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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Look Out Broadway, Here They Come!
In the musical “Spamalot,” King Arthur wants to bring his troupe to Broadway, but is advised (in song) against it: In any great adventure That you don’t want to lose, Victory depends upon the people that you choose. So, listen, Arthur darling, closely to this news: We won’t succeed on Broadway, If you don’t have…
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January 14, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward Riots broke out in the Bronx and in the Brownsville and East New York sections of Brooklyn after Jewish women discovered that bread companies had tried to trick them into thinking that a new kashrut label on packages of bread was actually a union label. The people running the…
The Latest
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Books Being the ‘Kvetch’ Guy
On Monday, Michael Wex wrote about the birth of his idea for his new novel “The Frumkiss Family Business.” 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: It’s nothing to…
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Moses and Anarchy
What are we to make of our biblical narratives? Jacques Derrida famously said that no comment on a text is ever innocent — that the act of exegesis means intervening in the text, asserting power over it and the reader. Such is the case with the legendary Judith Malina’s highly charged play, “Korach: The Biblical…
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Books Notes From the Tour Bus
How can young people’s first experiences of Israel be at once profound and revelatory, yet predictable and banal? This conundrum was well in place before 2000, when Taglit-Birthright Israel began offering free 10-day trips to Israel to qualifying diasporists aged 18 to 26. But the Birthright machine mass-produces the phenomenon — and now showcases it…
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Books Birth of a Family Business
Michael Wex is the author of “Born to Kvetch,” and the new novel “The Frumkiss Family Business.” 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: A couple of years ago,…
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January 7, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward As shop worker Anna Dienstag came home to her tenement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, her former fiancé, Jacob Moshkovitz, was waiting for her. Upon seeing him, Dienstag ran into her apartment. Moshkovitz followed her and begged her to take him back. When she refused, he pulled out a…
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Classical Picks of the Year
And the Best Schnoz of the Year goes to… The six most memorable music events of 2010 included three New York premieres of operas long overdue for exposure, all with a specifically Jewish connection. ‘The Nose’ Picked by every critic, “The Nose” won this “year’s best” face-off hands-down. The Metropolitan Opera’s first production of Shostakovich’s…
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The End of the Reign in Spain
SEPHARDI FAMILY LIFE IN THE EARLY MODERN DIASPORA Edited by Julia R. Lieberman Brandeis University Press, 264 pages, $85 The voices that come alive in “Sephardi Family Life in the Early Modern Diaspora” beat down the tiresome impulse to prove history relevant. Instead, the six excellent and painstakingly researched scholarly papers, edited by Julia R….
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A Comprehensive Guide To Consumption
These days, information about this and that may be just a click away, but if Gil Marks’s Encyclopedia of Jewish Food is any indication, some of us continue to place a premium on discovering things the old-fashioned way: by leafing through the pages of a book awash in, well, encyclopedic detail. Years ago, encyclopedias were…
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Active In Documentaries
In the past year, provocative, stylized documentaries like “Catfish” and “I’m Still Here” enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame. For 2011, documentaries tackling social justice issues — such as “Waiting for Superman,” “The Tillman Story” and “Inside Job” — have won over the audiences and critics at theaters and film festivals and are garnering nominations…
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