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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Jewish Dogs and the Web Sites They Love
The Jewish pet is coming up in the world. Last year we reported on “bark mitzvahs,” and synagogues around the country have began to hold annual “Blessings of the Animals” to coincide with a reading of the story of Noah’s Ark, at which pets can receive a certificate and a Hebrew name. But what would…
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Now for the Hard Part: Teaching Morality
With a new baby girl and two toddler sons, my husband and I have very little use for alarm clocks these days. It is usually still dark outside when the boys creak open our bedroom door and tiptoe together to the foot of our bed, whispering, “I want milk please”; “Let’s build a LEGO castle,…
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It’s a Miracle! A Hanukkah Storybook
It’s a Miracle! A Hanukkah Storybook By Stephanie Spinner With Illustrations by Jill McElmurry Atheneum Books for Young Readers —— Owen Block is the OCL — official candle lighter — of his family, and Grandma Karen is the official storyteller. Each night, after the menorah is lit, she tucks him into bed and asks, “Ready…
The Latest
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Once Upon a Jewish Fairy Tale
Recently I joined my colleague, Nick, a visiting professor from Rhodes, to shop for suitable books to read to his children here in the States. He was appalled by the available choices. “Incredible. You Americans still tell your children stories about princes and princesses? Didn’t you fight a revolution to get beyond that?” He decided…
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Reviving the Flaming Tea Ceremony
For many Jews from Eastern Europe, holiday celebrations were bound up with sugar cubes and tea — and Hanukkah was no exception. In keeping with the custom of making it a “Festival of Lights,” many Russian Jews practiced what is known as the Flaming Tea Ceremony. Celebrants dip lumps of sugar in brandy onto teaspoons…
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Authors Unafraid of Kids’ Inner Lives
King Matt the First By Janusz Korczak, Translated by Richard Lourie Algonquin Books, 352 pages, $13.95. —— Your children — even those who generally shun books in favor of shoot-’em-up videogames — will truly enjoy “King Matt the First.” Written by Polish physician Janusz Korczak and first published in 1923, the novel stars a pint-sized…
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‘Peter and the Wolf’ Gets Klezmerized
After having reinterpreted Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite” as the “Klezmer Nutcracker” a few years ago, it wasn’t a great leap for Boston-based klezmer group Shirim to revisit Sergei Prokofiev’s classic story “Peter and the Wolf” as “Pincus and the Pig: A Klezmer Tale,” which they have done on a new CD by that name,…
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A Shanda in Shpittsburgh!
What makes a hero? Is it his cape or his capabilities? Or is it simply enough to “do good,” to help those around you in times of need? As adults, we might not remember the significance of these questions, but for a child, they are paramount. In answer to the call, Agent Emes has returned…
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Family Honor in Distress
Jacob has settled down at last. Prosperous in middle age, blessed with four wives and 12 sons, he has escaped from his exploitive father-in-law, made peace with his estranged brother and returned to his native land, the land the Almighty promised to him and his descendants. A herdsman, Jacob has pitched his tents and set…
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Looking Back November 26, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • Mortimer L. Schiff, son of well-known Jewish banker Jacob Schiff, was arrested Sunday night for excessive speeding in a car on Fifth Avenue. Young Mortimer was furious that the arresting officer brought him down to the station and threatened to fix him good. Schiff also threatened the precinct’s sergeant in the…
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Remembering A ‘Happy Jewish Spirit’
“In 1993, when we first established Jewish Life Network, we sought to create a foundation that would help catalyze a renaissance in the non-Orthodox Jewish World,” Michael Steinhardt told the mostly youthful audience at the October 28 Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y’s memorial concert to “Celebrate the Life of Jonathan Joseph (‘J.J.’) Greenberg.”…
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