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
-
America Gets a New Tocqueville
Following in the footsteps of his countryman, famed French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy — or BHL, as he is widely known — will release “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville,” the result of a yearlong journey through America. Though Lévy is careful not to compare himself with Tocqueville — the 19th-century French aristocrat…
-
Deli Maker Finds Delicious Way To Raise Funds
The heads of Abeles & Heymann Gourmet Kosher Provisions are thinking about hot dogs in a whole new way. Concerned about the rising costs of education at Jewish day schools, A&H co-presidents Seth Leavitt and David Flamholz have decided to take action. They recently launched A&H for ABCs, a yearlong initiative in which a percentage…
-
January 20, 2006
100 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD In New York, Sam Abelman’s First Street Saloon became the scene of a wild brawl after Abelman and his barkeep demanded payment of 10 cents from a group of about a dozen men who were playing billiards there. Abelman’s request for the dime was met with a barrage of…
The Latest
-
Protecting Jewish Health
A new exhibit at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York highlights the history of a little-known organization called Society for the Protection of Jewish Health. Assistant Curator Jesse Aaron Cohen offers a preview of “Fighting for a Healthy New Generation,” which was curated by Krysia Fisher. In 1912, the Obshchestwo Zdravookhraneniya Yevreyev…
-
Day School in N.Y. ‘Adopts’ Gaza’s Displaced Students
It started as a simple letter-writing campaign: The students at an Orthodox boys’ school in Monsey, N.Y., sent notes expressing their sympathy to kids their age who were forced to move last summer when Israel evacuated settlements in Gaza and parts of the West Bank. But then the project grew, and soon Yeshiva Darchei Noam…
-
‘Intelligent Design’ Battles Rage On
Advocates of teaching Intelligent Design in public schools suffered a major loss last month, when a judge in Dover, Pa., struck down a proposed curriculum based on the concept. But this was not the last word on the subject. In fact, battles over Intelligent Design continue to rage, with fronts spreading across America. Parents in…
-
How To Define Intolerance? A Roman Quandary
In late February 1997, a group of Roman artists and intellectuals met to prepare for the millennium. Unlike its cultish counterparts, this group did not expect any universal shifts to come with the year 2000. The members believed that life in the 21st-century would probably look much like it did in the 20th, and the…
-
Day Schools Balance Science, Religion
Since they are private institutions, Jewish day schools do not face church-state issues when it comes to teaching about creation. Nonetheless, the subject still poses challenges for day school educators. “Families who choose religious education do so with the understanding that schools will take on issues of morality, faith and theology,” said Dr. Marc Kramer,…
-
Catholic Colleges Give Jewish Programs a Lift
A cross balances atop the spire of Lyons Hall on Boston College’s campus. But a hint of a Jewish presence — a small Israeli flag — is visible through one window of the Gothic-influenced building. That’s the office of Maxim Shrayer, chair of the Slavic and Eastern languages department — which is also the home…
-
Shabbat Shalom – Genealogy, Origin, and History of the Quintessential Sabbath Phrase
Berel Lang of Wesleyan University writes to ask if I would “consider tracing the genealogy of the Hebrew Sabbath greeting ‘Shabbat Shalom’ — specifically, when it entered popular discourse.” And he continues: “My hunch is that it is a) modern and b) secular, that is, deriving from the generally nonreligious world of Zionist pioneers in…
-
Foundation To Send Hebrew School Teachers to Israel
Phyllis Osher, who has been teaching Hebrew school students about Israel for years, has not been there herself since 1982. That will change in August, when Osher goes to Israel on a new program of the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation, which will pay for 40 Hebrew and pre-school teachers to go to Israel for…
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
- 2
Fast Forward First Puka Nacua, now Mookie Betts: Why do sports stars keep getting antisemitic around a Jewish streamer?
- 3
Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
- 4
Opinion I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish ווידעאָ: היסטאָריקערין וויווי לאַקס באַשרײַבט געשיכטע פֿון לאָנדאָנער ייִדישער פּרעסעVIDEO: Historian Vivi Laks tells history of the London Yiddish Press
שבֿע צוקער פֿירט דעם שמועס מיט וויווי לאַקס און ביידע לייענען פֿאָר עטלעכע פֿעליעטאָנען פֿון יענע צײַטן.
-
Yiddish World Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’
-
Culture We tried to fix Hallmark’s Hanukkah problem. Here’s the movie we made instead
-
Fast Forward Holocaust survivor event features a Rob Reiner video address — recorded just weeks before his death
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism