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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A Cross-Denominational Approach to High School in the U.K.
To send her 11-year-old son to a Jewish high school was an obvious decision for Helena Miller, who until recently was director of education and development at a rabbinical college in London. But Miller noted that the process wasn’t as simple for the parents of some of her son’s friends: Their children were denied admission…
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Orthodox Institute Launches New Teacher Program
The Jerusalem-based Shalom Hartman Institute is gearing up to challenge the common understanding of the term “rabbi.” Over the centuries, “rabbi” has come to denote a person qualified to make judgments in Jewish law. But the original connotation was meant to describe a teacher. This fall, the Orthodox-run but pluralistic institute will launch a program…
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Guns With No Bloodstains
Michael Carasyk writes from Philadelphia: “It might be time for a column on the Hebrew expression *tohar ha-neshek, *which I haven’t heard in a while.” The Hebrew words *tohar ha-neshek *— literally, “the purity of arms,” or “the purity of the gun” — are known to every Israeli, and they refer to the moral duty…
The Latest
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Victor Borge, Now More Than Ever
Back in the days of great Jewish classical musical virtuosi like Jascha Heifetz and Vladimir Horowitz, parents put grim pressure on their children to attain equivalent stardom. Sometimes, the careerist stress attached to childhood music lessons resulted in the unintended creation of musical comedians, like the giddy French-Jewish cabaret pianist Jean Wiéner (1896–1982), who melded…
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Falling With a Thud: Levi on Levi (and Galileo)
‘Falling Bodies” begins with a march recalling “*L’histoire du Soldat” *(“The Soldier’s Tale”), but understandably, without Stravinsky’s jaunty, off-kilter sensibility. Then the two actors begin a dialogue that seems to ask the tasteless question: Did Primo Levi fall to his death faster than a pasta pot? Or, maybe we should rephrase that: Did he fall…
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January 30, 2009
100 Years Ago in the Forward Rosie Korelitz, a cook in Malbin’s Restaurant on Manhattan’s Grand Street, went to sleep a poor woman, but two days later she woke up rich. When she got out of bed, she was met by a landsman who had just arrived from Mir, a town near Minsk. He gave…
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Part I: Writing in My Father’s Footsteps
This is a story of loyalty and betrayal. It’s a story of bravery and subtlety, of mortal stakes on a global stage. It is also a thrilling story filled with “cloak-and-dagger elements,” featuring storied American men both famous and infamous: Harry Truman, Mickey Marcus, Hank Greenspun, Jimmy Hoffa and Charles Winters (the man who was…
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Sweet Voices of Seduction: An Excerpt From ‘Wandering Stars’
To read an essay about “Wandering Stars” by Dara Horn, click here. After the meal, and after Sholom-Meyer’s little speech, and after the cantor’s wife had cleared the table and the cantor said grace, the director felt it was time to get to the matter for which they had come. First he lifted his top…
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Sholom Aleichem: A Star Shines Brightly
To read an excerpt from a new translation of “Wandering Stars,” click here. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sholom Aleichem. To celebrate the occasion, a number of events have been planned, and several new translations of his work will be released. On February 9, “Wandering Stars,” his novel about the…
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A Teacher’s Toolkit for Tackling Tough Issues
On a recent Sunday morning, the third graders at Congregation Brothers of Israel Religious School, in Newtown, Pa., had just settled in for a snack. “There’s this little girl who’s adorable, 8 years old,” recalled Joan Hersch, the school’s principal. “And this boy in her class said: ‘You’re fat. You don’t need that doughnut. I’m…
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Report: Israeli Education Gets a Failing Grade
Israel, you may have heard, produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation, by a large margin — 109 people per 10,000. Twenty-four percent of the Israeli work force holds university degrees, ranking the country third in that category in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland. Israel also claims the…
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