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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August 24, 2007
100 Years Ago In the Forward Solomon Teitler and his wife, Celeste, were recently arrived immigrants from Vienna. Because the Teitlers were people of means, they were able to find a good home quickly. Shortly thereafter, while enjoying themselves in a Hungarian café on Manhattan’s Second Avenue, they made the acquaintance of one Arthur Levy,…
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Books Goodbye, Grace
Writer Grace Paley died yesterday. A New York Times obit says that, “In a sense, her work was about what happened to the women that Roth and Bellow and Malamud’s men had loved and left behind.” Paley was 84.
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A Theater of War
Shloyme Zynstein was a powerful force in the rebirth of Jewish culture in the displaced persons camps of postwar Germany. Zynstein, his wife, Rachel, and their two young children lived at the Bamberg DP Camp in the American section of occupied Germany from 1945 to 1947, and it was there that he founded the Bamberg…
The Latest
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For Dystonia Sufferers, New Film Hits a Nerve
When she was 10, Miriam Kimmelman began to lose control of her body; it would twist into a variety of abnormal postures. The symptoms progressed fast. Before long, she could walk only backward. After seeing about 100 doctors in two years, she was diagnosed with dystonia, a neurological disorder that affects more than 300,000 Americans….
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Crocodiling in Esperanto On the Streets of Hanoi
Hanoi, Vietnam – A few weeks ago, on a sultry day in the western reaches of Hanoi, I crocodiled with an Australian. I also alligatored with a Nepalese and, with a charming young woman from Madagascar, I caymaned — in French. Most of the time, however, I was trying hard to speak Esperanto, the most…
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Yid Vid: Was Moses a Satmar?
Ever wonder whether Moses was a Hasid or a Misnagid? Herewith, the answer: Hat tip: Der Royter Rov
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Revising Revisionist History
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy By Adam Tooze Viking, 832 pages, $32.95. A Shadow of Red: Communism and the Blacklist in Radio and Television By David Everitt Ivan R. Dee, 432 pages, $27.50. A cursory search of the Internet, which is the latest and perhaps most perplexing form…
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The Unintended Consequences Of Promoting Democracy
Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy By Amitai Etzioni Yale University Press, 336 pages, $27.00 In the eyes of Amitai Etzioni, the Soviet Union’s relegation to the dustbin of history hasn’t changed the fact that what is left of the former empire remains the greatest threat to international security on the world stage….
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Host and Hosted
Noreen Jacks asks: “Can you please tell me if the Hebrew word for hospitality means the same as does the Greek philozenía or ‘love of strangers’? Is there a word for hospitality with the root of the Hebrew word nokhri, ‘stranger,’ in it?” No, there isn’t. The Hebrew word for hospitality is hakhnasat-orh.im. If we…
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One Big, Happy Family
Historically speaking, Jews have hardly been strangers to the art of drawing sharp distinctions among themselves. But according to a mounting body of scientific evidence, Jews — genetically speaking, at least — may have more in common than anyone previously suspected. A year ago, Michael Seldin, a geneticist at the University of California Davis School…
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Philanthropist Puts Genetic Diseases to The Test
As someone who has lost two daughters to familial dysautonomia, Lois Victor knows all too well the pain that can be wrought by genetic disease. But rather than wallow in her suffering, Victor decided to take action. She has been the driving force behind two major new centers specializing in Jewish genetic diseases, and by…
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