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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DNA and You — Personalized Genomics Goes Jewish
The Human Genome Project turned 10 this year. In the decade since scientists first published our genetic blueprint, huge strides have been made in understanding the biological basis of inherited disease, the history of humankind and the role that genetics can play in modern medicine. The genetic map also created a new industry of personalized…
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May You Live Until 120: DNA Uncovers Secrets To Jewish Longevity
Life expectancy has risen steadily in recent years, with the average American now living for close to 80 years. But that’s nothing compared to the lifespans of people mentioned in the Bible. According to Genesis, Noah’s grandfather, Methuselah, lived the longest, at 969 years of age, with others, including Adam and his kin, not far…
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Sephardi Mutations Raise Calls for Expanded Test
Researchers have discovered the first mutations responsible for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer among “pure” Sephardi Jews, leading to calls for a more comprehensive genetic test for high-risk women in Israel. “When a woman of Sephardic origin used to come to our clinic, we would tell her, ‘You are not Ashkenazi, so you might have…
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Higher Tech Lowers Cost Of Genetic Screening
Screening for genetic disorders has come a long way since the first tests for Tay-Sachs disease in the late 1960s. At the time, clinicians screened the Jewish community by measuring enzyme levels in people’s blood. But in the late 1980s, newer genetic tests became available for Tay-Sachs and, soon after, for a range of other…
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A Tremor in the Research Force
Genetics has long been thought to play a relatively minor role when it comes to the development of Parkinson’s disease. So it came as a surprise to the medical community five years ago when Dr. Susan Bressman and her colleagues at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York reported that a single genetic mutation…
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Books Moroccan Murder Mystery
The Honored Dead: A Story of Friendship, Murder, and the Search for Truth in the Arab World By Joseph Braude Spiegel & Grau, 318 pages, $26.00 You can take the Jew out of the Arab world, but you can’t take the Arab world out of the Jew. That basically sums up Joseph Braude, a young…
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August 12, 2011
100 Years Ago in The Forward Strange things are afoot at the synagogue on Lombard Street, in Philadelphia. One day, after the cantor’s choir rehearsal, the shamus was closing up the place when he heard a knocking noise in the sanctuary. Calling out to see what it was, the caretaker suddenly heard a loud voice…
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Books Different Jokes for Different Folks
On Monday, Melissa Fay Greene shared the story behind the adoption of her daughter, Helen, from Ethiopia. Her 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: Twenty years ago, as I set…
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Books Turning a Synagogue’s Tale Into Kid Lit
Crossposted from Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments “If these walls could talk” is a cliché in the historic preservation world, but when standing inside an old synagogue it is still an irresistibly phrase and idea. Anita Kassof, associate director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland and illustrator Jonathon Scott Fuqua have now taken the…
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‘Catch-22’ Still Saner Than Ever
Joseph Heller is invariably omitted from lists of American Jewish writers, but he should be included, and high up. “Catch-22” — which has just celebrated its 50th birthday — is notable among American novels in the second half of the 20th century for having been read with almost no acknowledgment of its Jewish identity. Heller…
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Genes Tell Tale of Jewish Ties to Africa
In the Book of Kings, Solomon is depicted as an international businessman of sorts who sent ships from the port of Etzion-Geber, near modern day Eilat, to trade precious metals and other goods with various parts of the world, including Africa. Solomon also famously received a visit from the Queen of Sheba, who is thought…
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In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish פֿאָרשונגען פֿון וויכטיקע היסטאָריקער אויף ייִדיש — איצט אַרויס אויף ענגלישResearch studies in Yiddish by noted historians, now in English
דער באַגריף, ייִדישע אױטאָנאָמיע אין גלות — הײַנט פּאָפּולער בײַ קריטיקער פֿון ציוניזם — איז היסטאָריש ניט געװען קײן דערפֿאָלג.
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Culture In the course of his 104 years, he resisted the Nazis, fought against blood libel and became a towering Jewish intellectual
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Culture That time Allen Ginsberg wrote a Socialist poem — about Bernie Sanders
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Letters The real reason Jews care about Marilyn Monroe