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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Why Straight People Go to Gay Synagogues
In the next few weeks, gay and lesbian synagogues and Jewish organizations will be marching in New York, San Francisco and other cities around the country as part of gay pride parades. But many of the people marching won’t be gay themselves: More and more “gay” or GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) synagogues have…
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My Name is Apostle Lev
I wasn’t thinking about Mormons on March 4, when I tweeted about my review of “My Name is Asher Lev.” Thirty-six minutes later, I heard from William Morris, an expert on Mormon arts and culture. “Excellent review,” Morris noted. “For (I believe) obvious reasons, ‘My Name Is Asher Lev’ is very popular with Mormon writers…
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Looking at Hezbollah With Hamas in Mind
Hezbollah: A Short History By Augustus Richard Norton Princeton University Press, 216 pages, $12.95. Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah Edited by Nicholas Noe, translated by Ellen Khouri Verso, 420 pages, $19.95. Hezbollah: The Story of the Party of God By Eitan Azani Palgrave Macmillan, 308 pages, $89.95. With the elections in…
The Latest
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Chewing the Fat in Mecca, Medina, Damascus…
The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East By Neil MacFarquhar Public Affairs, 359 pages, $26.95. Having seen more than enough violence during a decade-long stint as a reporter in the Middle East, Neil MacFarquhar branched out from his beat as Cairo Bureau Chief at…
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Working Ourselves Into a Real State
The term “Jewish state” has been much in the news lately in two different but clearly related contexts. The first is the demand of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that the leaders of the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as “a Jewish state” before Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resume. The second is the Israeli Knesset’s passing on a…
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A Yiddish Pilgrimage to Quebec
For the first time, an international Yiddish theater festival will convene, bringing together troupes from Israel, Poland, France, Romania, New York and Montreal. The festival is sponsored by and will take place at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts in Montreal from June 17 – 25, 2009. This historic event will also include lectures, films,…
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The End of Jewish Humor
Uh oh. Judaism is dying. Again. The cover of the June 1 “New York Magazine” is devoted to an article declaring “the end of Jewish humor.” The proof? Woody Allen’s new movie, “Whatever Works,” starring Larry David. Allen and David supposedly represents the last of the old generation of Jewish humor rooted in existential discomfort…
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Offbeat Israel: Why Is the Jerusalem Post Producing the ‘Boringist’ Video?
Israel practiced for war on Tuesday As part of a week of nationwide drills that have taken simulations of wartime civil defense operations to every town and city in the country, bomb sirens sounded at 11 a.m. Civilians, including school and kindergarten children, made their way in to bomb shelters or reinforced rooms, in a…
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Our God and God of our Children?
Contemporary American Judaism: Transformation and Renewal By Dana Evan Kaplan Columbia University Press, 480 pages, $34.50. Orthodox Jews in America By Jeffrey S. Gurock Indiana University Press, 400 pages, $65.00 (hardcover), $24.95 (paperback). Since the end of World War II, Dana Evan Kaplan argues in “Contemporary American Judaism,” “not only have the style and substance…
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The Racists Around Us
Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement From the Margins to the Mainstream By Leonard Zeskind Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 672 pages, $37.50. To most Americans, including seasoned political observers, the machinations of white supremacists and professional antisemites are regarded, if at all, as crude carnival theater. After more than three decades…
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Jews in Space
In space no one can hear you scream. But can they hear you kvetch? I’m sitting in a movie theatre, watching the new Star Trek Movie. On screen, a group of Star Fleet recruits, including a Jewish actor or two, climb into a space shuttle and strap themselves in. My eyes wander from neck to…
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