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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What’s the Right Course for the Religious Left?
The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right By Michael Lerner HarperSanFrancisco, 416 pages, $24.95. Christian right thinkers often argue that secularism is itself a religion. Enlightenment rationalism, they’ll say, is based on the same kind of faith as biblical literalism. In their 2005 book “Lord of All: Developing a…
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The Restless Opera Company
Many musicians can trace their choice of career to an act of teenage rebellion. But Eric Stern may be one of the few whose youthful bad-boy urges led him to opera — though, to be fair, his Vagabond Opera ensemble is not your standard opera company. Nor is Stern your standard opera singer. Stern’s parents…
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Angels & Demons
On the eve of the release of Freida Lee Mock’s new documentary “Wrestling with Angels,” a glimpse into the post-9/11 world of playwright/activist Tony Kushner, the Forward’s Gabriel Sanders caught up with the writer to see what he thought of the film. One problem: Kushner can’t stand seeing himself on tape and hadn’t yet brought…
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Celebrating Steve Reich
Few composers in history have had the broad and diverse influence on music enjoyed by Steve Reich, whose 70th birthday this month is being celebrated literally around the globe. In his birthplace, New York City, for example, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Brooklyn Academy of Music are collaborating to present a month of performances. Such…
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October 13, 2006
100 Years Ago in the Forward During the last few weeks in one Williamsburg, Brooklyn, neighborhood, 24 houses have been broken into and numerous people have been robbed on the street. The police, therefore, were eager to catch those responsible. When they caught the culprit, it turned out to be a 16-year-old boy by the…
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‘Stardust Lost’
On a pleasant June evening that year, Manhattan’s original odd couple strolled down Second Avenue. The tall man with black beard and dark, deep-set eyes was Jacob Gordin, now a dominant presence on the Lower East Side. With loud voice and spirited gestures, the Russian immigrant went on about his adaptations of Shakespeare and his…
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Stage Killing
A little more than a century ago, New York’s Yiddish-speaking world was rocked by an attempted murder-suicide involving a member of one of the leading theatrical families of the day. Some 102 years later, I came across an elliptical mention of the incident but could find no more information about it in English. To figure…
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End of an Era
Who owns history? That question has proved to be a thorny one regarding the treasure trove of archives that once lived in New York City at 31 East 7th Street. The contents of that building are the remnants of the now-defunct Hebrew Actors Union, and, with the union officially disbanded, issues of ownership of the…
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Between Yiddishland and Broadway
Not long ago, I went to The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center to examine some old Yiddish theater photographs. Historic photos must be viewed in the inner sanctum of the library — a separate space where you can’t bring in personal paraphernalia, can’t use pens, can’t even whisper. When…
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A Marquee for the Ages: The First Season of Maurice Schwartz’s Theater
The first season (August 1918 – May 1919) of Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theater opened at the 900-seat Irving Place Theatre, built as a German theater, in New York City’s Union Square. Schwartz’s repertory company lasted more than 30 seasons. The original cast of 15 principals (plus often dozens of extras) included Schwartz, Celia Adler,…
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The Irish and the Yiddish Theaters
How does an Irish Catholic become a translator of Yiddish drama? It’s a question I am asked, over and over. The short answer is that I came to study Yiddish literature, and later Yiddish theater, through my love of the Anglo-Irish and Gaelic literary traditions. The longer answer requires a bit of history. The Irish…
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Yiddish שילאַ רײַך, באַליבטע ייִדיש־לערערין אין לאָס־אַנדזשעלעס, איז אַוועקSheila Reich, beloved LA Yiddish teacher, has died
אין קלאַס זענען די סטודענטן אָפֿט געווען אױף פֿאַרשידענע ניװאָען אָבער זי האָט זיך אָפּגעגעבן מיט יעדן באַזונדער.