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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An Israeli Photographer Finds Holiness at the Rave
In a whirl of light and color, Tomer Ganihar believes he has photographed holiness. And for this Israeli photographer, it lives at the rave. “In the clubs, holiness is everywhere.” Ganihar said. “It’s like a temple. The clubs are the new synagogues, and the DJs are the rabbis.” Using long exposures and only a simple…
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Dwelling Among Them
After the action-packed stories of the first one-and-a-half books of the Torah — all of Genesis and the first part of Exodus — the main narrative abruptly changes course in the middle of the book of Exodus. Stories such as the creation of the world, the flood, the lives of the patriarchs, the slavery in…
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Looking Back February 4, 2005
100 YEARS AGO • Melville Dewey, director of the New York State Library and inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, was called before the State Regents’ Library Committee to explain his position as president of an upstate hotel that not only restricts Jewish customers, but also openly advertises this fact. A number of well-connected Jews…
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He Wandered the Earth as an Exiled Man
Chronicles: Volume One By Bob Dylan Simon & Schuster, 304 pages, $24. * * *| Toward the end of last year’s rambling, barely coherent film “Masked and Anonymous,” Bob Dylan, its masked and anonymous star, spoke in voice-over one of his most direct and self-revelatory addresses. Fittingly, it was about the limits of what we…
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From The Angel of Forgetfulness by Steve Stern
Last summer, the Forward dipped its toes into the world of fiction by co-sponsoring a monthly literary series in New York called “Novel Jews.” The series has become an enormous success, with one drawback: It is not available to the majority of our readers, who live outside New York. In an effort to include them,…
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Plaut Redux: Reforming the Reform Commentary
Since its release nearly a quarter-century ago, the Reform movement’s first biblical commentary has sold 250,000 copies and helped fuel a revolution in Torah study. But, as more and more congregations in recent years began placing a greater emphasis on Hebrew and Torah reading during Sabbath services, the tome essentially fell out of step with…
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The Fate of Slaves in Ancient Israel
With this week’s Torah reading, called Mishpatim or “Rules,” the presentation of the laws of ancient Israel formally commences. Earlier sections of the Torah have occasional laws imbedded in them, such as the law of circumcision in Genesis 17 or the laws pertaining to Passover in Exodus 12. But these items are few in number…
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Bush Marches Into a Second Term, His Agenda Set by Mideast Foes
Last week, George W. Bush took the oath of office and began his second term. With 150,000 troops still in Iraq, Iran developing nuclear weapons and new leadership in the Palestinian Authority, the Middle East will continue to dominate White House attention. To what extent will Bush’s second term be different from his first? For…
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Ancient Woes Resurfacing As Dean Eyes Top Dem Post
As the Democratic National Committee gets set to pick a new chairman, the party is experiencing déjà vu all over again. Like a replay of the Democrats’ 2004 presidential primary season, the early frontrunner in the DNC race is former Vermont governor Howard Dean. Then as now, a number of other candidates of varying attractiveness…
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Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation Is Commemorated Around the World
Sixty years after the liberation of Auschwitz by Russian soldiers, leaders of more than 100 nations joined this week for a string of tributes in America, Europe, and at the death camp itself to honor victims and vow that the Nazi horrors never would be repeated. Hanging over the events, though, was a palpable sense…
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Security Cooperation Leaves Israelis, Palestinians Hopeful
TEL AVIV — In a slowly unfolding scenario reminiscent of the nearly forgotten peace process of the early 1990s, Israelis and Palestinians began feeling their way cautiously toward agreement this week on something resembling coexistence. Armed Palestinian police moved into position, with Israeli consent, to stop terrorists from firing rockets at Israeli targets — first…
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