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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Righteous Indignation: How Are We To Understand the Alleged Spinka Scandal?
The Hasidic Rebbe, or “Grand Rabbi,” is no ordinary Jewish spiritual leader. Unlike rabbis in other denominations, from Reform to the fervently Orthodox, the Rebbe in Hasidic communities is much more than a teacher, adjudicator of Jewish law and community leader. He is nothing less than a conduit between his followers and the Heavens; a…
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People Of the Chapbook: Jewish Poets as Jewish Teachers
Not many people know it, but Jewish poetry is alive and well. The neglect is surprising, really, since we are, after all, the People of the Book, and we allegedly cherish our poets, from the ancients to Amichai. But perhaps it’s not so surprising, given our contemporary culture, which (poets laureate notwithstanding) relegates poetry to…
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A History of Us: ‘The Jewish Americans’ Hits the High Notes
The Jewish Americans PBS, January 9, 16, 23 The Jewish Americans By Beth S. Wenger Doubleday, 388 pages,$40. About halfway through the first installment of David Grubin’s three-part documentary “The Jewish Americans,” a voice-over reads an 1862 letter from a northern Jewish officer, one Marcus Spiegel. In it, Spiegel explains to his wife why it…
The Latest
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The Return of Eduard and Fanni
Much has been written about efforts to reclaim art looted from Jewish families during the Holocaust. Many of these stories involve valuable works by such well-known artists as Gustav Klimt, Camille Pissarro and Egon Schiele. But this is a Holocaust art story of a different stripe. The paintings in question have little commercial value, but…
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Amen
My daughter will not go to sleep without “amen.” It has become a habit. She says the word if I forget. We say together the shema, And amin m’amin. Sometimes we say it to the dog. Sometimes we say it to the bear, Or to the Eeyore toy — her favorite character, Which worries me….
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In Thailand, an Unusual Exhibit
The recent history of photographer Yishay Garbasz’s family is a story of migration, elected and forced. Garbasz’s mother, Sala, was born in Berlin. She took refuge from the Nazis in Holland, was deported to concentration camps in Czechoslovakia and in Poland, and finally made her way to Palestine. His father, Jack, was sent to Australia…
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Uh, What’s a Schwa?
In a discussion several days ago of the deletion in spoken American English of the word “of” in the expression “a couple of,” so that “a couple of friends” becomes “a couple friends,” New York Times language columnist William Safire wrote: “The couple of… merges into couple a (which I would spell coupluh). As I…
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Film & TV Sneak Peek: The Bielski Brothers on the Silver Screen
Have a look here at the trailer for “Defiance,” Ed Zwick’s take on the story of the Bielski brothers, who organized what is widely considered to have been the largest group of Jewish partisans during World War II. The movie stars Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber, among others, and is set for release in late…
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Brandeis Professor Explores ‘Sex and the Shtetl’
The timing could not have been better. When ChaeRan Freeze completed her coursework toward a doctorate in Russian Jewish history in 1993, it was just as the doors to the archives in Moscow and St. Petersburg were beginning to swing open. As a result, she was among the first to request long-untouched troves of material…
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Mikveh Mysteries, Solved
Forward reader Gertrude Frankel writes: “I have been trying, since seeing the movie ‘Little Jerusalem’ (in which such a figure is a great help to a married woman whose husband has strayed), to find out what the name is for the female attendant in the mikvah. I have asked a rabbi, a Hebrew teacher, and…
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To Black and Back: Viewing the Work of Austrian Director Alex Corti at the New York Jewish Film Festival
A man awakes one morning to discover he has become an insect — hideous, despised and hunted. The world around him looks much the same as it ever has, but he can tell by the piteous looks of those around him that he himself has changed, and can never again be who he once was….
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