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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A Jewish Family Drama, Minus the Shmaltz
Judaism and parental ambition have been inextricable since the early days — the really early days, back to when old Jacob let his hopes get too high for poor Joseph. (Had Ivy League law schools existed back then, one can only imagine the arguments.) Immigrant tenacity, a tradition of literacy and just plain genetic stubbornness…
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Rare Texts
On November 15, Christie’s will auction off a collection of rare manuscripts from the private collection of the late Salman Schocken. The famous publisher of Franz Kafka, Gershom Scholem and S.Y. Agnon, Schocken was an avid collector of rare Jewish texts. Among the original manuscripts to be auctioned by Christie’s are poems by Hai Gaon,…
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Interfaith Music Hits Disparate Notes
In the grand, world-historical scheme of things, the Renaissance represented a huge leap forward for European Christendom. For Muslims and Jews — well, not so much. Islamic scholars furnished the classical texts that provided the underpinning for much Renaissance thought. Yet by the 15th century, the Islamic world itself had begun the long, slow, backward…
The Latest
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The Sacred Ménage à Trois
The Bible’s stories tell of lives lived so long ago, in such a different clime, we look for difference and find types of ourselves. There are the women of today who choose to be childless, and there are women for whom childlessness is a calamity. Does their calamity compare with that of the Bible’s barren…
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November 11, 2005
100 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD The Forward received an emergency telegram from the Bund in Russia: “The forces of reaction are stretching us to the ends of our strength. The Black Hundreds have organized all over Russia. Jews are being murdered by the thousands. Entire towns and villages have been set ablaze: Akerman, Gaydiatsh,…
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Teach Your Children Well: Tzedaka Restores Justice
The word tzedaka, often translated as “charity,” comes from the Hebrew root tzedek, meaning “justice.” Its current usage was developed by the early rabbis, who recognized that the distribution of resources that results from a free-market economy must be adjusted by other means to ensure a fair society. Tzedaka is an expression of justice rather…
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The Young Face of Philanthropy
Jewish teenagers are learning that tzedaka involves more than slipping a few coins into the collection box at synagogue. In innovative programs around the country, teens are being given control over thousands, or even tens of thousands, of dollars in an effort to teach them the ins and outs of philanthropy — from reading budgets…
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Birthright Israel Builds a Solid Foundation
Birthright Israel is only six years old, but it already has established itself as one of the most successful programs in the Jewish world. Steps are now being taken to make it a permanent part of the Jewish landscape. When Birthright was founded by a handful of innovative philanthropists, “it was an experiment,” said Charles…
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Joshua Venture: Gone for Good, or Ready for a Fresh Start?
After helping to launch some of the Jewish world’s most buzzed-about fledgling organizations in recent years, Joshua Venture closed its doors last spring after only five years of operation. As supporters evaluate exactly what went wrong, some of the group’s major funders have already moved on to new projects. Nonetheless, there is still a chance…
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November 4, 2005
100 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD It seems that nothing happens in Russia without the spilling of Jewish blood. As the tsar tries to save his tyrannous dictatorship, heaps of Jewish dead lay at the roadsides, and rivers of Jewish blood flow in the streets of Odessa, Kherson and about 10 other towns. Drunken pogromists,…
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Ladino: Alive in Song, If Not Speech
For centuries after their expulsion in 1492, Sephardic Jews kept their new homes sounding like medieval Spain. In places as disparate as Amsterdam, Turkey and Greece, the Sephardim continued to live and pray in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language, up until the 20th century. Today there are not many opportunities to hear the language spoken, but…
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