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
-
Books
Christmas in America
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Those who, for one reason or another, stand outside the frame of Yuletide cheer often find their voices muted come Christmas. The singing of “Silent Night” leaves us, well, silent. Not so for the protagonist of “The Loudest Voice,” one of the most celebrated of Grace Paley’s many singular…
-
The Nigun Project: The Magid of Koznitz’s Nigun
The Magid of Koznitz (1737–1814) was born under miraculous circumstances. His father, an old bookbinder, and his mother were impossibly impoverished villagers in the Ukraine. One Sabbath this pious couple was visited by a stroke of good fortune. The couple, already advanced in years, was so poor that they fasted much of the time, saving…
-
December 17, 2010
100 Years Ago in the forward When the Jewish community of some far-flung town in the United States needs a rabbi, where does it turn? New York, where else. These towns send committees to interview rabbis and, usually, they get what they’re looking for. Do they want a rabbi with a beard and peyes or…
The Latest
-
Breaded Acts of Love, Luck and Shipwreck
In a November issue of The Boston Globe, language columnist Jan Freeman, taking advantage of the approaching 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible (the KJV first appeared in 1611), wrote about the many biblical expressions there that have become fully naturalized English idioms. Some of these, she observed, we use regularly,…
-
Metamorphoses: The Sources and Journeys of a Tune
Listen to a clip from “Di Tsvey Brider” (“The Two Brothers”) from “New Worlds: A Celebration of I.L. Peretz” produced by Folksbiene. From an original score by Dmitri Slepovitch, recorded with the musicians Dmitri Slepovitch, Matt Temkin, and the voices of Shane Baker and Mikhl Baran. ‘A melody lives and dies and it is forgotten,”…
-
Misery Would Love Some Company
Eden By Yael Hedaya, Translated by Jessica Cohen Metropolitan Books, 496 Pages, $35 In Yael Hedaya’s fiction, everyone — man, woman and child — leads a life of quiet desperation, wherein the usual forms of solace are futile. Love is disappointing. Success brings confusion. Family life is stress inducing. (Invariably in Hedaya’s books, children are…
-
Books My Horribly Embarrassing Memo
On Monday, Avi Steinberg wrote about Kafka in Tel Aviv. His first book, “Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian,” was just released. 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…
-
Where Jews Choose To Muse
November’s gala opening of the National Museum of American Jewish History, in Philadelphia, has thrust into public consciousness the centrality of museum-going to the modern Jewish experience. For increasingly large numbers of American Jews, as well as their Christian neighbors, the museum, rather than the synagogue, has become the public face of the American Jewish…
-
Books Composing Identity, From Jamaica to England
This year’s Man Booker Prize shortlist featured two authors who write about groups not often represented in British literature. Howard Jacobson, author of “The Finkler Question,” has made a career crafting a literary image of the English Jew, while Andrea Levy, shortlisted for “The Long Song,” has documented the black British experience in her five…
-
Books Is Yiddish Literature the Next Big Thing?
The Brothers Ashkenazi By I.J. Singer, translated by Joseph Singer Other Press, 432 pages, $16.95 The Magician of Lublin By Isaac Bashevis Singer Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 256 pages, $15 The Glatstein Chronicles By Jacob Glatstein Edited and introduced by Ruth R. Wisse, translated by Maier Deshell and Norbert Guterman Yale University Press, 432 pages,…
-
Don’t Trust Your Gut
One of the functions of religion, we are told, is to provide comfort in an uncomfortable world. We all know we will die, but religion comforts us with tales of the afterlife. We all know that life is unpredictable, but religion comforts us with stories of a guiding light, ordering the universe. In this way,…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion New York’s Israel Day parade was a shanda — but not because of Mamdani
- 2
Opinion How can I live freely as a Jew in a world where strangers rip my mezuzah off my doorframe?
- 3
News Floyd Mayweather showered cash on Jewish causes — and now he’s suing their ‘Robin Hood’ alleging $175 million got diverted
- 4
Opinion Israeli and diaspora Jews live in different realities. The Israel Day parade proved it
In Case You Missed It
-
News In the race for Jerry Nadler’s seat, much talk on Israel but little disagreement
-
Film & TV A Hasidic wedding entertainer tries to keep up with the times — if his ego will let him
-
Yiddish חיים בארס נײַ בוך דרייט זיך אַרום אָפּאַטאָשוס נאָוועלע „אַ טאָג אין רעגענסבורג“Chaim Beer’s new book revolves around J. Opatoshu’s novella ‘A Day in Regensburg’
„לווייתן ברוח“ באַקענט דעם לייענער מיט באַקאַנטע ייִדישע פֿיגורן, ווי י. ל. פּרץ, ש. אַנ-סקי און חנא שמערוק
-
Fast Forward The Jewish Brigade fought fascism in Italy. Now its flags spark protests.