
Dan Epstein is the Forward’s contributing music critic. His books include Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of ’76.
Dan Epstein is the Forward’s contributing music critic. His books include Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of ’76.
Talk about your freak occurrences: For the first time since 1888 — and the last time, according to certain quantum physicists, for at least another 7,000 centuries — the Gregorian and Hebrew calendars have synched up so that this year, Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah will fall on the same day. This rare…
The Detroit Tigers announced that Brad Ausmus will be their new manager for 2014. The 44 year-old Ausmus replaces the 68 year-old Jim Leyland, who announced his retirement in late October, shortly after the Tigers lost the American League Championship Series to the Boston Red Sox. The hiring makes Ausmus the 38th skipper in Tigers…
Due to Halloween’s pagan origins, Rabbinic law prohibits the Jewish celebration of the popular autumn holiday, which might explain why there’s usually a notable scarcity of “slutty rabbi” costumes at your typical All Hallows’ Eve bacchanal. But the dark allure of haunted houses, jack-o’-lanterns and (let’s be honest here) candy corn is often too powerful…
Lou Reed — legendary rock iconoclast, gimlet-eyed poet laureate of the New York City streets, and one of the most important songwriters of the past fifty years — died yesterday at his Long Island home in Southampton, N.Y., following a long battle with liver disease. If it seems amazing that Reed lived to age 71,…
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is upon is. It’s a time to reflect and repent, to eat symbolic foods, to shake the sins from our soul and celebrate our special relationship with God, so that we may be signed and sealed in the Book of Life for a good and sweet New Year. It’s…
Though Barry Manilow’s musical “Harmony” tells a story about Jewish and non-Jewish singers whose lives and careers become upended by the Nazis, barely any trace of the multi-platinum-selling singer-songwriter’s Jewish heritage has been evident in his many pop hits. But perhaps we haven’t been looking closely enough. Extensive research combined with some imagination allows us…
Popular music has a long and well-documented tradition of fomenting rebellion and social change, both overtly and covertly. Not as well documented, however, is pop’s embrace and endorsement of that ultimate Jewish dietary taboo: treyf. The consumption of meat, shellfish and other comestibles that do not conform to the laws of kashrut has long been…
● Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes By John Rosengren New American Library, 400 pages, $26.95 On October 6, 1965, Sandy Koufax sat out the first game of the World Series in observance of Yom Kippur. By putting the holiest day of his faith before the most important event of the most popular sport in…
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