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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Books A Book of Insults — Exploring Yiddish Curses
If the classic Yiddish imprecation has an inverse, it is the Irish blessing. While the Gaelic bards gaily start benedictions with “May…” before politely wishing their recipient good fortune (“May the wind be always at your back; May the sun shine warm upon your face”), the Yiddish curse is a spell of invective, typically cast…
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Books Sholom Aleichem: Finding Freedom in America
‘Wandering Stars,” Yiddish master Sholom Aleichem’s comic novel about the Yiddish theater, has just been published in a new translation by Aliza Shevrin. The novel tells the story of Leibl and Reizel, two talented teenagers who flee their backwater shtetl with the help of a traveling Yiddish theater troupe. Sweethearts separated by corrupt theater companies,…
The Latest
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The Wittgensteins and the Waughs: A Tale of Two Unhappy Houses
Very few people can claim to understand all the ideas that Vienna-born philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) advanced in logic, mathematics and language, but thanks to definitive books like Ray Monk’s “Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius” (Penguin, 1991) and Norman Malcolm’s “Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir” (Oxford University Press, 2001), the man and philosopher is getting…
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The Unfolding Drama of Jewish America
Beyond the Golden Door: Jewish American Drama and Jewish American Experience By Julius Novick Palgrave Macmillan, 200 pages. $69.95. Upon finishing Julius Novick’s shrewdly insightful, often quite moving survey of Jewish American drama, “Beyond the Golden Door: Jewish American Drama and Jewish American Experience” — a far more substantive and tasty dish than gruel —…
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Hitler’s Doctor: Treating History in a Novel Way
1940 By Jay Neugeboren Two Dollar Radio, 274 pages, $15.00. Dr. Eduard Bloch had the dubious distinction of serving as the Hitler family physician when Adolf was a boy (from about 1903 to 1907). As a result, he became the only known Jew whose escape from Europe was enabled by Hitler himself. Author Jay Neugeboren…
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February 20, 2009
100 Years Ago In the Forward Reports from Turkey indicate that Jews are suffering pogromlike attacks on their communities — not on the part of Muslims, but perpetrated by Christians. This all began a few weeks ago, in the wake of an election for governor in the Janina region of Turkey. The Christians fielded one…
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Wittgenstein’s Words
From “Notebooks 1914–1916,” 2nd edition (University of Chicago Press, 1984): “One of the most difficult of the philosopher’s tasks is to find out where the shoe pinches.” (p. 60) “Certainly it is correct to say: Conscience is the voice of God.” (p. 75) From “The Blue Book” (Harper & Row, 1965): “For remember that in…
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Murray Perahia: An Eternal Sephardic Jewish Recital
A New York native who relocated to London a couple of decades ago, pianist Murray Perahia is about to launch his latest American recital tour. At 61, Perahia remains a lifelong student with a quest for emotional depth that has expanded steadily over the years. Unlike other pianists who merely record Beethoven, he is preparing…
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Treasuring Felix, Embodying Moses’ Enlightenment in Music
Why do we still feel the need to defend Felix Mendelssohn even in this, the bicentennial year of his birth? In his all too brief lifetime, he was deeply appreciated as the musician most admired by other musicians: as a person, as a colleague, as a performer, but especially as a composer. Mendelssohn was perhaps…
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Livni Bobs Around at Tel Aviv Nightclub, Has a Fan in ‘Livni Boy’
Kadima leader Tzipi Livni is known for her rather stuffy and humorless image. This week she attempted to shake it. Literally. She tried her best to dance the night away, or at least the precise segment of it scheduled by her publicity people, at a party organized by young Kadima supporters at the super-trendy Tel…
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President Carter’s Holy Land Plans
Former president Jimmy Carter has come out with a new book about solving the Middle East conflict. “We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work” (Simon & Schuster) comes more than two years after the publication of “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” (Simon & Schuster, 2006), which was met with a…
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