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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Carrot and Shtick
For many years of my life, I worried about American poetry and German philosophy. Now that I have kids, I worry about more pressing things. Like religion. Like ethnicity. Like cartoons. Since it’s August, and everyone is on vacation, my editor is feeling more permissive than usual. It seems like a good time to pose…
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Sands of Time: The Oregon Coast
An Ocean View: Vacations at the Oregon Coast, an exhibit running until September 23 at the Oregon Jewish Museum, transports the viewer to the sun-streaked Oregon shores, where American and Jewish cultures have long converged. Inspired by the Jewish Museum of Maryland’s 2005 installment, “The Other Promised Land: Vacationing, Identity, and the Jewish-American Dream,” the…
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Book Center Turns New Page
Twenty-seven years ago, the oft-repeated story goes, a scruffy college student named Aaron Lansky launched a mission to save Yiddish books. Unable to bear the thought of thousands of books being thrown away by an aging generation of Jewish immigrants and their Yiddish-illiterate offspring, Lansky founded the not-for-profit National Yiddish Book Center to complete the…
The Latest
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Hands-On Workshops Spice Up Classes
Every year, nursery school students at the Hebrew Academy of Morris County, a community day school in Randolph, N.J., put down their pencils and crayons and spend a few hours learning about Judaism in a more unusual way. Sometimes, they dive into bowls of flour and water and make homemade matzo, and other times they…
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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…
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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…
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‘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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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