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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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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CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL
CLEVELAND — Ohio is often described as an electoral battleground where domestic policies are key. Quite suddenly, though, Israel and the Middle East have become hot topics here in the Buckeye State. Senator John Edwards and Vice President Richard Cheney took time during their debate here Tuesday to spar over Iraq and to cast their…
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Fantasies of a Fascist America
The Plot Against America” is Philip Roth’s fantasy of a fascist America. Although it arguably has as much to do with contemporary America as its imaginary 1940-42 setting, Roth’s new book also belongs to a particular tradition of counterfactual history. In some respects, “The Plot Against America” recalls Sinclair Lewis’s cautionary “It Can’t Happen Here,”…
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A Home for Bible Translators
Tucked in the hillsides of the Jerusalem suburb of Mevaseret Zion is what could be your average dormitory. The spacious villa includes 10 rooms — a common dining area, several bedrooms and a large library with three computers hooked up to the Internet. And there are also students, though of a slightly unusual kind. Welcome…
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Department Store Lore: A History
Okay, I’ll admit it: I love to shop, especially in tony department stores like Bergdorf Goodman, that Fifth Avenue emporium of luxe whose 100th anniversary is right around the corner. In search of visual pleasure, not to mention the joys of ownership, I delight in making my way past vitrine after vitrine, one more glorious…
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Roth’s Fanfare for the Common Man
The Plot Against America By Philip Roth Houghton Mifflin Company, 400 pages, $26. —— Knitting domains together — domestic and global, story and back-story — always has been iffy for Philip Roth. He understands life best in the lower case — inside the family, the marriage, the disheveled heart, the desperate moment. His wide-angle work…
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