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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Strategies for Remaining True
Translators of ancient texts, including those who render the Hebrew Bible, not uncommonly confront passages and phrases that do not seem to make sense as transmitted or that, in alternate (and also ancient) wording, fit better into the immediate context. No matter what approach these translators take — from hyper-literal to periphrastic — they must…
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New Docudrama Emcees E=mc2
Arguably the greatest mind of the modern world, Albert Einstein famously would neglect to wear his coat in the dead of winter, absentmindedly misplace his keys and forget life’s little details, like where he lived. So perhaps it’s not shocking that when it came to proving correct his most famous equation, E=mc2, it took the…
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Excerpt: ‘The Alternate’
Each month, in coordination with “Novel Jews,” our reading series in New York, the Forward publishes an excerpt from the work of that month’s series guest or guests. In deference to Yom Kippur, the reading series will not be held in October, but we decided everyone could still meet on the page. Here we offer…
The Latest
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Moses’ 120th Birthday
On his 120th birthday, Moses addresses the Israelite people encamped outside Jericho: I don’t walk as well as I used to, he tells them. (Elsewhere we learn that his powers are divinely undiminished, but we had better be willing to accept two truths for the price of one in life as well as in story.)…
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October 7, 2005
100 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD The city of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., has a growing Jewish community. It also has a strange problem: The trustees of Poughkeepsie’s synagogue were indicted for disturbing the peace. The reason? Apparently, the yearly sounding of the shofar was disturbing the synagogue’s Christian neighbors. Also included in the complaint was the…
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One Nation Under God?
As Senator Dianne Feinstein wrapped up her opening remarks during the hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts, she offered an apparent plea for preserving a robust separation of church and state. “During the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Reformation, and even today,” the California Democrat said, “millions of innocent people have…
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September 30, 2005
100 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD Emmanuel Feigenbaum was already married to three women and was about to marry a fourth when the police intervened. Feigenbaum left his first wife, Yetta, and married Maria Kotter without divorcing Yetta, who had been searching for him. Yetta managed to find Kotter and while they were commiserating over…
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Crafting Modern Midrash in the Form of Fiction
Fallen By David Maine St. Martin’s Press, 256 pages, $23.95. * * *| In this strange time when even ideas about the beginning of the world have become a political battleground, it seems there is no story that so sharply divides as the biblical account of creation. When Arizona Christians lobby to install verses from…
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The Match Heard ’Round the World
In June 1938, 60 million people — half of the American public — tuned their radios to a boxing match in Yankee Stadium. The heavyweight championship pitted Joe Louis, a black American, against Max Schmeling, a German, and the fight served as an undercard of sorts for World War II. Schmeling and Louis had fought…
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From the Yiddish Songbook to the American Canon
There is a shocking, gloriously transcendent moment that occurs nine minutes into “From Shtetl to Swing,” an hour-long documentary about the influence of Yiddish culture on American music. The program is presented October 5 as part of PBS’s “Great Performances.” Until this point in the show, we only have been told that the experience, and…
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Writing a Rarity: The Happy Love Story
Accidents By Yael Hedaya Metropolitan Books, 464 pages, $28.00. * * *| In Yael Hedaya’s world, relationships don’t often work out. “Housebroken,” her first book translated into English (Metropolitan Books, 2001), was chockfull of disastrous interactions — a man and woman try to save their broken union by adopting a stray dog; a young woman…
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