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
-
Fla. Charter School Fuels Church-State Debate
America’s first Hebrew-English charter school is scheduled to open this month — following widespread public debate over its curriculum. The Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood, Fla., will welcome approximately 430 students, from kindergarten through eighth grade, on August 20. Children at the bilingual school will spend two hours each day learning Hebrew, with words…
-
Teachers Take Their Lessons Behind Bars for Jewish Prisoners
Rabbinical students Yisroel Silverstein of Brooklyn and Reuven Brody of Miami Beach, Fla., with their black hats and beards, must have looked out of place this summer on “The Farm.” The Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La., which earned its nickname because it is still a working farm, is the largest and perhaps most infamous…
-
‘Front-Loading’ Campaign Offers a Novel Model for Fundraising
An innovative form of fundraising for Jewish day schools in Chicago has met with great success, and may become a model for future fundraising efforts across the country. The idea is called “front-loading.” Under this arrangement, major donors pledge to donate a certain amount to the local Jewish federation over the next 10 years. The…
The Latest
-
Film To Break Silence Around Anorexia
Addressing a small audience of Orthodox Jews last month, Aliza Stareshefsky talked about the time in her life when she would make herself throw up after every meal. When she was struggling with her eating disorder 15 years ago, Stareshefsky said, very few people in the Orthodox community talked about anorexia or bulimia. “I thought…
-
Web Site Provides Tools To Combat Bias on Campus
A recently launched Web site aimed at combating antisemitism on college campuses has generated “a huge and gratifying response,” according to Kenneth Marcus, staff director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. The commission launched the site — including information about what antisemitism is, what can be done about it and whom to contact…
-
Professor Battles Preconceived Notions About Jews and Race
‘Most people, if they meet a white Jewish person, don’t ask that person, ‘How are you a Jew?’” said Lewis Gordon, a professor of philosophy at Temple University. “Most African American Jews face that all the time.” Gordon says he knows firsthand what it’s like “to have your legitimacy constantly challenged.” After all, he’s black…
-
Etiquette Maven Minds Your Manners
By day, Lorie Rudolph disguises herself as an unassuming insurance agent. “It has to pay the bills,” she said of her job. But come nights and weekends, the 53-year-old from Fayetteville, N.Y., transforms herself into the Jewish Etiquette Maven. Two years ago, Rudolph created an etiquette-training program, JewishEM, to teach children and young adults how…
-
To Bore No More: Educators Share Their Best Ideas
Across the country, individual communities have developed initiatives aimed at improving Jewish congregational schools. Now, a new organization, the Partnership for Effective Learning and Innovative Education, is bringing together educators to help those communities share their most successful efforts. Rabbi Nathan Laufer, founding director of Pelie, said, “We are in business because there are hundreds…
-
Donor Saves L.A. Yiddish Program
A major contribution from an anonymous donor will allow a pilot program that teaches Yiddish to Los Angeles high-school students to survive. Yiddishkayt Los Angeles, a not-for-profit organization devoted to furthering Yiddish in the area, recently received an unsolicited $250,000 gift earmarked for a program that aims to bring Yiddish-language classes into high schools. “It’s…
-
Middlebury To Launch New School Of Hebrew
Visit Middlebury College’s language schools this summer, and you can cheer at a Portuguese soccer game, observe a Chinese cooking class or watch Russian television. Visit next summer, however, and you will be able to order falafel in Hebrew and dance to Israeli folksongs. Middlebury College and Brandeis University have teamed up to create the…
-
Playing the Part of ‘Rav’ for San Francisco’s Karaite Community
By day, Joe Pessah is a marketing applications manager for a tech company in California’s Silicon Valley. In his spare time, however, the 62-year-old Mountain View resident pursues a much more unusual vocation. Pessah is the “acting rav” for America’s largest Karaite community, made up of members of a now-tiny Jewish sect that parted ways…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Inside the ancient Christian theology driving modern antisemitism
- 2
News Jews paused Indiana’s abortion ban — by turning a religious freedom law against the evangelical right
- 3
Culture In 1989, Harold Pinter and Jerry Schatzberg made the perfect Holocaust movie for 2026
- 4
News Mamdani to attend Passover Seder as he navigates ties with Jewish groups amid rising antisemitism
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Two women race to save Persian Jewish music before it fades
-
Opinion Passover liberation and US liberty both summon us to remember and renew
-
Culture 70 years ago, this Jewish choreographer predicted our epidemic of loneliness and isolation
-
Culture Gene Shalit, a mensch with a personality as big as his mustache, turns 100
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
