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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Postwar Germany, Through an African Lens
Somewhere in Germany By Stephanie Zweig, translated by Marlies Comjean University of Wisconsin Press, 280 pages, $24.95. Stephanie Zweig first introduced readers to the Redlich family in her autobiographical novel, “Nowhere in Africa.” Assimilated German Jews who fled Hitler’s Germany in 1938, the family — Walter, Jettel and daughter Regina — spent the war years…
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Directors Without Borders
Jordan’s King Abdullah II recently announced that his country will partner with the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television to create a new film school. The Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts will be aimed specifically toward youth of Middle Eastern background and based in the city of Aqaba — significant for its proximity…
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Winning Works
The Jewish Book Council has just announced the winners of the 2006 National Jewish Book Awards, which will be presented March 6 at New York’s Center for Jewish History. Below are some of the winners that were reviewed in the Forward. Click on the book titles to read the reviews. For a complete list of…
The Latest
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January 12, 2007
100 Years Ago in the forward As people went out to the local vaudeville and variety theaters this past weekend, they discovered that the performers had gone on strike. A huge crowd gathered in front of the Grand Music Hall at Orchard and Grand Streets on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and waited for the strike…
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Total Recall
After seeing Michael Verhoeven’s new movie, “The Unknown Soldier,” and Paul Verhoeven’s new movie, “Black Book,” both of which were presented last month at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival, one arrives rapidly at the conclusion that it is a very bad idea to lie to anyone by the name of Verhoeven. Born just five days…
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Master of the Arts
The Girl With the Gallery: Edith Gregor Halpert and the making of the modern art market By Lindsay Pollock PublicAffairs, 368 pages, $30. This past November 6, on a mild autumn evening, some 150 people gathered in Manhattan at the Spain Restaurant on West 13th Street to toast the publication of Lindsay Pollock’s “The Girl…
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Primo Levi’s First Draft Of History
Auschwitz Report By Primo Levi, with Leonardo De Benedetti Edited by Robert S. C. Gordon Verso, 128 pages, $17.95. Although best known for his seminal work, “Survival in Auschwitz,” Primo Levi’s searing memoir was actually his second attempt to grapple with the enormity of Nazi extermination camps. After the Auschwitz system of camps was discovered…
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Fighting for Survival
The Fighter By Jean-Jacques Greif Bloomsbury USA, 288 pages, $16.95. Every book about the Holocaust seems to open up a new world of horrors. The problem, though, is that we are, in many ways, beyond surprises. You mean they’d shoot a Jew because he is too weak to work? Yes, I’ve heard that. They pulled…
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A Hip-Hop Hitmaker, Straight Outta Shaker Heights
The young guys who stop Jerry Heller in the street these days never ask if he can make them into pop icons like Elton John, or legends like Creedence Clearwater Revival. The young guys who stop Jerry Heller don’t even want to be latter-day Marvin Gayes. These kids all want to be rap stars. It’s…
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Eyeing the Headlines, From the Ivory Tower
In the field of Jewish studies, academic conferences aren’t exactly known for their timeliness. But one panel at last month’s Association for Jewish Studies conference — the largest annual gathering of scholars in the field — proved remarkable for its topicality. Titled “The Danish Cartoons and the Holocaust Analogy,” the discussion — an exploration, in…
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January 5, 2007
100 Years Ago in the forward In an interview in a Minsk synagogue, a local rabbi announced to reporters from the Yiddish press that the best Jewish political party to support is the Bund. While the rabbi insisted on remaining anonymous, he said that because the Duma (Russian Parliament) has nothing to do with religious…
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