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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The Privilege of Fiction
the israeli film festival, now in its 20th year, is just one chance that new yorkers have to glimpse the new israeli cinema, which continues to make inroads here despite the region’s political and economic upheavals. recent, critically admired commercial releases of the past year include ra’anan alexandrowicz’s biting satire, “james’ journey to jerusalem” —…
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Biblical Brains
And the serpent was more cunning than all the creatures of the field that the Lord God created. And he said to the woman, “Did God say: You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” — Genesis 3:1 And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass and she said to Balaam, “What…
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Warts, Not War: Israeli Films Shift the Focus Away From the Mideast Conflict
When it comes to directorial style, the winds continually shift between a more-is-more outlook — where camera and mise-en-scène run wild in an effort to draw attention to the means of production –– and a philosophy of austerity strongly opposed to showy or unnecessary camera movement. The latter has gained adherents recently, with the work…
The Latest
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Synagogues Without Jews: Walking the Streets of Italy
Italian Jews have a proud 2,000-year history. They were there when the Second Temple still stood and Rome ruled the Mediterranean. More arrived as prisoners after the devastating destruction of the Temple, and soon there were close to 50,000 Jews in First- century Italy, almost half in Rome alone. And they created a vibrant intellectual…
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Postmarks From the Edge Flitting From Odessa to Paris to Geneva and On
The Bride From Odessa: Stories By Edgardo Cozarinsky Translated by Nick Caistor Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 164 pages, $22. ——– A descendant of Russian Jews lured to Baron Maurice de Hirsch’s Entre Ríos colony in Argentina, Cozarinsky was born in Buenos Aires in 1937. A resident of Paris for the past 30 years, he nevertheless…
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For a Good Cause: Teaching, Giving and Running
Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, and his wife, Nane Annan, managed a brief appearance at the September 20 VIP reception of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation Annual Awards Dinner, honoring Sweden’s prime minister, Göran Persson. Rabbi Arthur Schneier, foundation president, warmly embraced the secretary general: “You have the burden of the world…
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Egypt Confronts Double-edged Sword of Reform
CAIRO — In a spartan office within sight of the Great Pyramids at Giza, the civic education clubs of the Taha Hussein Association are busy working to instill the values of citizenship in today’s Egyptian schoolchildren. With a glossy 48-page booklet already in classrooms, director Kamal Mougheeth and his colleagues are trying to mold model…
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U.S. Refraining From Criticism Of Gaza Foray
WASHINGTON — With their countries mounting parallel military offensives against terrorist strongholds in Iraq and Gaza, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a high-powered White House meeting Monday. Moments after the talks, reporters asked Netanyahu if Rice had urged Israel to demonstrate restraint during its operation in Gaza. The…
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Some Holiday: Iraq Troops Lack Rabbis, Safe Passage to Services
Specialist Dan Freedman woke up at 0300 hours — 3 a.m. —September 15. It was dark and he was tired, but he was determined to get from his base at Camp Victory to Saddam Hussein’s former Republican Palace in the capital. He put on his uniform, grabbed his M-16 and went looking for his two…
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Mel Gibson and the Demise Of Enlightened Skepticism
Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” was out on video last week, and I still haven’t seen it. I probably never will, and judging by the surge in its worldwide box office receipts, I may prove to be the only such soul on God’s good earth. This is not a boycott. It’s just that…
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At Christian Rally for Israel, Robertson Pitches ‘Messiah’
JERUSALEM — With 4,000 Christian guests from 70 countries set to participate, the city’s annual Sukkot march was billed as the centerpiece of a weeklong show of evangelical support for Israel. But then televangelist and former GOP presidential candidate Pat Robertson opened his mouth and uncorked a can of theological worms guaranteed to make many…
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