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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The Borrowers Aloft: The Strange Case of Rembrandt, Picasso, Schama, and Cohen
In Paris, art gazers have been lining up in droves for “Picasso and the Masters,” this season’s blockbuster show at the Grand Palais. There’s also “Picasso and Manet” at the Orsay and “Picasso and Delacroix” at the Louvre. Never before has the mighty Spaniard’s communing with — and cribbing from — great artists of the…
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Every Word of Oscar-winning Oscar
**The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II ** By Oscar Hammerstein II Edited by Amy Asch Alfred A. Knopf, 448 pages, $65. Strange as it is, “The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II” is, like its subject — and unlike its hero — a musical in its own right. Physically Broadway-sized (11.6 by 10.8 and…
The Latest
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Girls Just Want to Have Fun (And Do Their Duty)
Over the years, much has been made of American Jewry’s child-centeredness, of its determination to transform ancient holidays like Hanukkah into fun-filled occasions designed to appeal to the most youthful members of the community. But what of its teenagers? Has American Jewry effectively reckoned with that element of the population? Has it successfully integrated its…
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No Fear For Veil: France’s Newest Academician
On November 20, when the French-Jewish politician Simone Veil (pronounced Vay), 81, was elected to the prestigious Académie Française, her family took the news with typical self-deflating humor. Her husband, Antoine, exclaimed: “First she’s in the Grévin wax museum and now the French Academy. I hope all this isn’t leading to the Panthéon!” Veil, known…
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Lazarus Tongues in Israel and Ireland
Kevin Barry, a graduate student in history at the University of Delaware, has sent me a paper he has written that compares the successful revival of Hebrew as a spoken language in 20th-century Palestine/Israel to the failed attempt to revive Gaelic in 20th-century Ireland. Although I once touched on this subject years ago, I did…
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December 19, 2008
100 Years Ago in the forward An unusual case is currently being heard in the courtroom of Judge Hendrick in the New York State Supreme Court, where a blind Jewish sweatshop worker is suing his boss for $100,000 in damages for stealing his wife and getting her pregnant. Fabric company owner Simon Schultz stands accused…
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Coming Out: It’s the Jewish Thing to Do At Hanukkah
This month marks the occasions of Christmas and Hanukkah — and the two-year anniversary of the decision by the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards that homosexuality does not violate Jewish law. Although these three events may not seem related at first, I think that each one informs the other in meaningful ways….
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Music Shtick and Awe: Daniel Barenboim in New York
You’d think Godzilla, or at least an enemy flotilla, had stormed the gates of the city, the way the media has trumpeted the news; the Financial Times announces, “Daniel Barenboim has invaded New York.” The 66-year-old pianist-conductor, born in Buenos Aires to a family of Russian Ashkenazic Jews who later immigrated to Israel, is definitely…
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Graphic Confessions of Jewish Women
Before you even see her face, Vanessa Davis’ naked breast makes an appearance in the first panel of “Spaniel Rage,” her acclaimed book of diaristic comics. She’s vomiting into a garbage can on page two. By the third page, she’s servicing two clowns in an X-rated thought bubble. Rude? Shocking? Indecent? Try “charming, funny, and…
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The 1-in-5 Majority
Comic strip by Eli Valley. Click on the thumbnail for a larger version. Eli Valley is finishing his first novel. His comics appear monthly in The Forward, and his website is www.evcomics.com.
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Yiddish Poetry: Up Close and Personal
With Everything We’ve Got: A Personal Anthology of Yiddish Poetry Edited and Translated By Richard J. Fein Host Publications, 218 pages Hardcover $35.00, Softcover $17.50. While every process of translation involves a dialogue between the work and the person rendering it into a foreign tongue, many translators go to great pains to play down that…
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