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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Heeding the Call That Haunts
Tattoo for a Slave By Hortense Calisher Harcourt, 336 pages, $24. ——- ‘Your grandmother never kept slaves.”………… With these words spoken to a young, naive Hortense Calisher by her father, born the seventh child of eight in 1861 in Richmond, Va., this unusual book opens. A “tattoo” can be a bugle call, a drum roll…
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Ornaments of the World
They stand only 15 inches tall but bear the weight of Jewish history. I’m referring to a pair of silver-and-gilded rimonim (Torah ornaments) of 19th-century German provenance whose recent arrival in New York was celebrated by Congregation Habonim, a Conservative synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. These delicately worked ritual objects were first commissioned by…
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Hollywood Looming: Allen’s ‘A Second Hand Memory’
Once upon a time it was a sacred ritual: the annual pilgrimage to see the new Woody Allen movie. The full-page ad would appear in the Sunday New York Times with nothing more than the title and the list of stars. The following Friday, long lines of hard-core devotees would appear in front of the…
The Latest
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Mrs. Greenberg’s Messy Hanukkah
Mrs. Greenberg’s Messy Hanukkah By Linda Glaser With Illustrations by Nancy Cote Albert Whitman & Company —— It’s the first night of Hanukkah, but Mama tells Rachel they won’t be having company — or making latkes — until next week. No company? No latkes? Rachel can’t wait! She goes next door to Mrs. Greenberg’s house,…
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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…
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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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