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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Next Time, Let’s Teach Social Justice in an Effective Way
Once a year, the eighth graders at a synagogue I’ll call Temple Beth Torah spend an afternoon volunteering at a soup kitchen. During the bus ride to the site, the teacher passes out a Talmudic quote about feeding the hungry and spends a few minutes trying to engage the students in conversation about the passage….
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‘Scientists on Trains’ Leaves the Station in Israel
The morning oration is like a normal university class: a professor, an engaging intellectual lecture and questions at the end. But the similarities between a regular college class and the new Hebrew University “Scientists on Trains” program pretty much stop there. The program, which was launched in November, has brought a number of the Hebrew…
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Struggling To Afford Day School: The STEPPY Syndrome
The call came at 9 p.m. on a recent school night, caller ID informing me that it originated from SAR High School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where my youngest child is a freshman. Expecting a pre-recorded message, I was surprised to hear a familiar voice on the other end: It was the…
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So Done Being a Day School Parent
“Will you miss being a day school parent?” asked the head of school at Milken Community High School of Stephen S. Wise Temple, the largest non-Orthodox high school in the United States. This was last June. My youngest son, Danny, was about to graduate. “I am so done,” I replied. The words flew from my…
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An Unorthodox Education
The first time I set foot in a day school, the principal, a soft-spoken man named Mr. Fishman, gave me a big black yarmulke to wear on my bare head, and I promptly threw it to the floor. At the time, my family was checking out the Orthodox yeshiva where I would start kindergarten a…
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Applied Probability: Day School Plus Mazel
In 1985, I made a Rupert Holmes-style escape from the ghetto known as Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I had been deeply immersed in Jewish life, from conception until college, but as a freshman at Brown University, I was encouraged to explore, even fetishize, the secular world — to such a degree that I boasted about…
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At Ease
The decision to send the three of us kids to the Solomon Schechter School was, I’m told, a difficult one. My mother, who is a daughter of Holocaust refugees and a staunch Zionist, pushed for us to attend. My father, who came from a more typical American Jewish background, worried that we’d emerge from such…
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Terminal Nostalgia
Sure, I have a soft spot for the Blue Jew Yorker, the on-line journal dedicated to the “culture of ecstasy and survival”, because a few of my own works have appeared there. But, even the strictest seekers of objective opinions would be impressed by the rag’s young, crisp and acidic intellectualism, as well as the…
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Standing Against Abortion Restrictions in the Healthcare Bill
As the House and Senate hash out their versions of the sweeping healthcare reform bill in the coming weeks, several crucial women’s health issues hang in the balance. The most high-profile, and controversial, is abortion — the Stupak-Pitts amendment in the House and the Managers Amendment in the Senate would both severely restrict abortion coverage…
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The Women of Israel’s Hit TV Show ‘Srugim’
“Srugim,” the hit television series tracing the love lives of modern Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem, returned this past Sunday to the Israeli cable channel YES! The series — its name is derived from the knit yarmulkes favored by the dati le’umi or religious nationalist boys and men in Israel — has surprised even its creators…
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Books National Jewish Book Award Winners Announced
The National Jewish Book Award winners were announced Wednesday and there’s good cause for excitement. From an illustrated children’s bible to a gripping young adult novel based on the voyage of the M.S. St. Louis, here are the list of winning books: Jewish Book of the Year Award “Louis D. Brandeis: A Life,” by Melvin…
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