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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That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
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Getting Chummy
‘Livni mitkasha lihyot sah.bakit,” said a headline in a Hebrew paper the other day. The subject of the headline was Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, now running in a primary contest to replace Ehud Olmert as head of Kadima, the ruling party in the country’s parliamentary coalition. Livni, who is known for her polite but…
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Jewish Schools Feel the Pinch
By all accounts, Isaac Bitton had a pretty good summer in 2007. As owner of the commercial company Apex Suspended Ceilings, he was making enough money to live a comfortable life with his wife and three kids in suburban Los Angeles, and had just opened a new business installing swimming pools in residential properties. As…
The Latest
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Language Educators Rethink Their Hebrew Lessons
Rachel Jackson doesn’t remember learning Hebrew at the Jewish Community Day School, where she spent kindergarten through eighth grade, but something must have stuck: She’s now among the top Hebrew-language students at her Jewish high school. “Things I learned at JCDS, I don’t remember learning, because they seemed to come naturally,” Jackson said. Perhaps that’s…
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New Egalitarian Yeshiva Prepares To Go Full Time
On a recent weekday summer morning on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the second floor of West End Synagogue was buzzing. Thirty-six students, divided into pairs, clustered around tables, poring over open Talmuds. Some of the beginners flipped through lexicons, trying to puzzle out obscure words, while more advanced students debated that day’s text and compared…
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Rabbis Focus on Professional Development
Moses was probably an introvert. That was one of the conclusions reached by the rabbis who gathered at a pro fessional development seminar in Manhattan this summer. As part of the seminar, the rabbis took the Myers-Briggs personality test, which measures how introspective, intuitive and perceptive people are, to better understand how they operated in…
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Israel Textbook Paints a Complex Portrait
A new textbook written for young students presents a nuanced, critical and yet beautiful portrait of Israel, one that is designed to encourage these students to visit the country and embrace their Jewish heritage. “Artzeinu: An Israel Encounter” is an insider’s guide to the geography, history and culture of Israel, documenting the country that exists…
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As Arabic Makes Gains on Campus, Jewish Students Sign Up
After befriending a Palestinian from Ramallah in high school, Tahl Mayer — whose parents are Israeli — decided that he wanted to study Arabic in college. “It’s very important to learn languages,” he said, “because they help bridge the gap between cultures.” Mayer is hardly alone: An increasing number of Jewish students are studying Arabic…
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Farm School Brings Students Back to Their Roots
The Jewish Farm School is a new organization that hopes to bring Jews back to their agricultural roots by giving them a taste of what it means to grow their own food and reconnect with the soil. “We’re missing the people’s deep connection to the land and not engaging in the process of creating the…
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High School Program Strives To Keep Teens Connected
A high-school program that builds upon the success of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, one of the largest networks of Jewish adult education, is helping to keep Jewish teenagers connected to their faith and heritage. The Florence Melton Communi-teen High School — named after the late Florence Melton, a pioneer in Jewish education — encourages…
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Program Aids College-Bound Hasidim
Young men and women raised in Hasidic communities face unique challenges if they want to attend college: Their devoutly religious primary and secondary schools often avoid secular subjects, and many of these schools teach classes in Yiddish rather than English. Students who wish to leave their insular religious communities to study at a university often…
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Y.U. Undergrads Create Shoah Project
Two Yeshiva University students have helped create an outreach project that combines history lessons and multimedia techniques to provide Holocaust education for public high-school students and others outside the mainstream Jewish culture. Avi Kopstic and Yudit Davidovits helped develop the Holocaust Education Outreach Project. Run by college students, the project is modeled after an earlier…
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Fast Forward Rep. Max Miller says driver called him a ‘dirty Jew’ and threatened to kill his family. A local doctor turned himself in.
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Culture Why is Israel’s attack on Iran called ‘Rising Lion’ — and what does the Bible have to do with it?
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News As Israel attacks, what is life like for Jews in Iran?
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion Think speaking out against Trump won’t help? A 1943 protest in Nazi Germany says you’re wrong.
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Culture How a Jewish reporter like me got addicted to Christian media
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Opinion Israeli leaders are using Holocaust comparisons to justify attacks on Iran. Is that kosher?
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Fast Forward Over half of Jewish students at Columbia experienced discrimination and exclusion after Oct. 7, survey shows
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