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
-
A Room of Their Own –– Again; Exploring the Latest Revival in Girls’ Schools
As a veteran reporter who spent years covering California’s male-dominated State House, Ilana DeBare had long seen that women were disadvantaged in a system fueled by the late-night backroom deals of chummy male insiders. But when she started covering the state’s booming technology industry — a new field, allegedly driven more by innovation than by…
-
Stern College Turns 50
As a member of the second class of Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, Ginger Socol remembers shopping on 34th Street, taking biology classes with a total of three students and living in a hotel suite while the dormitory was under construction. Most of all, though, she remembers her roommates — Orthodox young women from…
-
America on the Couch: Jews and the Shaping of Therapeutic Culture
Jews and the American Soul: Human Nature in the 20th Century By Andrew R. Heinze Princeton University Press, 456 pages, $29.95. * * *| The convergence of religion and psychology is one of the signal facts of 20th-century Western culture. In retrospect, the relationship seems obvious: On the one hand, many functions once performed by…
The Latest
-
Nodding Off on Wedlock’s Bed
This week’s portion contains Jacob’s dream and many other passages that have given rise to midrashim. One of these passages is Genesis 30:1: And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and she said unto Jacob: ‘Give me children or else I die.’ Robert Burns (1759-1796) was inspired by…
-
An American Journalist’s Hasidic Tale
The Rabbi of 84th Street: The Extraordinary Life of Haskel Besser By Warren Kozak HarperCollins, 200 pages, $24.95. * * *| Since the era of the Baal Shem Tov and the first Hasidic leaders, one of the primary attractions of Hasidism as a movement has been the Hasidic story. A little shaggy-dog — a bit…
-
Beef Goy Ish Ah Kupp, And Other Gems
Just the other day, I picked up a copy of a cookbook that I had not seen since I was a child; back then, it occupied pride of place in my mother’s kitchen. As I held “The Chinese-Kosher Cookbook” in my hand and made my way through its recipes for Pineapple Chicken Fay Gel Lah…
-
A Tale From Japan
“An Intimate Evening” to benefit The Neuropathy Association was held October 18 at Le Cirque. This potentially crippling and often misdiagnosed disorder “afflicts close to 20 million Americans and an estimated 300,000 New Yorkers” said TV anchor Chuck Scarborough, who shared the evening’s emcee spot with Pia Lindstrom, daughter of Ingrid Bergman. “It is true…
-
Odd Man Out
He was strong and handsome, and he was the first born; but his mother, indifferent to all that, preferred his brother and viewed him, largely, as a dullard. When she talked with his brother, their conversations were so darting and subtle that his head hurt. He could not follow them and came to think that…
-
November 12, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • Russian newspapers are looking for the root causes of the rash of pogroms that has occurred recently in the empire. The Russian journalists have concluded that the main reason for the pogroms is the wide availability of vodka. A short time ago, a number of small pogroms were perpetrated by groups…
-
The Women We Know
They are the women we all know: A Florida bubbe battling with her headstrong granddaughter. A good Jewish girl looking for a nice Jewish husband. Three artists — a painter, a singer and a filmmaker — all questioning the assumptions of their faith. An old woman, a Russian immigrant, rediscovering her youth; another, alone in…
-
How Jewish Is the New ‘Jewish Study Bible’?
The Jewish Study Bible By Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler (Editors) and Michael Fishbane (Consulting Editor) Oxford University Press, 2,181 pages, $40. * * *| ‘The Jewish Study Bible,” a hefty, 2,181-page tome published this year, packages a previously published translation of the Hebrew Bible together with extensive marginal commentary and essays by modern scholars….
Most Popular
- 1
Sports First Puka Nacua, now Mookie Betts: Why do sports stars keep getting antisemitic around a Jewish streamer?
- 2
Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
- 3
Culture Why do Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas?
- 4
Politics This politician refused to say ‘Happy Hanukkah,’ then blamed ‘political correctness’ for the backlash
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Jewish groups defend European media monitors banned for what State Dept. calls ‘censorship’
-
Fast Forward British police drop case against Bob Vylan for ‘Death to the IDF’ chant, sparking outrage from Jewish groups
-
Yiddish יהודה גור-אריה און שירי שפּירא געווינען רובינליכט־פּריז פֿאַר ליטעראַטורYehuda Gur-Arye and Shiri Shapira win Rubinlicht Prize for Literature
די רובינליכט־פֿונדאַציע טיילט צו יערלעכע פּרעמיעס פֿאַר ליטעראַרישער און קולטורעלער טעטיקייט אויף ייִדיש און לטובֿת ייִדיש.
-
Yiddish אַ בריוועלע דער מאַמען (אַ דערציילונג) A letter to my mother (story)
בעת אַ ייִדישער סאָלדאַט ליגט אין אַ סאָוועטישן מיליטערישן שפּיטאָל פֿאַרמעסט זיך זײַן מאַמע קעגן דעם ייִדישן הויפּט־דאָקטער
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism