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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In Defense of the Western Wall
This week, we observe the 17th of Tammuz, beginning the season that commemorates the destruction of the Temple and culminates on the Ninth of Av, which this year will be observed August 10. For many of us, however, the Temple and its remaining Western Wall (the kotel) often evoke more ambivalence than they do wistful…
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July 25, 2008
100 Years Ago in the forward It has been revealed that the famed “Hotel Thief,” who has been burglarizing rooms in some of New York’s fanciest hotels, is one Nathan Levine, formerly of Clinton Street, currently of Sing Sing Prison. Levine, who dressed impeccably and played the role of a wealthy gentleman, would rent rooms…
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A Different Drum: How a Modern Orthodox 23-Year-Old Danced Her Way Into a Unique Spotlight
One of this year’s arts fellows at Drisha, a Torah study center for women that is located on New York’s City’s Upper West Side, is a 23-year-old Barnard College graduate named Anna Schon. As a product of the Modern Orthodox day schools, she blends into the student body easily. But when she is not studying…
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The Theater of War
You don’t have to turn on the evening news to watch live footage from the war zone. Instead, you can turn to the theater district. You’ll find Navy nurses and sailors belting their hearts out to the backdrop of the Asiatic-Pacific Theater in “South Pacific.” Or a three-and-a-half-hour crossfire — with bullets made equally of…
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Just Say ‘Nu?’: Food and Drink, Part 3
Since we’ve already had a glimpse of the main categories of Yiddish food, today we’ll look at everything you need for a balanced meal: vegetable, grains, main courses, a few uniquely Yiddish side dishes and something to wash it all down with. Vegetables BOOrik beet KROYT cabbage MAIR carrot OOgerkeh cucumber KNOBL garlic KHRAIN horseradish…
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A Voice for the Women of Ravensbrück
Jewish Women Prisoners of Ravensbrück: Who Were They? By Judith Buber Agassi Oneworld Publications, 352 pages, $85. In recent times, we have witnessed an increase in testimonies that provide a particularly female voice to the brutalities of World War II. And, more than all the other concentration camps, extermination centers and ghettos combined, the Ravensbrück…
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Daughter of a Voice
Forward reader Barry Seidel of Newark, Del., asks about the origin of the Hebrew expression bat-kol and wonders “how interesting and valuable the concept has been to Jewish thought.” Bat-kol is indeed a unique Hebrew expression that has no real equivalent in any other language that I know of. Literally the “daughter of a voice,”…
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Music Heeb-ish, Not Jewish
The hipster humorists at Heeb Magazine are taking their cool cultural gestalt out West, organizing a music festival in Oakland, Calif. But, they want to be clear, it’s not a Jewish music festival. San Francisco’s always informative (albeit unfortunately named) Jewish newsweekly J. reports that the “Heeb fest won’t include any Jewish programming or content,…
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A Strong Voice Quietly Changing the Cantorate
In 1993, as I was preparing to produce a recorded anthology representing 25 years of my synagogue music, I found myself searching for a particular kind of voice — one that was harder to find than you might expect. I was looking for a cantor who could bring an authentic American/Ashkenazic vocal sensibility to the…
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How Did Jews Choose Their Last Names?
Sam Sherman of Voorhees, N.J., writes: “Many Jewish family names are those of cities in Europe, often with a suffix that means ‘a resident of.’ For example: Berlin-er, Frankfurt-er, Minsk-y, Pinsk-y, Slutsk-y, Posnan-ski, Smolensk-y, etc. But surely these families weren’t known by the names of their cities while they were living there: They must have…
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A Bridge, Yes, But to Where?
Approaching Jerusalem by Highway 1 from Tel Aviv, the mast of architect Santiago Calatrava’s Chords Bridge first rears up from atop a distant ridge, a white bolt against the eastern sky. At 387 feet, the central tower, with its 66 cross-strung steel cables, is now the tallest structure in the city, and its completion has…
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