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
-
A Step-by-Step Guide to Peace in Israel
The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace at Last By Bernard Avishai Harcourt, 304 pages, $26. The old adage notwithstanding, everyone judges a book by its cover. When the cover features a subtitle that promises to tell us how lasting peace can be achieved for Israel, the skeptical reader…
-
Versatile Dutch Author Fills an Important Gap
As a young Dutch Jew growing up as part of an Orthodox Jewish family in southern Holland in the 1960s, Leon de Winter turned to Franz Kafka and Isaac Bashevis Singer to understand post-Holocaust Europe. Kafka’s feeling of “seasickness on dry land,” combined with Singer’s “Every human being, even if he is an idiot, is…
-
Don’t Worry About a Maverick in This Campaign
Although I try to keep this a Jewish-language column, sometimes a question is asked of me that offers a pretext for sneaking in an outside issue. Such is a letter I recently received from David H. Margulies of Bethesda, Md. Mr. Margulies writes: “Contemporary political rhetoric has driven me to explore the origin and meaning…
The Latest
-
September 26, 2008
100 Years Ago in the forward In the wake of New York City Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham’s accusation that Jews commit the majority of crime in the city, the Forward received a letter from an actual thief who is currently imprisoned in “The Tombs.” The imprisoned man’s friends brought him copies of the Forward, and…
-
Between Two Cultures: In Jerusalem, a Breakthrough Show of Works by Arab-Israelis
Opening a new exhibition of Arab Israeli art in Jerusalem — the first of its kind at any Israeli museum — are three etchings from the 1970s by Walid Abu-Shakra. At first glance they appear to be simple etchings of a village landscape: desolate and dry, absent of humans, perhaps the remains of an evacuated…
-
God of Judgment, God of Love
As the season of repentance approaches, our Jay Michaelson offers some thoughts on the meaning of judgment, forgiveness and love, and how to think of the Infinite to whom the new year’s prayers will be directed. Every year at this time, for at least the past decade, I have struggled with the theology of atonement,…
-
Trembling Before Allah
One year after the release of “Trembling Before G-d,” the iconic documentary on Orthodox Jewish gay men and lesbians, filmmaker Sandi DuBowski embarked on a project that was both deeply similar and utterly different from his first undertaking. In 2002, DuBowski agreed to produce “A Jihad for Love,” which would explore the plight of gays…
-
Just Say ‘Nu?’: I Remember Mameleh
It all starts with TAteh MAmeh Dad pa Mom ma If the tateh and mameh are yours, and you’re a kid, they’re usually TAteshee/TAtesheh Daddy MAmeshee/MAmesheh Mommy If you’re using any of these as titles in direct address, you use them exactly as they appear above: TAteshee, TAtesheh, LOZ MIKH NISHT aLAYN Daddy, daddy, don’t…
-
Public Displays of Piety Are In Fashion, Thank God
Back in June, I clipped an article by New York Times Egyptian correspondent Michael Slackman about the increasingly ubiquitous use of the word inshallah in Egyptian Arabic. Inshallah is a compression of the three words, in sha’a allah, “if God wills,” and it is widely used by speakers of all dialects of Arabic when referring…
-
September 19, 2008
100 Years Ago in the forward The Tshernovitz Yiddish Conference is one of those events that have attempted to stress the value and importance of our mameloshn, that one-time “jargon,” and to give it a place among the languages of Europe. During the past 25 years, much has occurred, the most important of which has…
-
Bodies in Motion, Separate Solitudes
How does dance begin? “You are who you are. Your spirit received a certain body because you were chosen to,” said choreographer Noa Sagie, 24. “Just accept it. Take what you have and do what you can with it. The magic is discovering you can do anything you want with it. But if you don’t…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
- 2
Books In ‘Something We Said,’ Richard Pryor’s daughter finds words to discuss the unspeakable
- 3
Opinion It’s time for Jews who love Israel to give up on Zionism
- 4
Opinion Trump’s humiliation of Netanyahu marks a sea change in the US-Israel relationship
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish דער קאַמף צװישן טראַדיציע און רעװאָלוציע אין סאָװעטיש־ייִדישער קולטור The battle between tradition and revolution in Soviet-Yiddish culture
סאָװעטיש־ייִדיש איז געװען אַ ראַדיקאַלער עקספּערימענט, װאָס פֿאַרנעמט אַ װיכטיקן פּלאַץ אױף דער װעלטמאַפּע פֿון ייִדישער קולטור
-
News A Jewish nonprofit was training men to prevent sexual abuse. Then the funding disappeared
-
Fast Forward Meet Matt Turner, the only Jewish player on Team USA in the World Cup
-
Sports Swiss World Cup team sets up shop at California Jewish day school’s soccer field