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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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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Bronzing Memory of Harvey Pekar
Classical statuary dots Cleveland’s husky urban landscape. But there’s no tribute to “the ancient Jewish god of frumpy people,” as Joyce Brabner puts it. Now, the Cleveland writer and artist wants to change that. She recently launched a much-publicized Kickstarter campaign to fund a memorial to her late husband, comics pioneer Harvey Pekar. Rather than…
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Toledot—These Are the Generations
Genesis 25:19–28:9 Jacob: A Simple Man? The fact is that our father Jacob was a liar in his youth. It’s also true that by the end of the story, he is the most upright patriarch of them all. As opposed to Abraham and Isaac, he never told anyone that his wife was his sister. He…
The Latest
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Books A Grandmother’s Secrets
Anna Solomon’s debut 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’ve been thinking about my grandmother recently. This is my paternal grandmother, the…
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L’Chaim a Bad Grammatical Error?
Marvin Kastenbaum has a question inspired by my column of October 21, which dealt with the practice, common among American Jews, of saying “l’Shana tova,” “For a good year,” instead of simply “Shana tova,” “A good year,” at Rosh Hashanah time. The column pointed out that l’shana tova is a shortening of l’shana tova tikateyvu,…
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Jerusalem’s Three Unauthorized Portraits
Jerusalem: The Biography By Simon Sebag Montefiore Knopf, 688 pages, $35 Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World By James Carroll Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 432 pages, $28 Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem By Carol Delaney Free Press, 336 pages, $26 A Google search for Jerusalem brings more than 13,000 news hits…
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The Man Who Out-Sainted Einstein
James Franck, a Jewish scientist who was born in Hamburg, Germany, and was a co-winner of the 1925 Nobel Prize in physics, is honored by The University of Chicago’s James Franck Institute and by the James Franck German-Israel Binational Program, hosted at five leading Israeli technical schools. Yet nothing commemorates the work Franck did inside…
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Books Write, Pray, Swim, Bike, Run
Earlier this week, Karol Neilsen wrote about the inefficiency of writing and how not to quit. Her new memoir, “Black Elephants,” was just released. 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…
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Books National Book Awards Look to Past and Future
“Take the time to be brief.” That’s the advice Edith Pearlman, one of five finalists for the National Book Award in fiction, wants to give to young writers. Pearlman’s book, “Binocular Vision,” did not win, perhaps because a collection of short stories has not won since Andrea Barrett’s collection, “Ship Fever,” was victorious in 1996….
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Emulate Our Ancestors
In his commentary on Chayei Sarah, Avrum Burg reflects on the life and nature of the Father of the Jewish people, Avraham. Burg points out that Avraham is not only pious and loving to God, but concerned for people of other nations. In addition to cultivating his divine relationship, he also wants to engage with…
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Books Q&A: Sara Y. Aharon on Jews of Afghanistan
“From Kabul to Queens: The Jews of Afghanistan and Their Move to the United States” by Sara Y. Aharon tells the story of Afghanistan’s Jewish community and its resettlement in the United States. The American Sephardi Federation held a book launch party November 3 at the Center for Jewish History. Before the event, Aharon, whose…
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