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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Books
A Gangster Grows in Brooklyn
Somehow I missed this when it appeared in November, but Purim seems as good a time as any to catch up on a book whose title character (sort of) is named “Shushan Cats.” “The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats” is a novel by Hesh Kestin (previously the European bureau chief for Forbes), which takes place…
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Fug Right Off
Tuli Kupferberg, came into this world speaking Yiddish, and he’s apparently determined to leave it making wisecracks on YouTube. The 86-year-old poet and songwriter, best known as a member of the outrageous 1960s rock band The Fugs, is now blind and confined to his Manhattan loft. But that hasn’t stopped him from recording short humorous…
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Talking With Robert Brustein and Zalmen Mlotek About Shlemiels
Robert Brustein, artistic director of the American Repertory Theater, is known for cutting edge, often experimental productions, and is not particularly associated with Jewish theater (actually, Peak Performances goes to great lengths to distance itself from the term, “Jewish theater,” so let’s say instead, “theater with Jewish roots”). But speaking by telephone to the Forward…
The Latest
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A Kindler, Gentler Jihad
[ ![][2]][2] Palestinian Islamic Jihad is undergoing a multimillion dollar image makeover and will now be known simply as “jihad,” the militant organization announced in February. Hired to enhance its reputation as a “cutting-edge” radical group, the public relations firm AKPD has taken immediate action. The firm has amended the logo to make it more…
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Eternally Wandering Jew Comes Home
[ ![][2]][2] The eternally wandering Jew, long thought to be a legendary figure from Christian tales, recently arrived home safely, clutching a cup of Mochaccino.TM Melvin Cohen, a storied figure of antisemitic literature and art refused to say where he’d been until he’d had a nap. Upstairs, in his own room, thank you very much….
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God Resumes Prophecy — Via Twitter
[ ![][2]][2] These days, it seems, nobody can afford not to Tweet — not even the Creator of the universe. God, the all-powerful divinity worshipped by the world’s monotheistic religions, has resumed direct communication with humans, and He’s doing it 140 characters at a time. Or, as the Holy One, Blessed Be He, put it…
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Israel Reins in Firebrand Minister
[ ![][2]][2] To limit diplomatic fallout from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s inflammatory public comments, Israeli officials have begun staging a series of fake public appearances to fool Lieberman into believing that the outside world is listening to him. These events are totally closed affairs and are stocked with a mixture of Foreign Ministry staff and…
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Israeli Rabbinate Declares Non-Orthodox Jews ‘Kosher — and Delicious’
Jerusalem — In a historic ruling, the Israeli rabbinate has finally decided to recognize Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative Jews — as the perfect entree for Shabbat dinner. Israeli Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Moshe Metzger issued the ruling yesterday. The Sephardic chief rabbi agreed with the declaration of Jewish edibility, adding only: “preferably stewed with dried fruits,…
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What’s a Nice Gerund Like You Doing in a Place Like This?
[ ![][2]][2] When people ask me who put the “sin in cinema,” I respond, “Kenneth Marcus of Englewood Heights, N.J.” Into their dropped jaws I explain that during the early days of American movies — when Englewood and environs were Hollywood and Broadway rolled into one — Mr. Marcus wanted to lend a sheen of…
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If You Agree With Me, Then You Are Right
[ ![][2]][2] It has recently come to my attention that you’ve got some disagreements with me about the issues. In a series of letters to the editor, you’ve suggested that my logic is flawed, that I’m ill-informed about issues, that I misrepresent facts and that my knowledge of history is thin at best. These are…
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I. B. Singer’s Secret Hispanic Meydl
[ ![][2]][2] A newly-discovered hand-written letter written in Yiddish by Isaac Bashevis Singer to Magdalena Salazar, his Mexican maid of seven years in the Upper West Side apartment he shared with his wife Alma, offers insight into a previously unknown romantic liaison by the Nobel Prize winner. Stuck to a Zabar’s grocery list which had…
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Looking Forward That time my violin teacher tried to convert me to Christianity
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Fast Forward UK’s largest Jewish group calls Israeli aid to Gaza ‘long overdue,’ months after disciplining members for criticizing Israel
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