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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Under the Influence
Who were the first Jewish potheads? The Old Testament seems filled with early precursors: Daniel, the interpreter of colorful dreams; Ezekiel, with his visions of flying chariots; perhaps even David, whose tunes of ethereal majesty were conceivably inspired by some seriously bitter herbs. Other scholars might go back to Genesis — Adam and Eve in…
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Channeling the Power of Memory
Judaism Musical and Unmusical By Michael P. Steinberg *University of Chicago Press, 270 pages. $21. * When Michael Meyer published his classic book, “The Origins of the Modern Jew,” more than 40 years ago, that Jew turned out to be German. Because of the fitful and disastrously unsuccessful nature of Jewish emancipation, German Jews confronted…
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Everything Old is New Again
Analogies between music and language abound. Sometimes we liken music to a universal language that is able to transcend ordinary linguistic and cultural boundaries. Sometimes we talk about its innumerable local dialects, the genres and styles that mingle and give rise to yet more idiosyncratic forms. There are limits to these comparisons — scholars note…
The Latest
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A Young Playwright’s Strange Trip
Ambivalence: Adventures in Israel and Palestine By Jonathan Garfinkel W. W. Norton, 358 pages, $25.95. Jonathan Garfinkel’s new book, “Ambivalence: Adventures in Israel and Palestine,” is, in a broad sense, the story of one man and his philosophical, spiritual and romantic crises. Pretty quickly, though, it’s revealed to be about the mostly predictable things that…
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Art That Does Not Hide Itself
Most of the works that appear in the exhibit Idol Anxiety, at the University of Chicago’s David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, feature Christian and pagan content. But exhibit curator Aaron Tugendhaft credits the “heightened awareness” he developed from studying the Talmud as a child with helping him discover “valuable distinctions not seen by…
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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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