More in ‘The Jewish Body’

Monday, October 19th
Braiding Flesh and Spirit: Kicking off a weeklong examination of the Jewish body, by Jonathan Rosen
On the Bookshelf: New books on bodies visible and invisible, by Josh Lambert
Stumped: From the archives: A new father finds that the bris ends but the foreskin lingers, by Peter Hyman
Bottled Guilt: How the debate over breastfeeding is ...

Joy Ladin is a poet and a professor of English at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women. For most of her life, though, she was a man named Jay, and her biological sex was a source of deep unhappiness. And so three years ago, Jay decided to start the process of becoming a woman. His marriage fell apart, and he worried about how the world would receive him after he became a woman.

It seems New York magazine got the memo about Jewish Body Week—it features a full rundown on circumcision in the new issue. An article on the “shift away from circumcision” as a standard practice for American baby boys credits the change to activists as well as some more provocative factors: “As more U.S. women have ...

For most of the last half-century, the circumcision rate for newborn American boys was higher than anywhere in the Western world. A post-World War II public health campaign resulted in a rate of around 80 percent. But that number has fallen precipitously in recent years, and now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may ...

• Cleverly named they’re not, but there are at least 18 still-operating Jewish-run business in Atlantic City that are over 50 years old, including Nathan Levin Furs, Mel’s Furniture, and Fischer Shoes. [Jewish Times of South Jersey]
• Israelis and Palestinians have managed to agree on something: supporting the Dead Sea as a candidate for the ...

As summer gets underway, the beach beckons, clothes come off, and we think about our bodies. This trailer (by the folks behind Tablet’s God & Co. series) for Melvin Konner’s The Jewish Body shows what happens when that body is clad not in a bikini but in clay.