminist
Abby Wisse Schachter, associate editor at the New York Post , recently published an article in Commentary Magazine that suggests that feminist thinking has changed the meaning of Purim, and that that is a bad thing. Read More »
Purim, feminism, and my kids
What’s not to love about Purim ? Another success story for our people: plan to kill us, foiled! Bring on the food! read more Read More »
“Sexism lives!” and other stories — Link Roundup
We Remember: Yitta Schwartz, a member of the Satmar Hasidic sect, died at 93, leaving over 2,000 living descendents. Rosa Rein, a Swiss Jewish woman, died at 112. She was thought to be the world’s oldest Jew. Read More »