This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture where you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music (including of course Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen), film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of…
Culture
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My Mother and Joseph Stalin
For decades, readers of the Forverts have been delighted by Miriam Hoffman’s wry, literary vignettes. Fresh and personal, historic yet contemporary, Hoffman tells stories of family lives as they intersect with history. Beginning with this story, first published in 1987, her vignettes with be translated into English and published on the forward.com web site. Translated…
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The Wedding Ring
Translated by Miriam Hoffman and Beverly Koenigsberg Every person has a unique history but the stories of those who endured and survived Hitler’s hell are not only singular but exceptional; a survivor’s past encompasses mysteries of a thousand and one horrors which would require many lifetimes to recount. My friend Lily herself stood at the…
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Melissa Shiff’s Jewish Mandalas
Melissa Shiff’s spinning mandalas are created from Jewish images taken from museum collections. She talks to the Forward’s arts and culture editor, Dan Friedman, about how she chooses the images, how she makes the mandalas and what, exactly, mandalas are. See Shiff’s mandalas installed at Toronto’s Koffler Center.
The Latest
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Vayetze — Jacob Left
Genesis 28:10–32:3 Why Is Jacob, Despite Everything, My Father? In last week’s portion we explored the web of lies that surrounded Jacob from the moment he was born until he reached his final not-very-restful abode. This week’s portion doesn’t give Jacob much rest, either. It’s not only lies that surround him and his family, but…
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Books Why I Wrote ‘The Inquisitor’s Apprentice’
Chris Moriarty’s “The Inquisitor’s Apprentice” is now available. Her blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: When I try to explain why I wrote “The Inquisitor’s Apprentice” — and why…
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But Is It Really About Lies?
Toledot Genesis 25:19–28:9 Do you remember when Ross Perot, in a debate against Al Gore back in the early 1990s, got flustered by something Gore said, maybe about NAFTA or Perot’s computer company, and at a certain point he started yelling out, “Now you’re lying!” “He’s lying!” Nobody could tell who was right at that…
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Books When I Went to Synagogue
Earlier this week, Anna Solomon wrote about Jews in the West and a grandmother’s secrets. Her novel, “The Little Bride,” is now available. Her posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite, courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit:…
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Looking Back: December 2, 2011
75 Years Ago in the Forward Testimony to the Peel Commission on Palestine indicates that during the years 1934-1935, no fewer than 25,000 Arabs entered Palestine from neighboring countries. The reason so many of these illegal immigrants have come to Palestine is because conditions in their countries of origin ? most came from Syria and…
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Books Jews in America’s West
Yesterday, Anna Solomon wrote about a grandmother’s secrets. Her novel, The Little Bride, is now available. Her posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite, courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: I still don’t know how the subject…
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The Mourning Kittel: When Grief Consumes All
In Genesis, when Jacob sees Joseph’s coat covered in blood, and thinks that his precious son is dead, he tears his clothes and begins to mourn. The act of tearing, keriah, is encoded in Jewish law as part of the ritual of mourning —whether expressing personal grief for a loved one or a national grief…
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Finding Vibrant Remnants of Jewish Life
When photographer Joshua Cogan traveled to Cochin, India, and northern Ethiopia in search of lost Jewish communities, he was not interested in approaching his subjects as symbols of decay and decline. “Every six months you’ll find articles that say, this is the last minyan, or this is the last Shabbos; but it’s never the last,…
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