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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Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Dark of Night
Citizens of America take note: one of the central institutions of modern American life — the post office — is on the verge of disappearing. Like the nickelodeon, it may soon be consigned to the dustbin of history. I don’t mean to be an alarmist but my mailbox of late has been crammed with so…
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Don’t Be a Shmuck All Your Life
How To Be a Mentsh (& Not a Shmuck) By Michael Wex HarperCollins, 224 pages, $24.99. Michael Wex, author of the best-selling book “Born To Kvetch,” is the “Sneaky Chef” of contemporary Jewish culture. Like the cookbook author who advises parents to slip puréed broccoli into the brownie batter, Wex writes books that look and…
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In the Belly of the Rhinoceros
‘Lebanon” opens with a golden field of sunflowers gently waving in the breeze and ends with the same field with a sole, unmoving tank in it. Nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed. For Shmulik the gunner (Yoav Donat), Yigal the driver (Michael Moshonov), Hertzel the loader (Oshri Cohen) and Assi the officer (Itay…
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Rashi, Wiesel: Why, Why, Why?
Rashi: A Portrait By Elie Wiesel Translated from French by Catherine Temerson NextBook and Schocken Books, 107 pages, $22 ‘Why Rashi and why me,” asks Elie Wiesel, in the preface to “Rashi,” a slim biography that is the latest offering in the Jewish Encounters series by NextBooks. Rashi is commonly thought to be an acronym…
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Loving and Loathing
A longtime secret treasure of American film criticism, Manny Farber is finally in the limelight, a year after his death of bone cancer at age 91. Farber is being honored with the publication of “Farber On Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber,” an 824-page tome from the Library of America, collecting many long-overlooked…
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Not Abel To Hear Cain’s Words
Just what did Cain say to Abel before killing him? Every time we read the first portion of Genesis all over again on the holiday of Simchat Torah, I’m sure many of you ask yourselves the same question. English Bible readers may traditionally have asked it too, but not quite with the same sense of…
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October 16, 2009
100 Years Ago In the Forward The general strike of the neckwear makers was going smoothly, and no violence had occurred. The bosses were going to and from their offices, and it looked like the strike was going to be settled. One shop that was holding out, the Star Neckwear Company — eventually refused to…
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Hopelessly Lost on the Prairie of Existence
From Jonah onwards, the Jews have been happy to write nebbishes into the part of divine liaison. Not for the Chosen People the luxury of a muscular charismatic leader to mediate between the Sacred and the profane. Given the choice between “Woody” Allen Konigsberg and “Terminator” Arnold Schwarzenegger, there’s barely a flicker of thought necessary….
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See Anne Frank Footage Here
We didn’t know how much truth we were telling. This week we ran an article about Francine Prose’s new book on Anne Frank. We entitled Tova Mirvis’s review “Hidden Writer Revealed” because Anne Frank was not only famously hidden from the Nazis but because (certainly according to Prose) her literary talents have also been overshadowed…
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Architect Richard Meier’s Jewish Inspirations
The Newark-born American Jewish architect Richard Meier, who celebrates his 75th birthday on October 12, is being feted with an all-too-brief exhibit, “Meier 75” at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. The exhibit is scheduled to end on Meier’s birthday, which shows party pooper planning on the part of the Cooper-Hewitt committee that have chosen to…
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Minnesota Nebbish
They weren’t as bored and uninterested as they were when they won the best picture Oscar for “No Country for Old Men,” but Joel and Ethan Coen weren’t exactly thrilled to be part of a roundtable interview about their latest movie, “A Serious Man.” In the 25 years since their startling film noirish debut with…
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