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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A Diary Found, and a World Recovered
The lilt of a Yiddish-Irish brogue is not heard often in northeastern Ohio. But thanks to the efforts of Eudice Landy Gilman, we can now connect Jewish Cleveland to the Emerald Isle. Gilman, 91 — who remembers sitting on the porch of her family’s cottage in Chippewa Lake, Ohio, and listening to her grandmother’s stories…
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A Tree Named Jerusalem
Descartes’ Loneliness By Allen Grossman New Directions, 70 pages, $16.95. Jerusalem is a grave of poets. Name two who are buried there: the poet Dennis Silk is buried there. He lived with a dressmaker’s dummy, in a cave, on the Hill of Evil Counsel due South of Zion Mount. She bore him children after her…
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English Literature, in the Land of Aleph and Bet
It’s a warm October afternoon, and 11 of us are in an airy classroom on the third floor of a university high-rise, talking about a draft of a short story. The writer, a 30-something journalist with a New York accent, quietly takes notes. The prose is strong, we say, the premise promising: a newly discharged…
The Latest
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May 16, 2008
100 Years Ago in the forward While Anna Sternlieb was out shopping, William Meyers was inside Sternlieb’s East 103rd Street apartment, robbing her blind. It just so happened that when Sternlieb was walking back into her apartment, Meyers was about to walk out, but Sternlieb quickly saw what was happening. She grabbed Meyers by the…
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Music Why Do Jews Love Irish Music?
Why do Jews love Irish music? Actually, I didn’t know they did, until Gwen Orel told me so. Writing in The Village Voice, Orel presents some anecdotal evidence that Jews are particularly well-represented in New York’s Irish music scene — which, of course, begs the question: “What makes so many Jewish-Americans with no Celtic heritage…
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Yid Vid: Birthright Enlists Israel’s Reigning YouTube Queens
In the past decade, Birthright Israel has established itself as the Jewish community’s unquestioned leader in providing free Israel trips to young Jews. More recently, it has also become, quite possibly, the Jewish community’s No. 1 patron of the art of YouTube video-making. For its latest effort, Birthright enlists Israel’s leading lip-syncers, Tasha and Dishka,…
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Unterzakhn, Part 10
Read this week’s installment of Leela Corman’s new graphic novel, “Unterzakhn,” which is being serialized in the Forward. (Or, to start at the very beginning, click here). CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW
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May 9, 2008
100 Years Ago in the forward Last year, 17-year-old Esther Sheffer fell in love with Harry Chofetz, who won her heart with his good looks and fine speech. After he promised to make her the happiest girl in the world, she agreed to marry him. Seven months after the wedding, Harry disappeared, leaving poor Esther…
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‘Sean Ferguson,’ Continued
The file on Sean Ferguson isn’t closed yet. A few weeks ago, as you may remember, I brought to your attention a letter received from Forward reader Eldad Ganin with the information that a Jewish resident of Syracuse named Tracy Ferguson may have invented the tall tale of the Yiddish-speaking immigrant who answered “Shoyn fargesn”…
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Yom HaShoah
Here’s the view from Jerusalem on this somber day, courtesy of Jewlicious. Here is a selection of Yom Hashoah-related news and commentary: — Speaking during a ceremony at Auschwitz, Israeli military chief-of-staff Gabi Ashkenazi says, “We have learned our lesson and we take very seriously the threats of state leaders who call for the destruction…
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Film & TV Casting Call: Coen Bros. ISO Bar Mitzvah Boy, Nose-Job Seeker, Wise Rabbi
Minneapolis’s Star-Tribune reports that native sons made good (filmmakers), the Coen brothers, are holding a casting call at the JCC in their hometown of St. Louis Park: Their new film “A Serious Man,” about a Midwestern Jewish family in the late 1960s, will hold an open casting call to fill those roles with performers from…
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