Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
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Fermisht but Not Fergotten
Here’s a question from Eugene Fidell of Yale Law School: “Many Yiddish words begin with the prefix fer-, such as ferklemt, ferblondzshet, ferkakt, ferdreyt, fermisht, etc. What’s the common denominator? Is there a linguistic connection to the series of English words that includes ‘forgo,’ ‘forbid,’ ‘forget’ and ‘forswear’? Something tells me that these two sets…
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Books Q&A: Canadian Jewish Book Award Winner Alison Pick
For Canadian author and poet Alison Pick, it was her personal journey of discovering and reclaiming her Jewish identity that led to her greatest professional success. The 35-year-old recently won the 2010 Canadian Jewish Book Award for fiction, being presented May 30 in Toronto, for her historical novel, “Far to Go,” about a Czechoslovakian Jewish…
The Latest
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Books The Wandering Jew and The Yeti
C. Alexander London is the author of “We Are Not Eaten by Yaks: An Accidental Adventure,” and the forthcoming sequel, “We Dine With Cannibals.” As Charles London, his grown-up alter ego, he wrote “One Day the Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War” and “Far from Zion: In Search of a Global Jewish Community.” His…
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More Than a ‘Footnote’ From Cannes
The Cannes International Film Festival is known for selections that push the envelope, whether in terms of story, cinematic form or ideological vision. For example, Amos Gitai has been a Cannes favorite in the past with films like “Kippur” and “Free Zone,” often exploring political tensions with stylistic verve. This year, the prestigious competition selected…
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Fiction Writers Facing a Pot of Gold
The winners of the 2011 Sami Rohr prize, the largest monetary award for Jewish writing, have been announced. This year’s finalists — all novelists, in keeping with the Jewish Council’s tradition of considering fiction and non-fiction books in alternating years — will be honored at a ceremony in New York on May 31. Austin Ratner…
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Books Roth the Invincible
A prolific novelist, Philip Roth, at 78, has authored 31 novels and received the most distinguished literary awards, including, most recently, the Man Booker International Prize, which was awarded to him yesterday despite heavy opposition from one of the judges, Carmen Calil. Calil, a feminist author and publisher, criticized Roth’s repetitiveness and resigned from the…
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The Mississippi Floods: Punishment From an Angry God?
Is God punishing the Deep South? In the first half of May, a series of devastating tornadoes ripped through Alabama, and as this article goes to press, swaths of greater Memphis, Tenn., are underwater, and levees are being released all along the Mississippi River. Not surprisingly, the usual voices of theodicy have currently fallen silent….
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1964 Is Still Resounding
Can an oratorio about politics rise above the artistic level of occasional piece or mere propaganda? The question came to mind at New York City’s Carnegie Hall before I heard Jaap van Zweden masterfully conduct the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, its 70-voice chorus and four soloists in the May 11 New York premiere of a new…
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How To Live Like God in Odessa
Seth Cohen writes from Mamaroneck, N.Y.: “I just read, in [the Web site of] Jewish Ideas Daily, a review of a book about the history of Odessa. In it were mentioned two contrasting Jewish views of that city as expressed in the Yiddish sayings, lebn vi got in Odes, ‘to live like God in Odessa,…
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Laughing in the Face of Evil
Joseph Skibell’s third novel “A Curable Romantic” evokes the spirit of “Candide” with a Jewish postmodern twist in order to ask the same question as Voltaire: How can we be optimistic in the face of evil? Voltaire wrote “Candide” to revolt against Gottfried Leibniz’s philosophy of optimism after experiencing the suffering of the Seven Years’…
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From ‘Chip ’n Dale’ to ‘Assassin’s Creed’
This year, the Writers Guild of America bestowed upon Aaron Sorkin, Matthew Weiner and Jeffrey Yohalem its 2011 head writer awards: Sorkin for the film “The Social Network,” Weiner and for the AMC series “Mad Men” and Yohalem for the video game “Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.” Grasping his winged statue, Yohalem had come a long way…
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