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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Absorbing Art of an Expressionist Poet
Else Lasker-Schüler was one of the most influential literary figures in early 20th-century Berlin. She was known for her literary Stammtisch, or get-togethers, at the Café des Westens and for her bohemian ways. But it was her Expressionist poetry, with its penchant for exotic imagery and neologism, that made her famous. Here in Germany, more…
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Gay and Orthodox: And Cleaving Strongly to Both
In January, I went to a shabbaton with 140 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Orthodox Jews. Yes, Virginia, there are gay Orthodox Jews. There always have been. And while I have been working in the LGBT Jewish community for many years, I saw more courage, endurance and strength that weekend than I ever have before….
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Manic Depression Is Touching My Soul
Ofir Trainin’s documentary “Wandering Eyes” implicitly commands the viewer to empathize with Gavriel Balachsan, Israel’s self-proclaimed “next big thing” in rock, as he loses big-thing status with his downward slide into the mire of manic depression. The inclusion of this documentary in the ReelAbilities: NY disabilities film festival (at the JCC in Manhattan through February…
The Latest
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Books The Ones That Missed the Cut
Earlier this week, Saul Austerlitz wrote about his recent author tour and five not-as-terrible-as-you-think movies. 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: One of the trickiest aspects of writing…
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The Resegregation of the United States of America
MY LOS ANGELES IN BLACK AND (ALMOST) WHITE By Andrew Furman Syracuse University Press, 248 pages, $24.95 In California, they call us freeway flyers — adjunct college instructors who commute between far-flung schools. Thus, half the week I teach at El Camino College in Compton, one of the more disadvantaged neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The…
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Storm-Tossed Hungary Gets a Schiff
Decades ago, I interviewed Hungarian-Jewish composer György Ligeti[ at a boutique hotel in the upscale Saint-Germain-des-Prés area of Paris; Ligeti had just received, among many other honors, the Balzan Prize for, as stated on its website, “culture, as well as for endeavors for peace and the brotherhood of man.” I asked Ligeti whether that wasn’t…
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An Interview With András Schiff
András Schiff, although rarely available for press interviews about his musical career, answered by e-mail the following questions from The Forward about growing anti-Semitism in Hungary: THE FORWARD: Is there any cause for optimism in the near or immediate future about the situation in Hungary? ANDRÁS SCHIFF: There is always hope, but not too soon….
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In a Tel Aviv Attic, It’s a Case of Workman, Repair Thyself
Set in a cavelike workshop, in dimly lit rooms, in alleyways and under heavy cloud cover, “Restoration” (“Boker Tov, Adon Fidelman”) is almost entirely devoid of sunlight. It’s a surprising choice for a movie that takes place in Tel Aviv, a seaside city that is far more sunny than gray. And yet, the color palette…
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Heebish Highlights of the Sundance Film Festival 2011
Many of the selections at the Sundance Film Festival, which ran January 20–30 in Park City, Utah, were the work of Jewish directors or about Jewish themes — the following films among them. • Prolific documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus was back at Sundance this year, premiering “Bobby Fischer Against the World.” The film tells the…
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Haunted by Love and Other Women
Natalie Portman can act! That’s the lesson this winter seems determined to teach us. The excruciating dead eyes of Padmé Amidala in the “Star Wars” movies are now a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. These days, Portman is poised to win an Oscar for her performance in the psychological thriller…
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Paid for Reading Tombs? It’s a Stele!
‘I’m a stelaeglyphologist,” Madaleine Isenberg writes, wanting to know what I think of the word. If you’ve never heard of a stelaeglyphologist, you’re in good company. No one has. “It’s a word,” Ms. Isenberg informs us, “that does not exist. I gave birth to it when I was really tired of trying to explain what…
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