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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Books
As Jewish as a Hillel Sandwich
Austin Ratner‘s first book, “The Jump Artist,” is the winner of the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. 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: When I learned…
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For John Zorn, It’s Jewish Music as Bitches Brew
Is there a more vital Jewish composer than John Zorn right now? If there is, I don’t know who. Zorn’s amazing, postmodern, rockin’-swingin’-classical-noisy Masada Marathon, held March 30 at New York City Opera, was yet another stamp of mainstream approval for this 30-year fixture of the downtown New York music scene, who performed in his…
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Books Leaving Mother Moldova
Marina Blitshteyn is the author of the new poetry chapbook “Russian for Lovers.” In her earlier post, she wrote about the origin of Russian for Lovers and the poetry writing process. Her blog posts have been featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog…
The Latest
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Books Excerpt: Terrorism and the Fotonovela
On the morning of July 18, 1994, the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of Argentina took place with the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds. The investigation into the attack is ongoing. In his new fotonovela, “Once @ 9:53 am,” Forward contributing editor Ilan Stavans, along with…
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‘The Boarding House’
Originally published in Poland by Nisza Publishing House in 2009. Translated especially for the Forward by Tusia Dabrowska Prologue In the beginning, there were train tracks. In the greenery, between heaven and earth. With stations, like beads on a string, placed tightly so that even before the train managed to accelerate, it had to slow…
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Books David Bezmozgis and Me
Back in the early 1980s, the Russians were coming. Not the Cold Warriors, but the Jewish children, with names like Yana and Inna and Igor. Each child seemed impossibly pale — pale hair, pale eyes, pale skin, pale lips, pale hand clutching the hand of his or her mother, a woman, in contrast, impossibly bright…
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Books The Poetry Writing Process
Marina Blitshteyn is the author of the new poetry chapbook “Russian for Lovers.” In her earlier post, she wrote about the origin of Russian for Lovers. 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…
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Do We Nosh on Celery or Cupcakes?
This question comes from David Chanoff of Marlborough, Mass.: “I recently had an argument with a friend about the word ‘nosh.’ He grew up with Yiddish-speaking parents. I grew up around Yiddish-speaking grandparents. He maintained that to nosh means to snack on sweets, while I said it meant just to snack. I’m pretty sure I’m…
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Playing the (Sweet, Sweet) Horn of Peace
David Liebman’s reputation as a conciliator dates back to his days as a saxophonist in Miles Davis’s electronic ensembles of the early 1970s, a turbulent time when cultural assumptions were under fire — and Liebman, whose mind-blowing improvisations and Jewish kid’s mien made a singular impression on Davis’s bandstand, helped build consensus amid the fray….
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Books Natalie Portman’s Dad Penned a Pregnancy Novel
Is publishing a book easier if your daughter’s an Oscar winner? Natalie Portman’s dad is about to find out. Avner Hershlag, the Israeli father of the “Black Swan” star, is currently peddling his debut novel to major publishing houses, the Observer reports. Partly inspired by his work as a fertility specialist, the book is described…
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This is Not a Holocaust Book
Yes, that is correct. The sign on the big shelf in one of the largest bookstores in Warsaw says “Jewish books.” The books — fiction, nonfiction, academic, guides to Judaism and contemporary Jewish life (including a translation of Shmuley Boteach’s “Kosher Sex”) — are all in Polish. Such shelves can be seen in every big…
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