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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Swimmers Who Made Their Mark –– Out of the Pool
In the summer of 1936, as the world’s greatest athletes convened in Berlin for their quadrennial competition, the Austrian contingent was lacking its champion swimmer, a young woman who had broken 12 national records that year. The athletic entourages of all the countries of the world streamed past the viewing stand in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium,…
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Muselmann in the Camps
Marvin Friedman of San Francisco would like to know the source of the word “Muselmann” as used by inmates of the Nazi death camps to describe their fellow prisoners who had given up all hope and thus lapsed into a state of despairing apathy. “I know,” he writes, “that the word literally means ‘Muslim’ in…
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January 14, 2005
100 Years Ago • It has already been three weeks since cap makers have gone on strike and the machines in their shops have stopped operating. The shop bosses have been busy looking for scab laborers to send into the shops — but not long after they begin working, they also join the picket lines….
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The Bible’s Babies
Some 50 years ago, on a radio program called “Invitation to Learning,” Mark Van Doren argued that we betray biblical literature by reading it as literature instead of sacred text. I have always remembered this and sadly. If it’s so, the deficit is mine. I read the book not as a believer but as a…
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Youth Group Prepares Outreach to Yeshiva Officials
Gay students often have a particularly difficult time in Orthodox schools. One young gay man to whom the Forward spoke — he asked to be identified simply as Chaim, since he is not out of the closet to most of his friends and family — recalled his experiences at a yeshiva in New York. The…
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Reform, Conservative Movements Collaborate on Principal Training
The educational arms of the Reform and Conservative movements are cooperating in an unprecedented way on a new project. Reform’s Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and Conservative’s Jewish Theological Seminary both have agreed to provide faculty and funds for the Leadership Institute for Congregational School Principals. “This is a historic moment for…
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Workshops Challenge the Deafening Silence Around Gay Issues
Three years ago, a study conducted by the LGBT Education Collaborative about how Jewish schools deal with sexual diversity — one of the first studies of its kind — found that many educational institutions maintain a “deafening” silence on the subject. That is beginning to change. Mosaic: The National Jewish Center for Sexual and Gender…
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Day Schools Learn To Sell Themselves In a Competitive Educational Market
When Michael Raileanu moved to Forth Worth, Texas, in 2003, he was shocked to learn that many Jews there were unaware of the Fort Worth Hebrew Day School, the only Jewish academy in town. Raileanu was personally troubled, and for a good reason: He had relocated from Los Angeles to become the school’s new director….
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December 31, 2004
100 Years Ago • Sam Fefferman ran a dry goods store on New York City’s Orchard Street. Things were going well for him and he decided to expand. Therefore he hired one Mendel Frucht to stand outside his store with a pushcart. For this he paid Frucht $8 per week. Fefferman’s business continued to succeed….
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Behind the Scenes and on the Mic
Jews have a long history in hip hop and much to be proud of — both behind the scenes and on the microphone. The presence is especially significant on the business side of things: For many years, Public Enemy, Tribe Called Quest and Slick Rick were all managed by Lyor Cohen, who went on to…
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Honoring the Hustlers of the Record Business
Machers and Rockers: Chess Records And the Business of Rock & Roll By Rich Cohen W.W. Norton, 220 pages, $22.95. * * *| I admire Rich Cohen’s writing, but I also admire his project. Cohen’s proj- ect, in all his books, is to talk about Jews neither poor nor rich. These Jews, they got out…
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