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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This Month at Novel Jews
For decades, Richard Stern has been acclaimed as an American master of the short story. His awards include the Medal of Merit for the Novel, given by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Heartland Prize for 1995’s best work of nonfiction. Daniel Stolar finished two years at the Yale University…
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September 2, 2005
100 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD A letter from Lublin, Poland, has arrived in the offices of the Forward, describing a horrific pogrom that occurred a few weeks ago on the night of Tisha B’av. As Jews sat on the floor of the synagogue reciting kinot (elegies) in memory of the destruction of the Temples…
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Gornick’s ‘Attachments,’ Still Fierce
This month, Farrar, Straus and Giroux will republish “Fierce Attachments.” Vivian Gornick’s 1987 memoir. Couldn’t I just say that you must read it? That I am here to insist this book become a banner in the wide world, as it is a banner already in my mind, one I march behind? Gornick’s memoir has that…
The Latest
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A Little off the Top: The Controversy About Circumcision
Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision From Ancient Judea to Modern America By Leonard B. Glick Oxford University Press, 384 pages, $30. * * *| To put it mildly, circumcision is a delicate subject. It’s almost impossible to discuss the matter without cracking a joke, probably because the ritual makes at least 49% of the population…
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Individuality, Indelibly Expressed
The Tattoo Artist By Jill Ciment Pantheon Books, 224 pages, $23. * * *| The earliest recorded use of the word “tattoo” is found in descriptions of a Tahitian ritual, written by British explorer Captain James Cook during a 1769 voyage through the South Pacific. Imported into English vocabularies to describe the indelible body art…
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Who Is That Bearded Man?
Have Israelis forgotten Herzl? Has the man been eclipsed by his famous black beard? Become a kind of George Washington, known but not appreciated? Little more than a street name? Just a mysterious, scowling figure whose image, plastered to the side of a water tank, young sabras pass on their way to the beach at…
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Dating Tefillin
‘Behold,” this week’s portion, Re’eh, begins, “I set before you this day a blessing and a curse.…” Not “or” but “and,” and we, of course, get to choose. It is the doubleness of the portion that speaks to me, for most of what we read in Re’eh is an iteration of the laws of kashrut…
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Orthodox Schools Tackle Drug and Alcohol Abuse
Rifka used to believe that Judaism would insulate her from the addictions that plagued her father. The child of a Christian father and a Jewish mother who divorced when she was a small child, she enrolled in an Orthodox day school with the support of her mother, became devoutly observant and threw himself into community…
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The Sting of Divine Wrath
Swelling over large areas of the body, abnormal breathing, tightness in the throat or chest, dizziness, hives, fainting, nausea or vomiting, persistent pain or swelling — these are among the symptoms of a reaction to the sting of a wasp or hornet. “Seek immediate attention,” medical authorities warn us, “if you are stung in the…
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Chabad Makes Major Inroads at Universities
Toward the end of the spring semester this past May, a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi and about a dozen students celebrated a major victory at Tufts University. After nearly two years of vying for recognition as an official student group at the liberal arts college in Medford, Mass., Tufts’s student government finally recognized Chabad. Rabbi Tzvi Backman…
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Montessori Movement Offers Jewish Educators an Alternative
Ayelet Lichtash has had a busy summer. In the fall, she will welcome the first class to a new preschool in North Bethesda, Md., that marries a regular Jewish curriculum with the principles of Montessori education. Her summer has been consumed with securing zoning, building a playground, recruiting teachers and inspiring parents to sign up…
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