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
Living Letters From the Past
Before the telephone and the Internet, those separated from each other by great distances depended on letters to communicate. Although gifted writers have brought the form to the level of high art, for many people, the letter served more essential purposes. With it, they shared ideas, expressed feelings, collaborated on plans, and communicated information both…
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The Tale of a Chance Meeting That Set the Music World on Its Ear
Originally Published in The Forward on February 2, 2001 It takes only a few people to make an era. On February 9 to February 11, Carnegie Hall will present a series of three concerts and several related events celebrating two such people who met by chance. When John Cage met Morton Feldman at a 1950…
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Books Found in Translation
Crossposted from Haaretz Moshe Sakal lived for six years in France, where he learned to speak fluent French with a Parisian accent, but when he talked to his Egyptian-born, French-speaking grandmother back home in Israel – she would give him a haughty look. “She spoke like Dalida,” he said, referring to the popular multilingual Egyptian…
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Arendt on Trial
The Eichmann Trial By Deborah Lipstadt Nextbook/Schocken, 272 pages, $24.95 In 1961, the young state of Israel tried and executed the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Hannah Arendt covered the trial for the New Yorker, an account that was published in 1963 as “Eichmann in Jerusalem.” Arendt did not set out to write a journalistic…
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Books Sephardim Strike Back!
Reyna Simnegar is the author of the recently published “Persian Food from the Non-persian Bride: And Other Sephardic Kosher Recipes You Will Love.” 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…
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Film & TV In Defense of Jane Eyre’s Rochester
My mom handed me a copy of “Jane Eyre” when I was 10, after she had finished re-reading it herself. Despite some rough going at first, I pushed my way through it and have a distinct memory of finishing it behind my prayerbook in the women’s section of an Orthodox synagogue in Rochester, N.Y. At…
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Books Q&A: Maira Kalman on the Illustrating Life
On March 11, “Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World),” the first museum exhibition devoted to New York illustrator and author Maira Kalman, opens at the Jewish Museum. The show, which debuted in Philadelphia last summer and then traveled to the West Coast, gives Kalman’s fans a rare opportunity to see the original artwork behind her…
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Moses Calls For Global Support of Pharaoh
[ ![][2]][2] The leaders of the Israelite tribe are publicly supporting the regime of the Egyptian Pharaoh despite ongoing protests, and their own recent conflicts with the Middle Eastern despot. Citing security concerns, top Israelite officials said they believe that the Pharaoh is the best choice to ensure stability and peace in the region. “Although…
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Gabby Giffords Recovering, Developing New Powers
The recovery of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords from her shooting on January 8 in Tucson, Ariz., continues apace. Doctors confirm that, although still in the early stages of physical rehabilitation, she is now debating Talmud with leading scholars. “Before the incident, she didn’t know much Hebrew,” noted Rabbi Aaron Friend. “But now she seems to understand…
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Iran on Verge of Creating Cinema Bomb
[ ![][2]][2] LOS ANGELES — It appears that years of unflagging effort, dire warnings and sanctions may all have been for naught. Hollywood insiders are warning that the Islamic Republic of Iran has acquired both the materials and technological wherewithal to launch a motion picture guaranteed to bomb catastrophically worldwide. High-ranking officials in the motion…
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How the French Put the Olé Into Idiolect
[ ![][2]][2] ‘Who put the condom in condominium?” asks avid reader Hugo Hefnerovich: more as an accusation than as a question. Despite the tone, the inquiry is worthy of further investigation, since the French inventor of the sheep gut prophylactic was a descendant of Rashi who had fled south from Troyes to the eponymous town…
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