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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Sephardic Arts and Culture: A Dialogue
This month brings the publication of “The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature,” an anthology of fiction, memoir, essays and poetry from 28 writers in 18 countries, edited and introduced by Ilan Stavans. To coincide with its release, the Forward invited Stavans to moderate an electronic discussion with several of the volume’s contributors. Ruth Knafo…
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A Macedonian Story: ‘Aunt Rachel’s Photograph’
Below is an excerpt from “Aunt Rachel’s Photograph,” a short story based in the Macedonian town of Bitola, formerly Monastir. Written by playwright and screenwriter Tomislav Osmanli, it was recently awarded first prize in a literary contest sponsored by the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts and by “Fund March 11, 1943,” an organization that…
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What the Klezmer Revival Can Teach Sephardic Music
At least one listener did a double take at a recent Hanukkah-themed concert when Annette Ezekiel, singer/front woman of the Yiddish/klezmer outfit, Golem, introduced the famous Hanukkah song “Ocho Kandelikas” as “another Eastern European song.” Surely Ezekiel, who is a Columbia University-trained scholar and linguist as well as a pre-eminent bandleader on the contemporary Jewish…
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After the Singing
After the waters have rolled over them, the men and the horses, one face floats up, a helmet stamped with the royal seal still tangled in his floating hair. The eyes open, and he speaks. “I have a question.” No reply. “Why did you — ” He stops himself, begins again: “Back when the brothers…
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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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