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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In Airwaves War, Israeli Army Takes Its Case to Arab Media
JERUSALEM — Eitan Arusy, the Israeli military’s point man in dealing with the Arab media, earned his paycheck May 19. That day, millions of Arab viewers watching the evening news on Al Jazeera were treated to footage from an Israeli army drone. The 10-second clip depicted a missile strike on a group of Hamas members…
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Plan To Revive Biblical Sanhedrin Receives Boost
A nascent effort to re-establish the ancient rabbinical body of the Sanhedrin received a significant boost Monday when world-renowned scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz agreed to serve as the body’s president. The original Sanhedrin, the supreme legislative body in ancient Israel, comprised 71 leading scholars who issued rulings on a wide array of ritual and policy…
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‘Who Is a Taoist?’ Principal’s Job Hinged on Definition
Academic politics are often esoteric and never pretty. But in what appears to be a first, the fate of a middle-school principal in West Orange, N.J., was determined by a rabbinic debate over the definition of “who is a Taoist.” For months, Aaron Kriegel, a pulpit rabbi in West Essex, N.J., has urged officials at…
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June 10, 2005
100 YEARS AGO • As is well known, the Bund is the most active Jewish self-defense organization that works to protect the Jews during the wave of pogroms that has recently engulfed the Pale of Settlement. It is our duty to help the Bund arm Jews so that they can protect themselves. The Bund’s Central…
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A Buried Treasure, Unearthed by Chance
In 2000, Time Magazine asked its Israel photographer, David Rubinger, to help the magazine put together its “Century” issue, dedicated to great images of the 20th century. Rubinger — himself an Israel Prize-winning photojournalist, famed for his image of Israeli paratroopers at the Western Wall during the 1967 War — began working on the project….
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June 3, 2005
100 YEARS AGO • A wild episode occurred this week in Max Solomon’s 19th Street skirt factory, located in New York City. The factory employs 400 workers. One of them, a presser, walked into the boss’s office to ask for his paycheck. When the boss said he didn’t have it, the presser demanded his pay….
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The Man Behind The Equation
Albert Einstein looms over the 20th century. He was undoubtedly the greatest intellect of the past 100 years, a man whose very name is now synonymous with “genius.” His rise to fame began on June 30, 1905, when a German physics journal published a seemingly innocuous article titled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” —…
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Finding Comedy in the Conflict
When choreographer David Dorfman toured with his dance company, he often sought out local rabbis to ask, “Who are the chosen people?” After listening to a thoughtful response, Dorfman’s standard follow-up question was, “Does that mean everyone else is un-chosen?” An obsession with questioning belief systems — and a healthy sense of humor — has…
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A Look Back at a Different Book Burning
Exactly 60 years ago, a group of individuals assembled to burn the prayer book of a Jewish leader and to ostracize him from community life. This event occurred not in Europe but in Manhattan, and the book burners were not Nazis. They were Jews. On June 12, 1945, at New York City’s Hotel McAlpin, the…
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Generation Birthright Grows Up
The Task of This Translator By Todd Hasak-Lowy Harcourt, 272 pages, $13. * * *| Raymond and Hannah By Stephen Marche Harcourt, 216 pages, $14. * * *| Light Years By Tammar Stein Knopf, 272 pages, $15.95. * * *| There was a time when you hardly ever picked up an American novel or story…
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Fathers and Sons
From across the kitchen table, Bobby asks, “You want your firstborn son to die on a battlefield?” “Don’t be ridiculous.” Phil Gutman shakes his head. “We’re talking registration with the Selective Service, that’s all. You’re 18. It’s the law.” “I’ll be drafted to Iraq. We already did the Babylonian exile thing a long time ago,…
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