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
-
March 11th, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward A sensational drama is occurring right now in Warsaw’s Yiddish theater — and it’s not onstage. Two major founders of Yiddish theater, a husband-and-wife team that is considered to be in the top tier of Yiddish actors, are currently embroiled in a scandal so intense that Warsaw’s Yiddish papers…
-
Books Samuel Thrope: International Historian of Mystery
On Monday, Aaron Roller, an editor of Mima’amakim, wrote about the Jewish poetry conspiracy. 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: Of all the poets whose work I’ve come…
-
Wanted: A Gospel Worth Following
The Gospel of Anarchy By Justin Taylor Harper Perennial, 256 pages, $13.99 For many, college is a first sip of freedom, but for the characters in Justin Taylor’s debut novel, college is an incarnation of the evil machine against which they were born to rebel. “The Gospel of Anarchy,” is set in the inland swamp…
The Latest
-
Wonders Of America
Many American Jews are nothing if not zealous in their belief in the separation of church and state. One might even say it is among the cardinal principles of their faith. For a large swath of the American Jewish community, the best of all possible worlds is one in which religion stays in one corner…
-
Buildings That Jump Up And Bite
Modern architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier are notorious for having fixed, even tyrannical, ideas of how people should experience the buildings they designed — sometimes seemingly for maximum discomfort. Breaking with this precedent, architect Morris Lapidus, born in Odessa to an Orthodox Jewish family in 1902, designed buildings to make people…
-
A Truffle, and 10 Words for ‘Potato’
Irving Zlotnik writes: “There seem to be two commonly used words for the potato in Yiddish, kartofl and bulbe. I know the first comes from German Kartoffel, but where does bulbe come from?” Although different regions of Yiddish-speaking Eastern Europe had different words for potatoes — among them, according to Nahum Stutchkoff’s “Thesaurus of the…
-
Jewish Men Stand Up for Reproductive Rights
I was among some 6,000 reproductive-rights advocates who attended a rally for women’s health over the weekend to stand up for Planned Parenthood and a woman’s right to choose in the face of the most dangerous political assault on women’s rights we’ve seen in years. The signs in the crowd were witty, the long and…
-
Jewish Themed Films Shine at Berlin Fest
The Berlin International Film Festival, which unspools in the German capital each February, is Europe’s largest film fest. This year’s installment, which ran from February 10 to 20, featured four Israeli productions and a number of films that dealt with Jewish issues, not including the Coen Brothers’ “True Grit,” which opened the festival with a…
-
Books The World’s Mightiest Mortal Gets a New Lease on Life
We Jews like to pride ourselves on the many things we’ve invented: the ballpoint pen, blue jeans, and the atomic bomb, to name a few. (How about the theory of relativity — does that count?) We’ve also had a strong hand in shaping the world of modern entertainment, helping to build Hollywood, create the modern…
-
Honoring His People, By Design
Norman Gorbaty gestures at the dozens of his artworks lining the walls of the Walsh Gallery at Fairfield University. “The reason for this kind of stuff,” he says, referring to the Jewish-themed subject matter, “is there’s so many things I’m finding out in Judaism that I think Jews don’t know about.” Ironically, had it been…
-
‘Lipstikka,’ Powder and Pain
The Israeli director Jonathan Sagall reclines in a futuristic white leather pod, drinking fancy herbal tea in a private lounge on the 24th floor of the Kollhoff Building at Potsdamer Platz. Down below, the film journalists, industry officials, actors and stargazers scramble like ants toward the various venues of the 61st Berlin International Film Festival,…
Explore
Most Popular
In Case You Missed It
-
News Analysis: As Democrats unite behind Platner, Schumer’s future as leader faces tests
-
News As Supreme Court dilutes Voting Rights Act, Tennessee’s first Jewish congressman could lose his seat
-
News Monitored phone calls and fear of arrest: What life looks like for Iran’s Jews now
-
Fast Forward Graham Platner, whose Maine Senate run has concerned Jews, becomes presumptive Democratic nominee