Forward.com

Honor and Comfort

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:23:00 EST

How one organization helps Jews honor and comfort the dead.

Not Science Fiction

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:33:00 EST

Imagine worshipping a writer in early life, then becoming an essential force in preserving his work. This is Jonathan Lethem’s labor of love, to keep us reading Philip K. Dick. A music aficionado and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, Lethem now has his own vast canon — seven novels, numerous stories, a novella, a comic book and more. His personal success makes this posthumous relationship unique. In choosing four of Dick’s later novels — “A Maze of Death,” “Valis,” “The Divine Invasion” and “The Transmigration of Timothy Archer” — to edit and contextualize, Lethem hoped to revise the common thinking that Dick’s science psychedelia and religion writings were separate trajectories entirely; rather, he proposes that they came from the same fruitful place.

Dreams of the Displaced

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:08:00 EST

In the aftermath of World War II, roughly 250,000 Jews — most of them Holocaust survivors — lived in displaced persons camps in Europe. Many of these people were attracted to Zionism, and about two-thirds of them eventually would move to British Mandate Palestine or to Israel. In his new book, “Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust” (Wayne State University Press), Avinoam J. Patt, who holds the Philip D. Feltman Chair in Modern Jewish History at the University of Hartford, explores the role that Zionism played in the lives of the refugees, particularly among the younger generation. Peter Ephross spoke with Patt recently about Zionism’s appeal to displaced persons, and the controversy stoked by Israeli historians on the topic.

Letting Go of a Dark Thing

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:09:00 EST

Boaz Yakin is the award-winning director of “Fresh” (1994), “Price Above Rubies” (1998) and “Remember the Titans” (2000). His latest film, “Death in Love” — which he not only wrote, produced and directed, but also funded with his life savings — has just been released to mixed reviews. It deals with the psychological traumas that get passed down through the generations of a family whose matriarch (played by Jacqueline Bisset) is a Holocaust survivor. Her time in the concentration camp was spent as the imprisoned but somewhat accommodating lover of a Nazi doctor there, and that complex and pathological legacy is transmitted to her two sons. The Forward’s Dan Friedman spoke with Yakin recently about the genesis of “Death in Love,” the film’s purposefully assaultive nature and why he thinks the Holocaust plays too big a role in shaping Diaspora identity.

Bringing Up Kids in America

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:27:00 EST

Sam Apple is a modern journeyman who curiously encounters the world with pen in hand. First, he trailed a Yiddish-singing sheepherder through tiny villages in Austria to write “Schlepping Through the Alps.” Now, Apple tackles the bug-eyed wow of becoming a first-time father in his new memoir, “American Parent.”

Head of the House

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:33:00 EST

It may come as a surprise, but there are Jews in the U.S. military. Alison Buckholtz’s Navy pilot husband, Scott, is one of them. Her new memoir, “Standing By: The Making of an American Military Family in a Time of War,” is an inside look at military culture for a civilian population. She opens the curtain on her own family in hopes of disassembling stereotypes, and reveals her struggle to keep her kids’ lives seemingly normal while dad is away at war.

Out of This Life

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:30:00 EST

As a young man, the Coney Island-reared Donald Margulies worked a day job as a graphic artist for years, while writing plays on the side. His big break came in 1991 with “Sight Unseen,” a play about a successful and, perhaps morally compromised, artist. Other notable plays by Margulies include “The Loman Family Picnic” (1993) and “Brooklyn Boy” (2004), both of which explore the author’s ambivalence towards his place of origin.

Triple Threat

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:14:00 EST

Despite her successful career as a singer, actor, comedian and author, Rain Pryor is most frequently identified as the daughter of the famously outspoken African-American comedian Richard Pryor and Jewish dancer Shirley Bonus. But Pryor’s parentage and upbringing have given her a wealth of her own material.

Our Crowd

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:23:00 EST

In Dori Carter’s luxurious and leafy Southern California town of Rancho Esperanza, the setting for her second book, everyone knows the neighbor’s social status, but nobody knows each other — or, it seems, themselves.

Ivri Lider: On the Verge

Thu, 21 May 2009 15:06:00 EST

Ivri Lider is an Israeli rock star whose fame is beginning to extend beyond the boundaries of his landsmen and language. Lider, who is openly gay, was catapulted into international consciousness with his 2009 cover of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl.” The video of the that cover has since ricocheted around the world on YouTube. Lider is now finishing up his first English-language album. Jordana Horn spoke with him on the eve of his upcoming North American tour.

Sana Krasikov: Inspiration All Her Own

Sun, 17 May 2009 17:56:00 EST

Rohr Prize winner Sana Krasikov, now at work on a novel, spoke recently with the Forward about the breadth of Jewish literature being written by young, female immigrants, and her own path to becoming to becoming a writer.

Words That Shape the Jewish Future

Thu, 14 May 2009 17:55:00 EST

Peter Manseau — a National Jewish Book Award winner — spoke recently with the Forward about bad Yiddish poetry, religious road-tripping, and the perks of being a Jew by association.

The Lessons of Leo Frank

Thu, 14 May 2009 16:18:00 EST

A longtime, passionate critic of the criminal justice system, documentary filmmaker and PBS “Frontline” series producer, Ben Loeterman plums every shred of record on the Frank case and the events surrounding it to create The People v. Leo Frank. Interviews with authors, historians, and living ancestors of main players punctuate a dramatic storyline.

After Monumental Dreams

Mon, 11 May 2009 12:07:00 EST

Amos Oz last week celebrated his 70th birthday on the heels of the American publication of his latest novella, “Rhyming Life and Death.” Bob Goldfarb, a Jerusalem-based book critic, recently spoke with Oz at the author’s home in the desert city of Arad, Israel about the Jewish state’s prognosis, contemporary crusaders and how his fiction has been received in the Arab world.

House of Cards

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:53:00 EST

In 2001, 27-year-old Erin Einhorn left her job, rented her house and broke up with her boyfriend to move to Poland for a year, where she would piece together her mother’s elusive childhood.

A Utopian Bronx Tale

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:53:00 EST

In the mid-1920s, a group of immigrant Jewish factory workers decided that they’d come this far for something better than the slums they inhabited. So pooling resources, they orchestrated the construction of four cooperatively owned and run apartment complexes in the Bronx, with practical goals for a better quality of life, and idealistic visions of a transformative way of living. “The Coops,” as one of the developments came to be known, the subject of an eight-years-in-the making documentary, “At Home in Utopia,” written and edited by Michal Goldman.

Awaiting Rapture

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:45:00 EST

Playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer recently spoke about “End Days,” how it has been received in different religious communities and her own connection to Judaism with Forward contributor Gwen Orel.

Turning His Lens on the ADL

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:00:00 EST

Controversy isn’t new terrain for Yoav Shamir. And controversy is the likely response to “Defamation,” his new documentary focused on anti-Zionism, antisemitism and the Arab-Israeli conflict, among other lightning rods. The Anti-Defamation League and its director, Abraham Foxman, figure prominently in the film, as do “Holocaust Industry” author Norman Finkelstein and a group of Israeli teens taking a school trip to the Nazi death camps.

Nuptial Disagreements

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:38:00 EST

As an undergraduate studying abroad in Israel, Amy Beth Oppenheimer didn’t write a thesis paper — she made a documentary about the hot topic of marriage instead. The Forward speaks with the young documentarian about the controversies she explores in her film.

Cantorial Blues: The Age of Myth Returns

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:19:00 EST

Jeremiah Lockwood is a Brooklyn-based singer, songwriter and visionary. He has appeared with J-Dub artists Balkan Beat Box and released a blues-oriented solo album “American Primitive” (Vee-Ron Records), in 2006. Lockwood’s most recent project, The Sway Machinery sees its first album, “Hidden Melodies Revealed” (J-Dub Records) debut April 7. The Sway Machinery’s impressive fusion of genres — bringing together traditional blues and traditional hazanut — highlights Lockwood’s broad musical mastery.