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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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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The Rebbe of Sinn Féin
Last December, 300 Israeli rabbis, many of them employees of the state, signed a declaration forbidding Jews to sell or rent property to non-Jews. For some of them, the move was inspired by the philosophy of Isaac Halevi Herzog (1888–1959), one of the main modern proponents of a “halachic state” run according to the tenets…
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The Secret History Of Jewish Metal
Mention of heavy metal music may bring to mind satanic rituals, church burnings and members of the 1980s glam-metal band Ratt sporting shoulder-length hair. If Yom Kippur gets a look in, it’s only because you’ve decided to repent for head-banging so hard to Slayer that your yarmulke fell off. Destined to change that, a number…
The Latest
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The Kid from Kazakhstan
If you’re anything like me, chances are high that the only film you’ve ever seen about Kazakhstan starred Sacha Baron Cohen and was not exactly flattering to the former Soviet republic. So when I received a press packet calling “The Gift to Stalin” “one of Kazakhstan’s most recent award-winning international hits,” I involuntarily thought, “very…
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Books For the Love of Books
Just several feet away from where people are immersed in the digital worlds of their laptops, iPhones, and Kindles, Ido Agassi’s hand-designed, individually printed and bound books calmly look on from a display case in the lobby of the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto, California. Those who take time to observe Agassi’s “Books as…
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Man of the People of the Book
Christianity in the English-speaking world changed forever 400 years ago. With the release of the authorized version of the King James Bible in English, Scripture became radically more approachable. As Christians recently began celebrating the anniversary of this text, in Jerusalem a quirky, secular-born Orthodox rabbi completed a translation project of similar magnitude for Jews…
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A Matter of Life and Death
Considering the firestorm around last year’s “Dead Sea Scrolls” exhibit — the Palestinian Authority demanded its cancellation, claiming Israel had “stolen” the artifacts — it’s understandable that Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum might tread lightly around Middle East politics. But the ROM’s new megashow, “Water: The Exhibition,” opens at a time when thorny policy challenges around…
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Books Reimagining the Talmud
Earlier this week, Aaron Roller, an editor of Mima’amakim, wrote about the Jewish Austin Powers and the Jewish poetry conspiracy. His 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: I knew…
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Film & TV Hollywood’s Women Problem
While we have been busy looking at women in magazines, Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University has been tracking the rather sluggish growth of women in Hollywood. The Center just released its annual report, “The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of…
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March 11th, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward A sensational drama is occurring right now in Warsaw’s Yiddish theater — and it’s not onstage. Two major founders of Yiddish theater, a husband-and-wife team that is considered to be in the top tier of Yiddish actors, are currently embroiled in a scandal so intense that Warsaw’s Yiddish papers…
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Books Samuel Thrope: International Historian of Mystery
On Monday, Aaron Roller, an editor of Mima’amakim, wrote about the Jewish poetry conspiracy. His 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: Of all the poets whose work I’ve come…
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Wanted: A Gospel Worth Following
The Gospel of Anarchy By Justin Taylor Harper Perennial, 256 pages, $13.99 For many, college is a first sip of freedom, but for the characters in Justin Taylor’s debut novel, college is an incarnation of the evil machine against which they were born to rebel. “The Gospel of Anarchy,” is set in the inland swamp…
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Yiddish World A photo of my bubbe when Jewish stores still had Yiddish signs
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