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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Don’t Talk to the Hand
Leon Kass writes: “Perhaps you can help me with the origin of the Yiddish expression redn tsu der vant, to talk to the wall. Many languages may have such an expression to indicate the futility of efforts to persuade by speech or to gain a hearing for one’s thoughts. But given what became the secularist…
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Getting Sick of Sondheim?
‘But who needs Albert Schweitzer/When the lights are low?” (“Follies”) “Perpetual sunset is/Rather an unsettling thing.” (“A Little Night Music”) Who else but masterful Broadway lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim, who turns 80 on March 22, would have found those rhymes? It’s only fitting that all-star celebrations should be plentiful, like the New York Philharmonic’s…
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We Will Not Stop Dancing
Last August a gunman entered the Aguda building in Tel Aviv and opened fire on the crowd at Bar Noar, a safe space for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. He killed two and wounded a number of others before escaping without trace or identification. Two of the wounded, 15-year-old “Alef” and 19-year-old “Yud” (names…
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March 12, 2010
100 Years Ago in the Forward The saga of the four Jewish bakers who were attacked recently by anti-union thugs outside Messing’s Bakery on Allen Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side continues. Their hearing took place in Essex Market Court before Judge Corrigan, and the magistrate released the thugs on bail after calling for another…
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Obsessively Self-Filming His Vicissitudes
In February 2006, Israeli documentary filmmaker Tomer Heymann traveled to Berlin to present his film, “Paper Dolls,” at the Berlin International Film Festival. One evening, he went in pursuit of the nightlife for which the city is justly famous, and met Andreas Merk, a German choreographer, at the electronic music mecca, Berghain. What started as…
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Backward: A Video
[ ![][2]][2] In the spirit of Purim, Forward staffers set out to learn what New Yorkers knew about Jews. Produced and edited by Allison Gaudet Yarrow []: https://forward.com/backward-purim/
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Purim in Bulgaria – With Kaddish
During the year my husband and I lived in Sofia, Bulgaria, we joined local Jews in observing the annual cycle of religious holidays. All were memorable, but Purim was especially meaningful. In addition to hearing the Megillah’s account of how the Jews of ancient Persia were saved from death at Haman’s hand, Bulgarian Jews recall…
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Letters From Permanent Exile in Argentina
The poetry of Juan Gelman bears urgent witness to the bankruptcy of Argentine morality. Rather than addressing abstract political questions, though, Gelman focuses on the small things: a handkerchief, a conversation on Carlos Gardel, the ways to remember a family moment. He thrives on exploring the quotidian aspects of life under tyranny. How do people…
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Named for a Rapist?
An e-mailer signing herself as only “Phyllis” asks, “Why is the flower that we call a pansy known as *amnon v’tamar *in Hebrew?” In the Bible, Amnon and Tamar are two names that go together. Chapter 13 of the second Book of Samuel relates how Amnon, a son of King David by one of David’s…
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Toppling Hitler’s Role Model
When Vienna-born neurobiologist Eric Kandel won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2000, he took pains to clarify that the honor was awarded to a Jewish American rather than an Austrian. Kandel fled his hometown after the Nazi Anschluss in 1938, and his remark prompted Austria’s then president, Thomas Klestil, to phone him and ask,…
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In Search of Klezmer Goulash
In a Budapest bar, a few Broadway hits my grandmother would enjoy just might be as audacious as things get, for now.
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