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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A Pacifist Leader Who Was More Prophet Than Politician
Judah Leib Magnes may just be the most important American Jewish leader you have never heard of. Born in Northern California in 1877, the baseball-loving Magnes was integral to the creation and development of nearly all major American Jewish organizations, from the American Jewish Committee to Hadassah. He was also one of the principal founders…
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Sympathy for the Dybbuk
Mort Reichek of Boynton Beach, Fla., asks about the origins of the word “dybbuk.” In Jewish folklore, of course, a dybbuk is the ghost or spirit of a dead person that enters a living one and takes possession of him, causing him to speak and act in irrational and unrecognizable ways. This is by no…
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The Problem of Spiritual Experience
I was at a Seder a few years ago, and told my host I’d just been on a six-week silent meditation retreat. Before I could finish my sentence, he announced, “You’re deluding yourself.” A bit quick to judge, perhaps, but if you ask most skeptics, I think they’d say the same thing about spiritual experiences….
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Look Out Broadway, Here They Come!
In the musical “Spamalot,” King Arthur wants to bring his troupe to Broadway, but is advised (in song) against it: In any great adventure That you don’t want to lose, Victory depends upon the people that you choose. So, listen, Arthur darling, closely to this news: We won’t succeed on Broadway, If you don’t have…
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January 14, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward Riots broke out in the Bronx and in the Brownsville and East New York sections of Brooklyn after Jewish women discovered that bread companies had tried to trick them into thinking that a new kashrut label on packages of bread was actually a union label. The people running the…
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Books Being the ‘Kvetch’ Guy
On Monday, Michael Wex wrote about the birth of his idea for his new novel “The Frumkiss Family Business.” 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: It’s nothing to…
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Moses and Anarchy
What are we to make of our biblical narratives? Jacques Derrida famously said that no comment on a text is ever innocent — that the act of exegesis means intervening in the text, asserting power over it and the reader. Such is the case with the legendary Judith Malina’s highly charged play, “Korach: The Biblical…
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Books Notes From the Tour Bus
How can young people’s first experiences of Israel be at once profound and revelatory, yet predictable and banal? This conundrum was well in place before 2000, when Taglit-Birthright Israel began offering free 10-day trips to Israel to qualifying diasporists aged 18 to 26. But the Birthright machine mass-produces the phenomenon — and now showcases it…
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Books Birth of a Family Business
Michael Wex is the author of “Born to Kvetch,” and the new novel “The Frumkiss Family Business.” 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: A couple of years ago,…
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January 7, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward As shop worker Anna Dienstag came home to her tenement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, her former fiancé, Jacob Moshkovitz, was waiting for her. Upon seeing him, Dienstag ran into her apartment. Moshkovitz followed her and begged her to take him back. When she refused, he pulled out a…
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Classical Picks of the Year
And the Best Schnoz of the Year goes to… The six most memorable music events of 2010 included three New York premieres of operas long overdue for exposure, all with a specifically Jewish connection. ‘The Nose’ Picked by every critic, “The Nose” won this “year’s best” face-off hands-down. The Metropolitan Opera’s first production of Shostakovich’s…
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