Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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Squeezing the Cultural and Historical Juice Out of Love in ‘Jaffa’
The Other Israel Film Festival opens on November 12, kicking off its third year of the cinematic exploration of Arabs in Israel. Keren Yedaya’s “Jaffa,” making its New York premiere at the festival, shouldn’t be missed. As a film, it has its weaknesses. Fortunately, it isn’t simply a film; it’s an emotionally raw, and brutally…
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Brutally Frank
Barney Frank: The Story of America’s Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman By Stuart Weisberg University of Massachusetts Press, 544 pages, $29.95. ‘Get to the point, I’m very busy.” According to Stuart Weisberg’s “Barney Frank: The Story of America’s Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman,” that’s Congressman Barney Frank’s standard response to phone-chat pleasantries like “How are…
The Latest
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A Loving March Back to His Father
My Father’s Bonus March By Adam Langer Random House, 240 pages, $26. Adam Langer and his father, Seymour, had what Langer describes as “a typical relationship between a Depression-era father and son.” His dad, he writes in his new memoir, “My Father’s Bonus March,” was “a man I respected and admired but around whom I…
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In a Familiar Hand
From Dennis Gottfried comes this query: “Since European Jews used the Hebrew alphabet to write Judeo-German or Yiddish, and Spanish Jews used it to write Judeo-Spanish or Ladino, I wonder whether other Jewish populations in the history of the Diaspora — ones speaking Persian or Arabic, for example — did the same thing.” They did….
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Gold, Silver and Rubber: Village Voice’s ‘Best of NYC’ Awards
“S’iz shver tzu zain a yid,” runs an old proverb: it’s hard to be a Jew; yes, but is it hip? Definitely has been, at times (see this blog for two notable testimonies), but, if you hold Village Voice’s “Best of NYC Awards” to be the barometer of coolness, in 2009 we’re coming in only…
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Matisyahu Squared
Jewish rapper, beach, self-interview. Got it? It’s clear why he’s a famous singer, not a famous comedian — but it’s cute. Hat tip Erez and Shemspeed.
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Steinhardt Attacks Jewish Leaders
In a surprise move, even noted by the non-Jewish business press, Michael Steinhardt attacked Jewish communal organizations and their complacent leadership. A longtime stalwart of Jewish philanthropy, he accused organizations of disliking change and being satisfied, at least in the case of campus Hillels, with “trying hard” but not being “good enough.” Too many Jewish…
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Canonizing Saint Simon?
Neil Simon is, it turns out, in line to be one of the greats. The Broadway revival of his Jewish family play, “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” was supposed to be offered in repertory with the second of its two sequels, “Broadway Bound.” David Cromer — whose recent productions of “Our Town” and the avant-garde musical, “The…
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Jennifer Kronovet’s "Awayward" is Way Inward
Reading Jennifer Kronovet’s recent collection “Awayward,” you may think she’s translating from another language, transposing foreign syntactical structures, turns of phrase, rhythms, tonalities — a whole unfamiliar psyche — into English. Kronovet’s speculative original is forever inaccessible, and can only be known through her translation. “Known”, though, would be to overestimate its accessibility because, while…
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Ignaz Friedman: Great Jewish Pianist
The Polish Jewish pianist Ignaz Friedman may not be a household name, but his majestic artistry, honored by a brilliantly researched new biography by Allan Evans, “Ignaz Friedman: Romantic Master Pianist,” just published by Indiana University Press, makes him of urgent interest to anyone who loves piano music. A Naxos CD reissue series, establishes Friedman…
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Finian’s Rainbow
The welcome Broadway revival of Burton Lane (born Burton Levy in 1912) and E. Y. Harburg’s 1947 musical “Finian’s Rainbow,” opening October 29 at the St. James Theatre offers a fresh opportunity to relish its wish-fulfillment overturning of racism and economic inequalities in the mythical American state of Missitucky, when the “Idle Poor Become the…
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