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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Lost Music of Istanbul’s Sephardic Jews
‘It’s really changed.” My wife, Ingrid, and I were sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Residence in Istanbul, listening to an Israeli historian named Daniel wax nostalgic. Daniel’s mother, a native Istanbulu, had taken him there on frequent childhood visits in the years before the varlik vergisi, or “wealth tax,” of the 1940s and…
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September 9, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward Rising star Rudolf Shildkraut is in awe over Yiddish theater superstar Eugene Mogulesco. Shildkraut first saw Mogulescu perform in Romania, when Shildkraut was a child. During a visit to the offices of the Forverts for a discussion about theater, Shildkraut called Mogulesco “a genius.” He said that he has…
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Books A Gay Jewish Reading List
Earlier this week, Wayne Hoffman wrote about a funny thing and shared the meaning behind the names of a few of his characters. His 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:…
The Latest
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Learning From the Fingers and Mind of a Guitar Master
“Listen!” one of the students says, looking astonished. He motions with his head toward the dining room, where Pierre Bensusan is clearing the table. I listen. Pierre is not only humming and whistling at the same time, but he seems to be whistling a melody and humming an accompanying bass part. “Sure,” he says, shrugging,…
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Books What’s in a Name?
On Monday, Wayne Hoffman wrote about a funny thing. His 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 it comes to a novel, what’s in a name? There are often dozens…
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Rembrandt Chose Jewish Models To Depict a More Realistic Jesus
Sometime in the mid-to-late 1640s or early 1650s, a young Jewish man — probably of Spanish-Portuguese descent — seems to have taken what would likely have been a short walk from his home in Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter to Jodenbreestraat (“Jewish Broad Street”) 4, where Rembrandt van Rijn lived. Inside the three-story home, which Rembrandt purchased…
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Books A Funny Thing Happened — True Story!
Wayne Hoffman‘s most recent book, “Sweet Like Sugar,” is now available. Hoffman is the managing director of special projects at Nextbook. His 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: My mother…
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Warts and All, Wendy Wasserstein Had Love to Spare
Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein By Julie Salamon The Penguin Press, 460 pages, $29.95 ‘Uncommon Women and Others” was Wendy Wasserstein’s first major play. And Julie Salamon’s well-researched, engrossing new biography, “Wendy and the Lost Boys,” makes it clear that Wasserstein was no commonplace woman herself. This revealing and…
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Books Pro-Israel? Anti-Israel? No, Just Israel
Earlier this week, Darin Strauss wrote about wrestling with faith and about what we believe. His 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: Last week, the American Jewish Committee renounced a…
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Hollywood Fumbles Award-Winning Mossad Thriller ‘The Debt’
What happens when you take an Israeli spy thriller and pump it up with high-budget steroids for a Hollywood remake? That is the question posed by “The Debt,” in which actors feign Israeli accents with varying degrees of success and attempt to tell a story that, while visceral and heartfelt in the Hebrew version, turns…
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September 2, 2011
There has always been a strong connection between Jews and baseball. In this excerpted editorial from August 6, 1903, Forverts Editor Ab Cahan offers some advice on the subject to a confounded father. A father writes to ask advice about baseball. He thinks that baseball is a foolish and wild game. But his boy, who…
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