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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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…
The Latest
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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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Environmentalism: Good for the Jews
Last Tu B’Shvat, I argued in these pages that Jewish environmentalism must move past the touchy-feely stage of vague values and toothless pronouncements into an authentically Jewish set of responsibilities and demands. This, I claimed, was what our tradition demanded of us. Well, that discussion continues. In response to that article, I’ve been invited to…
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Poetry for a Time Gone Mad
Poets on the Edge: An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry Selected and translated by Tsipi Keller State University of New York Press, 339 pages, $24.95. The second half of the 20th century saw a boom in Hebrew poetry unlike anything since the Golden Age of Spain 1,000 years earlier. Using their evolving vernacular, Israeli poets…
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Galactic Talmudist: The Pebble That Started It All, Rolls Again
Between 1950 and 1969, Isaac Asimov became a publishing industry unto himself. From “Asimov’s Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan,” to “Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts” and “Isaac Asimov’s Treasury of Humor,” he was celebrated as much for his success and prolificity as for his wit, curiosity and erudition. Photographers asked him to pose with his many…
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Walk Softly, Carry a Big ($37,500) Stick
History comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it takes the form of large events that lunge across the landscape, leaving everything else in their shadow. At other moments, history is more a matter of odds and ends, a salute to the power of the serendipitous. The newspapers of late have been full of the…
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Polishing off Your Delicious Ponchkes
Were pa˛czki, *or ponchkes,* a Hanukkah food in Poland? If they were, why didn’t they become one in America, too? And if they weren’t, why did they become one in Israel? With these questions, last week’s column ended. Let’s start with Question 1. The answer to it is apparently negative. In fact, some of your…
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Slippery Cabaret Art
The quirky New York City venue for Israeli-born artist Ofri Cnaani’s current solo show, “A Tale of Ends,” is apt. Le Poisson Rouge, a dimly lit bar, nightclub and gallery in the downtown space once occupied by the venerable Village Gate, bills itself as “serving art and alcohol.” It announces its off-kilter sensibility just inside…
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