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 Story of a Life
World War II went on for six straight years, but sometimes it seems to me that it lasted only one long night, from which I awoke a completely different person. Sometimes I felt that it wasn’t I who was in the war, but someone else, someone very close to me, and that he’s going to…
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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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Our Evil Imaginations
The story of the Flood is preceded and followed by unkind remarks of God on the nature of human imagination. In Genesis 6:5, at the end of last week’s portion, we are told: And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of…
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The Devil Maid Me Do It
The plot is simple, even seductively coy, but it reverberates into the year ahead. In Isaac Bashevis Singer’s only Yiddish play, “Devil’s Play,” it seems the devil is bored and is looking for a little fun with an easy victim. He settles on a remote shtetl, Frampol, where he finds a happily married older couple,…
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Your Morning Coffee, Served Just and Right
What is the most valuable item of international trade in the world today? No surprise for anyone who’s read the headlines for the past decade or two: It’s oil. But you might be surprised to discover that the second most valuable item is coffee. Oil and coffee — that’ll add a bit of perspective to…
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Tale of Twos Marks an Activist’s Life
Richard Fisher, a senior partner at Fisher Brothers, and his mother, Emily Fisher Landau, were honored at the September 22 Top Dog Gala, which raised $800,000 for The Animal Medical Center, a state-of-the-art facility that treats more than 50,000 patients each year. To the delight of the 500 black-tie guests in the Waldorf-Astoria’s Grand Ballroom,…
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Tuning in to Sounds Of the Warsaw Ghetto
Close your eyes, and you can see it. On April 19, 1943, there were 35,000 Jews remaining in the Warsaw Ghetto. Out of these, several hundred decided to fight the Nazi army rather than meet the fate of some 465,000 of their neighbors, who died of disease or were shipped off to extermination camps. They…
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Nazi Camp as Mecca for Artists?
An hour’s train ride from the Prague station from which thousands of Jews were deported in winter 1941, in a derelict small town pierced with unreal silence, Petr Larva has a dream. He imagines visual artists from all over the world converging on his adopted town, to live and work and exhibit. He imagines a…
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In Time of War, a Call To Serve Civil Society and Country
I could not help noting the potential irony during the second presidential debate when President Bush announced emphatically that “there will be no draft.” It was oddly reminiscent of the 1988 presidential debate, when then-vice president George H. W. Bush just as emphatically assured the public: “Read my lips: no new taxes.” We all know…
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Banks Eyed In Lawsuits On Funding For Terror
Major European and American financial institutions, including Citigroup, are facing the threat of lawsuits alleging that they housed accounts used to finance terrorist activities. The lawsuits would be based on allegations that Western banks allowed their Saudi subsidiaries to funnel money to Palestinian terror groups and suicide bombers after the beginning of the intifada in…
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Knesset Vote Against Sharon Seen To Signal Coalition’s End
TEL AVIV — It was, simply judging by the history books, a milestone. For the first time in Israel’s history, the Knesset on Monday refused to give its pro forma vote of approval to the prime minister’s annual “state of the nation” speech, by which he marks the opening of the winter term of the…
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