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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Elegy for a Fighter
Barney Ross By Douglas Century Nextbook (Schocken), 205 pages, $19.95. * * *| If attitudes toward Jewish boxers do not offer an all-encompassing symbol of continuing change in the social and cultural tastes of American Jewry, they probably come close. One of the many revealing anecdotes in this marvelously insightful study of the immigrant generation’s…
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The Battle Over ‘Judea and Samaria’
One would expect someone as pro-Israel as The New York Times’ William Safire to know better. In his January 16 On Language column, he wrote: “In wartime, words are weapons; we have seen how Israelis and Palestinians are highly sensitive to connotations in their conflict. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon preferred to refer to land in…
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A Little Too Intimate
The Book of Trouble: A Romance By Ann Marlowe Harcourt, 288 pages, $23. * * *| As Ann Marlowe painfully illustrates in “The Book of Trouble: A Romance,” finding intimacy is not as easy as finding one’s way into someone’s pants. Just as intellectual repartee does not necessarily make for an exciting sex life, a…
The Latest
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The Unity of Opposites
Learning From the Tanya: Volume Two in the Definitive Commentary On the Moral and Mystical Teachings Of a Classic Work of Kabbalah By Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz Jossey-Bass, 384 pages, $24.95. * * *| We Jews: Why Are We and What Should We Do? By Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz Jossey-Bass, 224 pages, $24.95. * * *| Why…
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Heart-to-Heart Talk
Moishe, a man of indeterminate age in doctor’s garb, stands before the massive statues of a pharaoh’s mortuary temple on the west bank at Luxor. As Amelia Edwards noted at Abu Simbel (“A Thousand Miles Up the Nile”), there is an instant at dawn as light flushes the temple that transforms the great stone colossi….
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Holocaust Curriculum Shines Spotlight on Resistance
New Jersey mandated Holocaust education in its public schools more than a decade ago. But until now, something has been missing. The New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education recommended last summer that teachers add a new subject to the standard curriculum about the Shoah: Jewish partisan fighters. Although individual teachers may have broached the subject…
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Coincidentally Israeli Designers
To classify art based on geographical origin is to play a silly game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. The Guggenheim exhibit The Aztec Empire recently showed the dangers of national taxonomies by including works of the Toltecs — whom the Aztecs sacrificed to their gods — and of the Olmecs, who are to…
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Photographer Puts the Whole Jewish World in Focus
Zion Ozeri has made his living photographing Jews all over the world, from the mountains of Yemen to the streets of New York to the jungles of Peru. He has exhibited his work in galleries and museums and has published his photographs in newspapers, books and magazines. And now, Ozeri is bringing his work to…
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Minors in Jewish Studies Make Major Gains
That explains how minor programs became possible, but there’s still the question of motivation: Why would a Catholic school set up a Jewish studies program? “It is part of the aspiration of Catholic colleges to be great colleges,” Fisher told the Forward. “Excellent colleges have Jewish studies; you can’t teach Western civilization without it.” The…
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Celebrating a Composer Who Celebrates Multiple Cultures
Composer Osvaldo Golijov is being celebrated at New York City’s Lincoln Center with a month-long series of performances of his works, titled The Passion of Osvaldo Golijov. Musical America named Golijov composer of the year. His latest release, “Ayre” — based on traditional songs and poems in Ladino, Arabic and Hebrew — evokes the period…
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Adults Explore Faith in Holocaust Class
In the face of injustice and suffering, can one believe in God? Why do bad things happen to good people? How can civilized people torture and murder? In 160 cities around the world, students recently explored these questions in “Beyond Never Again,” a new adult education course about the Holocaust. Chabad’s Jewish Learning Institute offers…
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Holy Ground A Jewish farmer broke ground on a synagogue in an Illinois cornfield. His neighbors showed up to help.
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Opinion I discovered anti-Zionism at the University of Michigan. I’m glad it lives on there
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Opinion An alarming new battleground in campus fights over Israel
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Culture An Israeli genocide scholar looks to Israel’s history to understand ‘what went wrong’
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward From Rutgers speaker to Kristof column, disputed dog rape claim against Israel goes mainstream
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Fast Forward Rand Paul’s son apologizes after reportedly making antisemitic attack on Rep. Mike Lawler
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Fast Forward Long Island school district pays $125K to settle lawsuit over erased pro-Palestinian student art
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Yiddish World 1912 Yiddish operetta tackles class conflict and women’s rights